Conservative candidate Asfura edges ahead in Honduras’ razor-thin presidential race

By Jorge Antonio Rocha

MEXICO CITY (AA) – Nasry “Tito” Asfura took a narrow lead Thursday as Honduras continued counting ballots in its razor-thin presidential race.

The conservative National Party candidate pulled ahead in a dramatic comeback days after initial results showed a “technical tie” with Liberal Party contender Salvador Nasralla, who has alleged electoral fraud.

With over 86% of ballots counted, Asfura leads the Honduran national election with 1,114,604 votes over Liberal Party frontman Nasralla, who has 1,090,641 votes. This comes after the platform reporting the results went down for a second time.

Nasralla denounced the process on his X account, alleging an attempt to manipulate the tally. He said the system shut down and later returned with altered numbers.

“The 1,081,000 votes belonging to Salvador Nasralla were given to Asfura, and the 1,073,000 votes Asfura had were given to Nasralla. They must investigate the Colombian company involved in these changes,” he said.

Nasralla said the 2025 elections resemble those of 2013, when a close race ended with fraud accusations and the victory of Juan Orlando Hernandez, who was later convicted of drug trafficking in a US court and recently pardoned by US President Donald Trump.

The Liberal Party candidate is now demanding an investigation into Grupo ASD, the company responsible for delivering the electoral results.

Until now, Nasralla had been leading the polls. With 80% of ballots counted, the Liberal Party seemed to hold a broad advantage over Asfura, although National Party officials insisted the lead would be short-lived because ballots from National Party strongholds had not yet been processed.

Tomas Zambrano, Congress leader for the National Party, said “we called it yesterday,” asserting that the initial trend favoring Nasralla would soon shift to Asfura as ballots from the departments of Lempira, Intibuca, La Paz, Olancho, Copan, El Paraiso, and Santa Barbara — where the National Party dominates — were still pending.

Asfura’s rise will be noted by outside powers, as he and his party have enjoyed public support from Trump, whose endorsement drew national and international accusation of interfering in the country's elections.