AI-Summary – News For Tomorrow
Donald Trump-backed Nasry Asfura has been declared the winner of Honduras’s presidential election, a decision marred by fraud allegations and criticized for US interference. Asfura won with a narrow margin of 40.27% to Nasralla’s 39.53%. Despite not finishing the recount, the electoral council declared Asfura president-elect, prompting immediate rejection from Nasralla, who alleges widespread fraud. The head of Congress and a council member linked to the ruling party also rejected the results, with the latter alleging an “electoral coup” and filing a complaint. The election was controversial from the start, compounded by a US pardon for Asfura ally and former president Juan Orlando Hernández.
News summary provided by Gemini AI.
Donald Trump-backed candidate Nasry “Tito” Asfura has been declared the winner of Honduras’s presidential election after a vote count that dragged on for almost a month and was marred by fraud allegations and criticism of interference by the US president.
The rightwing Asfura, 67, a construction magnate and former mayor of the capital, Tegucigalpa, secured 40.27% of the vote, against 39.53% for the centre-right Salvador Nasralla, a margin of just 28,000 votes.
The electoral council proclaimed a winner before completing the review of all tally sheets under a “special scrutiny” launched last week earlier to recount votes flagged as “inconsistent”. The decision was criticised by defeated candidates and lamented by the Organization of American States, which sent an observation mission to the election held on 30 November but whose vote count had remained unresolved since then.
Asfura has already declared himself president-elect. “Honduras, we now have the official declaration from the CNE [electoral council]. I recognise the great work carried out by the councillors and the entire team that ran the election. Honduras: I am ready to govern. I will not let you down. God bless Honduras,” he wrote.
Nasralla refused to concede and posted a series of statements alleging fraud in the counting process, including “forgery of public documents”, claiming that “the data from the original tally sheets were altered”.
Nasralla urged his supporters to remain calm and refrain from any acts of disruption or violence, adding this was “the saddest Christmas for the Honduran people.”
The head of the Honduran Congress also rejected the results. “This is completely outside the law. It has no value,” Congress president Luis Redondo, of the ruling Libre party, wrote on X.
The electoral council is made up of three councillors: one aligned with Asfura’s party, one with Nasralla’s, and one with the party of the leftist president, Xiomara Castro, whose candidate finished third. Asfura’s victory was declared only by the first two councillors.
The representative linked to the president’s party refused to recognise the result, alleged that an “electoral coup” was under way and filed a complaint with the public prosecutor’s office, raising the prospect that the outcome will be challenged in court.
The declaration before the end of the recount was the latest in a string of controversies that marked the Central American country’s presidential race, starting with what many saw as open interference by the US president.
On the eve of the election, the US president also announced a pardon for the former Honduran president and Asfura ally Juan Orlando Hernández, who had been sentenced to 45 years in prison for allegedly creating “a cocaine superhighway to the United States”.
