U.S.-Backed Presidential Candidate Leads Vote Count in Honduras

Nasry Asfura X/ @blirblinso

December 1, 2025 Hour: 2:22 pm

So far, the preliminary counting system gives right-wing Nasry Asfura first place.

On Monday morning, Honduras’ National Electoral Council (CNE) announced that right-wing National Party presidential candidate Nasry Asfura — for whom U.S. President Donald Trump publicly urged people to vote — remains in first place in the provisional count with 40% of the votes received.

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With 55.87% of polling stations tallied, Asfura had 735,703 votes (40%) compared with 731,527 (39.78%) for Salvador Nasralla, the candidate of the right-wing Liberal Party. As of Monday morning, only 0.22 percentage points separated them.

Candidate Rixi Moncada of the leftist Liberty and Refoundation Party (Libre) remained in a distant third place with 352,836 votes (19.18%).

Before the release of these results, Moncada had warned of a possible plan by the Honduran right and its transnational allies to commit fraud by hacking the Preliminary Election Results Transmission System (TREP).

Anticipating what she called a sabotage plan aimed at manipulating the popular will, the Libre presidential candidate urged citizens to “stand firm until obtaining the final results with 100% of the tally sheets.” She also announced she would hold a press conference on Monday to state her political position regarding the results published by the CNE.

Although the Nov. 30 elections proceeded peacefully, the final stage of the campaign was marked by an unusual, high-profile external intervention.

In addition to publicly backing Asfura, President Trump labeled Rixi Moncada a “communist” and Nasralla “almost a communist,” reintroducing Cold War rhetoric into the Honduran political process.

The Republican leader also pledged to pardon former President Juan Orlando Hernandez, who was convicted of drug trafficking in 2024 by a federal court in New York. Trump justified the promise by claiming Hernandez had fallen into a “trap” set by advisers to President Joe Biden’s administration.