Introduction
This article examines the recent presidential elections in Honduras, where candidate Nasry Asfura, supported by former President Trump, has been declared the victor. The elections, however, have raised numerous concerns regarding their legitimacy and the influence of external forces.
It comes as no surprise that the electoral commission in Honduras has announced that the Trump-backed candidate, “Tito” Nasry Asfura, has won the presidential elections by a razor-thin margin of less than one percent over Salvador Nasralla.
Asfura’s election signifies a continuation of the U.S.-supported coup from 2009, which established a “narco regime” in the country, as described by the U.S. Department of Justice. He is a member of the same political party as former president Juan Orlando Hernández, who was re-elected unconstitutionally for a second term in 2017 during Trump’s first term. Hernández was later convicted in the U.S. for drug trafficking and has since been pardoned by Trump.
The electoral process has faced numerous irregularities and inconsistencies from the outset. Nick Corbishley explained how the election’s outcome seemed predetermined even before the voting commenced:
Honduran politicians, including presidential candidate Salvador Nasralla, traveled to Washington last week to attend a hearing of the Western Hemisphere Subcommittee in the U.S. Congress. This subcommittee is chaired by Representative María Elvira Salazar, a Florida lawmaker eager to see an end to left-wing governments in Latin America.
According to the Observatory of the Progressive International, the hearing was titled “Democracy in Danger: The Fight for Free Elections in Honduras.”
While it was framed as an urgent assessment of Honduras’s situation, the hearing aimed to undermine the legitimacy of the country’s electoral institutions, cast doubt on the democratic process, and lay the groundwork for accusations of fraud before any votes were cast. This escalation in foreign interference threatens the integrity of the elections and echoes a long history of outside influence in Honduras’s political landscape.
The strategy draws clear parallels to the events surrounding the Venezuelan presidential elections last year. Just as then, senior opposition figures, including Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maria Corina Machado and U.S. lawmakers, began questioning the election process before any votes were counted. When the opposition lost, they attributed the loss to fraud, indicating they had no intention of accepting the results.
Following the Washington meeting, Trump published a detailed post on Truth Social endorsing Asfura: “I cannot work with Moncada and the Communists, and Nasralla is not a reliable partner for Freedom, and cannot be trusted. I hope the people of Honduras vote for Freedom and Democracy, and elect Tito Asfura, President!”
The electoral process soon faced significant manipulation. The electoral authority acknowledged thousands of polling station discrepancies, including mathematical errors, missing signatures, and inconsistencies between physical and digital records. This prompted a special count to address the problematic actas.
The counting of the actas lacked transparency. The electoral body limited the number of actas reviewed, leaving thousands of contested votes uncounted. The special count was delayed for weeks, disrupted by protests and political disputes. Additional issues arose with the electronic transmission of results; reporting pauses, sudden shifts in vote trends, and restricted access for observers led to further accusations of manipulation.
In a twist of irony, The Intercept reported that the MS-13 gang, classified by Trump as a Foreign Terrorist Organization, intimidated Hondurans into voting for the right-wing National Party candidate — the same candidate backed by the U.S. president — while discouraging support for the left-leaning presidential candidate.
The electoral body’s final decision to proclaim Nasry Asfura as president was anticipated, as were Nasralla’s fraud allegations, supported by current president Xiomara Castro, who denounced the election as a coup. Nasralla is demanding a thorough recount of votes, claiming that the electoral sheets have been manipulated and lack legitimacy. It’s important to note that Nasralla was also considered a secondary option by Washington, as he attended the aforementioned meeting in case election manipulation was inadequate. This is further illustrated by his naïve attempt to seek Trump’s assistance in reviewing the electoral process.
Minutes after the election results were released, Marco Rubio issued a press release stating: “The United States congratulates President-Elect Nasry Asfura of Honduras on his clear electoral victory, confirmed by Honduras’ National Electoral Council.” This was quickly followed by statements from Argentina, Bolivia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, and the Dominican Republic, acknowledging Asfura as the winner. However, this election was hardly a “clear electoral victory.”
The irregularities and inconsistencies noted in the Honduran electoral process are reminiscent, as Nick pointed out, of what transpired in Venezuela last year.
Before the official results were announced, María Corina Machado had already declared Edmundo González the president-elect, claiming a landslide victory based on quick counts from only about 30 percent of polling stations. The Consejo Nacional Electoral (CNE) took longer than usual to release results and did not publish a breakdown of votes by polling station, leading to calls for transparency from the Carter Center and Brazil’s government.
The narrative was further complicated by exit polls from Edison Research, a U.S.-based pollster known for releasing politically favorable exit-poll numbers, circulated by U.S. media and opposition figures prior to the announcement of official results. The government of Nicolás Maduro reported a cyberattack on the electronic transmission system, while disinformation on social media — including a fake ballot-theft video amplified by Elon Musk — exacerbated public confusion.
The difference lies in the fact that, in this instance, the U.S. had significantly less room to maneuver in achieving its desired results. Thus, it did not issue congratulations following the election results in this case, and Latin American countries aligned with Washington were quick to challenge the outcome. Consequently, a widespread campaign against Maduro’s government was rapidly initiated.
Maduro was asked to publicly provide the tally sheets from voting stations to verify the results. While he could have done so, there’s nothing in Venezuelan law requiring him to, and given the allegations of a cyberattack that could have skewed those sheets, it’s understandable that his government opted not to comply.
These tally sheets have been central to widespread allegations of electoral fraud — criticism that has even come from left-leaning figures like Petro. Will we see a similar campaign insisting on a detailed vote-by-vote count to validate the electoral results in Honduras, as demanded by Nasralla?
Unlikely. As it stands, Asfura is already recognized as the president-elect of Honduras, endorsed by the U.S. and acknowledged by over ten other U.S.-aligned countries in the region. Those harboring doubts about the results are unlikely to challenge Washington’s position on such a relatively minor electoral event, especially when there exists plausible political justification for not doing so.
In the end, we may never definitively ascertain whether Maduro was legitimately elected, whether he tampered with the count — certainly, he had his reasons — or whether Nasralla gained more votes than Asfura. Ultimately, what holds significance is which candidate the U.S. decides must prevail. This exemplifies the real-time implications of the “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine.
Moreover, there is more at stake than just U.S. ambitions in the hemisphere. The U.S. and the Western world uphold the democratic process as the sole valid source of political authority. By employing this very process to legitimize governments that may not emerge from it but are granted its legitimacy — as is arguably the case in Honduras, as well as in Romania and Venezuela — the foundational rationale for democratic legitimacy itself begins to unravel.
Conclusion
The recent electoral events in Honduras highlight significant concerns regarding democratic integrity and external influences on sovereign nations. The outcome raises pressing questions about the legitimacy of electoral processes and the role of foreign powers in regional political dynamics.
