The Honduran presidential race tightened sharply on Monday, with the conservative opposition candidates emerging ahead of the governing LIBRE party in partial results, a dramatic shift that many voters and analysts attribute to last-minute intervention by former U.S. President Donald Trump.
Preliminary tallies from 57% of polling stations showed National Party candidate and former Tegucigalpa mayor Nasry Asfura holding a razor-thin lead over Salvador Nasralla of the Liberal Party, ahead by just 515 votes in a contest where only a plurality is required to win.
In the capital’s historic center, 52-year-old street-food vendor Reyna Vega said rising prices over the past four years pushed her toward Asfura, whose previous tenure as mayor she remembers for visible public-works improvements.
Like many conservative voters, her primary goal was removing the democratic-socialist governing party, LIBRE, from power, a sentiment intensified after Trump directly attacked its candidate, Rixi Moncada, warning she would steer Honduras toward a Venezuelan-style crisis.
While Trump criticized both opposition candidates earlier in the campaign, analysts say his endorsement of Asfura in the final days had an unmistakable impact among undecided voters.
Juan Carlos Aguilar of the NGO More Just Society said Trump’s comments “played a transcendental role” in shifting support toward Asfura, dramatically narrowing what polls had shown as a stronger lead for Nasralla.
As the vote count slowed on Monday and the electoral council’s reporting website briefly went offline, election officials urged patience. Nasralla expressed confidence that ballots from northern regions, where his support is strongest, would eventually push him ahead.
Even among some Asfura voters, a Nasralla victory would be acceptable, so long as LIBRE is defeated. “Either of the two is good; what we didn’t want was LIBRE,” said Vega’s 32-year-old son, Eddy Xavier Vega.
The election also revived memories of former National Party president Juan Orlando Hernández, now serving a 45-year U.S. sentence for aiding drug traffickers. On Friday, Trump vowed to pardon him if he returns to office. ‘
The promise resonated with young voter Jair Ávila, 20, who said Hernández’s presidency felt economically easier. “The basic basket was cheaper, gasoline was cheaper. We were better off with him,” he said.
Some voters also saw Trump’s endorsement of Asfura as a possible safeguard for Honduran migrants in the United States, given Trump’s record on deportations. Vega, who relies on remittances from relatives in the U.S., said she hopes the political alignment might protect them from future removal efforts.
With Moncada trailing by 20 percentage points and refusing to concede, urging her supporters to “fight until every vote is counted,” uncertainty continues to hang over the process.
Electoral authorities say it may take days before a definitive winner emerges in one of Honduras’s closest presidential races in years.
Source: CNN
Written By Rodney Mbua
