Nasry Asfura, a 67-year-old construction magnate and former Mayor of Honduras’s capital, Tegucigalpa, has emerged as the president-elect of the country after a long-drawn-out and contentious electoral process. Mr. Asfura, representing the National Party of Honduras (PNH), won 40.27% of the vote against 39.53% for Salvador Nasralla of the Liberal Party with a narrow margin of just 28,000 votes. The victory followed weeks of delayed vote counting, attributed to the country’s difficult topography, which slowed the counting of the rural ballots. These two parties have traditionally dominated Honduran politics, forming a long-standing two-party system that was only briefly interrupted, such as by the outgoing tenure of the left-wing LIBRE party’s Xiomara Castro.
Mr. Asfura’s chances were win was significantly boosted when U.S. President Donald Trump explicitly endorsed him days before the November 30 election, coupled with threats to cut American aid if anyone other than Mr. Asfura won. LIBRE’s candidate, Rixi Moncada, who came in third place with approximately 19% of the vote, alleged electoral fraud and called the process illegitimate, citing U.S. interference and irregularities in the vote-counting system.
