Nasry Asfura, backed by Donald Trump, leads Honduras presidential vote amid threats to cut US aid and a controversial pardon promise
TEGUCIGALPA: A conservative candidate endorsed by US President Donald Trump led Honduras’ presidential election according to preliminary results on Sunday.
With nearly half of votes counted, 67-year-old Nasry Asfura held a narrow lead over his main right-wing rival, 72-year-old television host Salvador Nasralla.
Both candidates were far ahead of the ruling leftist party’s contender, signalling a potential rightward shift for another Latin American nation.
The campaign was heavily influenced by Trump’s threat to cut US aid if his preferred candidate, Asfura, did not win.
Trump publicly backed the former Tegucigalpa mayor, whose campaign slogan was “Grandad, at your service!”, in the final days of the race.
That intervention upended a contest that remains too close to call in a nation plagued by drug trafficking and gang violence.
Asfura held just under 41% of the vote compared to Nasralla’s nearly 39%.
Rixi Moncada, the 60-year-old candidate from the ruling Libre party, trailed distantly with around 20%.
Lawmakers and hundreds of mayors were also elected in the deeply polarised and violent nation.
“If he (Asfura) doesn’t win, the United States will not be throwing good money after bad,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform last Friday.
Trump’s comments marked another direct intervention in a neighbouring country’s politics, echoing his support for Argentina’s President Javier Milei.
Before the vote, Trump also announced he would pardon former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernandez, who is from Asfura’s National Party.
Hernandez is serving a 45-year prison sentence in the United States for cocaine trafficking.
Some Hondurans welcomed Trump’s involvement, hoping it might improve the status of Honduran migrants in the US.
Others rejected the foreign meddling in their national election.
“I vote for whomever I please, not because of what Trump has said,” said 56-year-old fruit seller Esmeralda Rodriguez.
Nearly 30,000 Honduran migrants have been deported from the United States since Trump returned to office in January.
The clampdown has severely impacted Honduras, where remittances represented 27% of GDP last year.
After voting, Asfura denied the planned pardon would benefit him, stating the issue had “nothing to do with the elections.”
Moncada had portrayed the election as a choice between her and a “coup-plotting oligarchy,” referencing the right’s support for the 2009 ouster of leftist Manuel Zelaya.
Preemptive accusations of election fraud from all sides have sown public mistrust and sparked fears of post-election unrest.
A delay in releasing Sunday’s results further heightened tensions.
The president of the National Electoral Council, Ana Paola Hall, warned all parties against fanning “the flames of confrontation or violence.”
Honduras, long a cocaine transit point, is now also a producer of the drug.
Candidates largely avoided addressing public fears over drug trafficking, poverty, and violence during the campaign.
“I hope the new government will have good lines of communication with Trump,” said 58-year-old Maria Velasquez, “I just want to escape poverty.” – AFP
