Honduras’ presidential election results remained too close to call several days after the country voted in general elections on Nov. 30.
The top two candidates, Nasry Asfura and Salvador Nasralla – both considered economically conservative – waited for the National Electoral Council (CNE) to finish conducting a manual ballot count after the electoral authority encountered technical problems with its automated preliminary vote reporting system.
Despite the cloud of uncertainty stemming from the delay, what is crystal clear is that Hondurans in this election strongly rebuked outgoing President Xiomara Castro and her Liberty and Refoundation Party (Libre Party). The incumbent party’s leftist candidate, Rixi Moncada, trailed significantly with only 19% of the vote behind the two leading conservative candidates, who each received around 40% of the vote.
Why this matters
Located in northern Central America, immigration from Honduras to the United States grew 79% between 2010 and 2023 — the largest growth rate among immigrants arriving from all Central American countries during that period, according to the Migration Policy Institute.
Generally recognized as the poorest country in Central America, poverty levels in Honduras have effectively remained stagnant over the past decade under chronically weak governance. The country’s failure to address this chronic poverty, combined with humanitarian disasters, corruption, and violence from organized crime and narcotics traffickers, have served as push factors prompting hundreds of thousands of Hondurans to leave their home country in search of personal security and better opportunities.
Honduras’ election received attention from President Donald Trump. Days before the election, President Trump endorsed Asfura and pardoned former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez from Asfura’s National Party, who had served one year of a 45-year prison sentence issued by U.S. courts after he was found guilty in March 2024 “for cocaine importation and related weapons offenses.”
Both Asfura and Nasralla campaigned around increasing foreign investment, job creation, and developing the country’s infrastructure. They also denounced the current Honduran administration’s ties with Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro and Cuba’s Manuel Diaz-Canal, promising to break relations with both dictatorships.
A key difference between the two leading candidates’ campaign platforms is that Nasralla — a former television personality and sports presenter who pitched himself as a political outsider — emphasized that he would advance anti-corruption reforms if elected.
This stands in sharp contrast with the National Party’s series of scandals under its prior leadership and with Asfura himself, who was accused of mismanaging and embezzling public funds while serving as the mayor of Tegucigalpa. Major corruption allegations have also tainted President Castro since video footage and other evidence emerged last year that revealed her husband, former President Manuel Zelaya, and brother-in-law, Congressman Carlos Zelaya, had previously collected bribes and campaign contributions from drug traffickers.
What to watch
Trust in Honduras’ electoral system, which had already been challenged earlier this year by the ruling Libre party, is at risk of being deeply undermined if Honduran and international political actors double down on alleging fraud without producing substantial evidence. Resulting polarization seeded by distrust could have serious consequences for the ultimate election winners by making it more difficult for Honduras’ next president and the political party that achieves a congressional majority to advance an effective policy agenda and necessary governance reforms.
International and independent election observation missions, including those coordinated by the Organization of American States and the European Union, initially reported only isolated issues and irregularities on election day. Final reports from these monitoring initiatives may ultimately disclose more serious or impactful interference in the electoral process, but it is worth waiting for evidence of the CNE’s performance to be collected and analyzed by these credible independent bodies before further conclusions are drawn.
Regardless, Honduras’ next president is likely to pursue reestablishing diplomatic relations with Taiwan to fulfill a promise that both Nasralla and Asfura made in their presidential campaigns. Honduras was a longtime diplomatic partner of Taipei for over 80 years until 2023, when President Castro opened bilateral relations with the People’s Republic of China and Honduras joined its Belt and Road Initiative. That decision has been largely viewed as failing to deliver anticipated economic benefits, particularly after the country’s shrimp export industry was hit hard by the change in trade relations.
Hopes are high that Honduras’ next president can lead the country in a more prosperous direction and provide greater stability than their predecessors. But his prospects for success will depend on whether the country and the international community are willing and able to accept the election results and allow Hondurans to move forward.
