Hondurans voted in general elections Sunday and the results are still too close to call. While governing Libre party candidate Rixi Moncada appears to have lost with only around 20 percent or less of the vote, hard-right National Party candidate Nasry Asfura is statistically tied with center-right Liberal Party candidate Salvador Nasralla, with about 84 percent of votes counted.
President Trump intervened again this week in Honduras’s electoral processes by pressuring, in a Truth Social post, for the electoral authorities not to “change the results” and for the National Electoral Commission [sic] to “finish counting the Votes.” Prior to Trump’s post, the National Electoral Council (CNE) announced results from its preliminary results system, the TREP, showing that with 57 percent of the preliminary results counted there was a “technical tie” between Asfura (39.91 percent) and Nasralla (39.89 percent), separated by just over 500 votes.
Prior to election day, Trump issued a statement endorsing Asfura and denouncing his opponents Nasralla and governing party candidate Rixi Moncada, so his reference to “changing the results,” and a reference to the CNE “abruptly stopp[ing] counting at midnight on November 30th” have widely been interpreted as a call for Asfura to be declared the winner. He also threatened to end US support for Honduras if Asfura did not win the election.
The Center for Economic and Policy Research is urging patience and restraint — including from foreign governments — as Honduras’s electoral authority finishes the vote count.
FRANCESCA EMANUELE, [email protected]
Francesca Emanuele is Senior International Policy Associate at the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, D.C. Her writings have appeared in U.S. outlets such as the Associated Press, Foreign Policy, and The Nation, as well as in international media. She holds a degree in Sociology from the Complutense University of Madrid, a Master’s in Public and Social Policy from Pompeu Fabra University, and is a doctoral candidate in Public Anthropology at American University, where her research focuses on the Organization of American States.
PEDRO LABAYEN HERRERA, [email protected]
Pedro Labayen Herrera is a research assistant also at the Center for Economic and Policy Research. He holds a Master’s in International Governance and Diplomacy, with a concentration in human rights, from the Paris School of International Affairs, Sciences Po, and a BA in International and Global Studies from the University of Central Florida.
Both observed the elections in Honduras on Sunday, and have contributed to CEPR’s blog tracking U.S. aggression and interference in Venezuela, Colombia, Mexico, Honduras, and other countries in the region. Ahead of the election, CEPR published a Q and A explainer on the Honduran elections that Francesca and Pedro coauthored.