Hondurans Await Result of a Presidential Election Locked in a Dead Heat

Reports indicated a calm day of voting across the country despite a tense runup to election day in which the main parties exchanged preemptive accusations of fraud, leading local and international observers to voice concerns about attempts to undermine the credibility of the vote.

Speaking on the night following the election, Moncada claimed that the opposition parties had conspired to set up a “trap” and denounced what she called the “foreign and imperial interference” of U.S. President Donald Trump. Trump endorsed Asfura in a November 28 social media post in which he referred to the National Party candidate as “the only real friend of freedom in Honduras” while labeling Moncada a communist and claiming Nasralla was “pretending to be anti-Communist only for the purposes of splitting Asfura’s vote.”

Trump then offered a pardon to former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández (2014–2022), also of the National Party, claiming he was “treated very harshly and unfairly.” In June 2024, a U.S. court sentenced Hernández to 45 years in prison on drug trafficking offenses that occurred both before and during his presidential term, including facilitating the entry of at least 400 tons of cocaine into the United States. Hernández walked free from prison on December 1, 2025. Given the limited and often unreliable voter intention polling in Honduras, the impact of Trump’s declarations on the election is unclear.  

What’s clearer is that the Honduran electorate has taken a rightward shift after just one term of the leftwing Libre government. Xiomara Castro entered office with promises of reducing poverty, curbing corruption, and tackling drug-related violence. Although rates of poverty and homicides have fallen under her administration, they remain among the highest in the region and Hondurans have been living under a state of exception for almost three years. Moreover, anti-corruption efforts have stalled. Plans to establish an International Commission Against Impunity and Corruption, CICIH, never came to fruition as mounting concerns about party control of independent state institutions and multiple corruption scandals tainted Libre’s reputation.

So, who are the two candidates?

The National Party’s Asfura, 72, is a former two-term mayor of Tegucigalpa, the capital city, who also ran for the presidency in the 2021 election. His campaign this year centered on increasing private-sector economic participation, fostering nearshoring opportunities through the establishment of free-trade zones and industrial parks, and improving transport and energy infrastructure. In addition to adding renewable energy sources to the power grid, Asfura outlined a 10-year plan to build over 500,000 social housing units. 

The Liberal candidate Nasralla, 67, is making his fourth attempt to enter the presidential halls. The television sportscaster resigned from his role as Castro’s vice president in April 2024 with complaints of being sidelined. A self-branded anti-corruption crusader, his platform focuses on reducing and digitalizing the state to boost economic activity. His proposals include offering fiscal incentives to foreign and export-oriented business, incorporating hourly paid workers into the formal economy, and an infrastructure plan to construct a “dry canal,” a series of roadworks connecting key ports on the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. On the security front, Nasralla has identified Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele’s approach as a model for tackling crime.

Nasralla and Asfura have both signaled intentions to move away from Libre’s state-led economic model while rebuilding friendlier relations with the United States and reinstating Honduras’ recognition of Taiwan after a 2023 switch to the People’s Republic of China.

Preliminary results of the legislative election indicate that Asfura’s National Party will occupy 50 of the available 128 seats in the unicameral Congress. It will be the largest share but still short of the 65 needed for a majority. Governability, then, will rest on collaboration with Nasralla’s Liberal Party, which will have 40 congressmembers, almost double its current representation. Together, the two parties’ 90 seats would be enough for the special majority needed to enact Constitutional reforms and other major legislative decisions. Libre earned 34 seats, down from the 50 it holds in the current Congress. Two smaller parties won two seats each. The new legislative session begins on January 25.