Honduran Election Leaders: Asfura and Nasralla in Tight Race

Conservative candidates Nasry "Tito" Asfura, from the National Party, for whom U.S. President Donald Trump asked for votes, and Salvador Nasralla, from the Liberal Party, are leading the preliminary election count in Honduras, with a narrow margin for the first. "Do it, for the sake of democracy." In addition to requesting votes for the presidential candidate, Trump promised that if he wins, "there will be a lot of support" for this Central American country, plagued by poverty and waves of migration of its nationals to the north, as he considers Asfura to be "the only true friend of freedom in Honduras." This support from Washington, just days before the elections, came with a future pardon for former President Juan Orlando Hernández (2014-2022), convicted of drug trafficking in the United States and from the same political party as Asfura. Asfura, in a brief and angry message before the first count was known, demanded that the president of the CNE, Ana Paola Hall, speed up the preliminary report. With all this, Asfura leads the vote count with a narrow margin over Nasralla, the conservative who, with optimism, hopes to reverse the results to end the Liberal Party's 16-year absence, but without the support of the United States. The Honduran elections were marked at the last minute by the surprising support of U.S. President Donald Trump for presidential candidate Asfura, a politician of Palestinian origin with a brief career in public administration. This participation has been applauded by the United States, which is closely following the electoral process in this Central American country. Alongside Asfura, Trump also stated that he sees the possibility of "working together to fight the narco-communists" and to confront Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. After the victory of the current president, Xiomara Castro, from the Libre party, in the past elections, Nasralla held one of the three presidential designee positions (vice president) until April 2024, when he resigned due to confrontations with the president and her husband, Manuel Zelaya, who is also the general coordinator of the political party. "The law says so, thank you Honduras, we are here to serve you and we are firm," Asfura expressed. Despite this, the general elections in Honduras took place on Sunday without major incidents, with minor complaints of delays, of alleged impediments for observers during the count, and damaged ballot boxes, but with a high turnout of voters at polling stations of more than 2.8 million people (out of a total of 6 million registered voters), according to initial data. With 44.23% of the tallied sheets, Asfura obtained 597,184 votes (40.39%), while Nasralla got 579,626 (39.20%). Meanwhile, the official candidate Rixi Moncada, from the left-wing Liberty and Refoundation Party (Libre), is relegated to a distant third place with 287,166 votes (19.42%), which has forced its leaders to be cautious, asking supporters to "remain on alert" until the count is completed. The first preliminary results were delayed by over an hour in being published by the three counselors of the National Electoral Council (CNE) due to technical problems and the expectant gaze of the hundreds of electoral observers present in the room. The results mark a change in trend and show the probable return of the right to power in this Central American country. "We demand Ana Paola Hall, I don't know what she's waiting for, come out and do her duty, let's not keep the country waiting, on tenterhooks, in the dark."