Honduras election: Conservatives virtually tied in poll after Trump’s endorsement

Two conservative candidates were virtually tied in the presidential election in Honduras, according to the country’s electoral authority, as US President Donald Trump’s endorsement of one of them injected more uncertainty into an already tight race.

The leftist government party candidate, Rixi Moncada, trailed in a distant third place. With the race too close to call, the Central American country remained on edge after a tense election cycle in which candidates had raised concerns about the integrity of the vote count and the potential for electoral fraud.

Nasry Asfura, the conservative candidate endorsed by Mr Trump, held a narrow lead of 515 votes over television host Salvador Nasralla, with 57 percent of the votes tallied, electoral council chief Ana Paola Hall said Monday afternoon, local time. She described it as a “technical tie” and urged Hondurans to remain calm and wait for the vote count to conclude.

Just days earlier, Trump threw himself into the centre of the race by not only pledging his support for Mr Asfura - drawing criticism that he was interfering in another country’s election - but also by announcing plans to pardon a former Honduran president convicted of drug trafficking and sentenced last year to 45 years in a US federal prison for smuggling hundreds of tonnes of cocaine to the United States.

Mr Trump compared the leftist candidate, Ms Moncada, to Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro and called Mr Nasralla a “borderline Communist.” He vowed to work with Mr Asfura, the former mayor of Honduran capital Tegucigalpa, if he wins, calling him the “man who is standing up for Democracy.” It remains unclear to what extent Mr Trump’s endorsement may have boosted Mr Asfura at the polls.

Ms Moncada asked supporters Sunday to “keep up the fight until we obtain the final results with 100 per cent of the presidential votes counted,” while Mr Nasralla told supporters that he expected a boost as counting continues in areas known to favour him.

If the results hold, Honduras would become the latest Latin American country to shift to the right. A recent centrist win in Bolivia brought an end to two decades of socialist rule in the country, and followed recent wins for the right in Argentina and Ecuador.

Mr Trump’s pledge to pardon Juan Orlando Hernández, who served as president of Honduras from 2014 to 2022 and was accused by US prosecutors of having “paved a cocaine superhighway to the United States,” appeared to contradict the stated goals of his administration’s military campaign to attack suspected drug traffickers in waters near Latin America and end the flow of drugs. More than 80 people have been killed so far in strikes, and the operation has raised fears of an imminent attack on Venezuela.

“It’s an abomination,” said a former Drug Enforcement Administration agent who worked on the Hernández case and spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak freely about a sensitive case. “Ludicrous to even consider, much less actually go through with.”

In Honduras, Mr Trump’s endorsement of Mr Asfura, and his pledge to pardon Hernández, an Asfura ally, marked Mr Trump’s latest move to back ideological allies in Latin America. In October, he offered a $US40 billion bailout package to Argentina in an effort to boost President Javier Milei’s party in legislative elections.

Gustavo Irías, the executive director of the Center for Democracy Studies in Honduras, said Mr Trump’s action “distorts the fragile Honduran democracy and escalates to a new level the political polarization of the country and the risk of an institutional crisis.”

Both Mr Asfura and Mr Nasralla had travelled to Washington recently to court the Trump administration, but Mr Asfura, nicknamed “Tito,” ultimately won Mr Trump’s backing, which came in a Truth Social post on Wednesday.

“Tito and I can work together to fight the Narcocommunists, and bring needed aid to the people of Honduras,” Mr Trump said.

Hernández remains a controversial figure in Honduras, and many Hondurans fear what his return could mean for a country that has long suffered from drug trafficking, organized crime and corruption.

Joaquín Mejía Rivera, a Honduran human rights lawyer, argued the move could backfire for Mr Asfura.

“What Trump’s statement does is mobilize people to remember what it means to live under Juan Orlando Hernández’s regime,” Mr Mejía said, “and it also links Nasry Asfura to Juan Orlando Hernández, even though he has tried to distance himself.”

US prosecutors accused Hernández of using the police and military to guard drug shipments and sharing sensitive US law enforcement information with traffickers.

The former president could face charges in his own country. In response to the news of Mr Trump’s potential pardon, Honduras’s attorney general said prosecutors in the country would be “obligated to take action … so that justice may prevail and impunity may be brought to an end.”

Multiple people in Mr Trump’s orbit had recently taken interest in Hernández’s case. Roger Stone, the conservative political operative and Trump ally, said in a post on X that he had long advocated for a pardon in his case, and claimed Hernández “was framed by Biden for an alleged drug trafficking that never existed.” Republican former congressman Matt Gaetz had also interviewed Hernández’s wife on his show and called the former president’s arrest “political.”

Since 2022, Honduras has been led by Xiomara Castro, the first female president in the Central American country and the wife of former president José Manuel Zelaya, who was ousted by the Honduran military in 2009.

Ahead of Sunday’s vote in Honduras, candidates and politicians on all sides had raised fears about potential electoral fraud and questioned the credibility of the country’s elections, heightening concerns that the losing candidate could dispute the results of Sunday night’s vote.

Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau had earlier called on the electoral authorities and the military to follow the country’s constitution and laws. He added that the US would respond “swiftly and decisively to anyone who undermines the integrity of the democratic process in Honduras.”

Ms Castro has accused the opposition of trying to plot an “electoral coup,” while her opponents have accused the government of trying to manipulate the vote.

Ana María Méndez Dardón, director for Central America at the Washington Office on Latin America, a DC think tank, feared a disputed vote on Sunday could bring “a severe constitutional crisis” in the days ahead.

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