By Laura Garcia and Inigo Alexander
TEGUCIGALPA, Dec 24 (Reuters) - Nasry Asfura, the conservative National Party candidate backed by U.S. President Donald Trump, has won Honduras' presidential election, the electoral body said on Wednesday as it finally declared a victor of the November 30 presidential election after weeks of delays, technical problems, and allegations of fraud.
The electoral authority, known as the CNE, said Asfura had won 40.3% of the vote, edging out center-right Liberal Party candidate Salvador Nasralla who garnered 39.5%. The candidate of the ruling LIBRE party, Rixi Moncada, came a distant third.
Asfura ran on a broad pro-business platform saying private investment is necessary to move the country forward and his political agenda focused on jobs, education and security. He has also signaled he may swap Honduras' allegiance to Taiwan, and away from Beijing.
Results were so tight and the ballot processing system so chaotic that around 15% of the tally sheets comprising hundreds of thousands of ballots had to be counted by hand to determine the winner.
In the weeks following the vote, LIBRE repeatedly called for protests against what they denounced as an "electoral coup." The protests interrupted the manual count, blocking officials from accessing the building where tally sheets were being stored.
The results were approved by two electoral council members and one deputy, as disputes continued over the razor-thin vote. The third council member, Marlon Ochoa, was not present in the video declaring the winner.
"Honduras: I am ready to govern. I will not let you down," Asfura said in a post on X following the confirmation of the results.
But the head of the Honduran Congress rejected the results, describing them as an "electoral coup".
"This is completely outside the law. It has no value," Congress President Luis Redondo, of the ruling LIBRE party, wrote on X.
TRUMP BACKS ASFURA
Trump threw his support behind Asfura, a 67-year-old politician and businessman who is the former mayor of the capital Tegucigalpa, writing in a Truth Social post before the election that he was the "only real friend of Freedom in Honduras" and urging people to vote for him.
Trump also threatened to cut off U.S. financial support to Honduras if Asfura did not win and pardoned former President Juan Orlando Hernandez, also of Asfura's National Party, who had been serving a 45-year sentence in the U.S. on drug trafficking and weapons charges.
Amid delays in the count, Trump weighed into the election again alleging fraud without providing evidence and saying there would be "hell to pay" if Honduras changed preliminary results that had put Asfura ahead.
Trump's backing of Asfura, experts say, is part of his push to mold a conservative bloc across Latin America, stretching from Nayib Bukele in El Salvador to Javier Milei in Argentina.
Both Nasralla and the ruling LIBRE party have decried Trump's comments as election meddling. Nasralla told Reuters in early December that the last-minute interference from Trump had damaged his chances of winning.
"The United States congratulates President-Elect Asfura and looks forward to working with his administration to advance prosperity and security in our hemisphere," U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on X following the results.
Rubio urged all parties to accept the outcome in order to "ensure a peaceful transition".
The Secretary General of the Organization of American States, Albert Ramdin, said the group "takes note" of the results and will issue a report with findings and recommendations in the coming days.
"The General Secretariat is aware of the difficulties experienced during the electoral process, recognizes the work carried out by Honduran institutions, and regrets that the full recount of the votes cast by citizens has not yet been completed," Ramdin said in a post on X.
'PAPI, AT YOUR SERVICE'
Asfura was born in Tegucigalpa on June 8, 1958, into a family of Palestinian descent. He studied civil engineering but did not complete his degree. In the 1990s, he worked in various city administrations gaining a reputation as an efficient but low-profile official, and was also a congressman and minister for social investment.
In 2013 he became mayor of Tegucigalpa and the surrounding district and built his popularity on delivering infrastructure projects, earning the nickname "Papi, at your service" for his public works, which his team continued to use in the presidential campaign.
Despite projecting a modest and hardworking image, dressed in jeans and rolled-up sleeves, he is under investigation, along with other former officials from his administration in the capital, for allegedly being part of a scheme to embezzle public funds and launder money. Asfura has said the actions against him are politically motivated and denies wrongdoing.
"Extremes don't work," he said during the campaign when asked if he represents the far-right. "We must seek a balance (...) People don't care if you're ugly or beautiful, left or right, green, red or blue; what they want are solutions."
Asfura is due to take office on January 27 for the 2026‑2030 term.
(Reporting by Leonel Estrada, Laura Garcia, and Iñigo Alexander; editing by Stephen Eisenhammer and Alistair Bell)
