The election is continuing Latin America’s swing to the right, coming just a week after Chile chose the far-right politician José Antonio Kast as its next president.

Asfura, of the conservative National Party, received 40.27% of the vote in the Nov. 30 vote, edging out four-time candidate Salvador Nasralla of the conservative Liberal Party, who finished with 39.53% of the vote.

Honduras’ president-elect

The former mayor of Honduras’ capital Tegucigalpa, won in his second bid for the presidency, after he and Nasralla were neck-and-neck during a weeks-long vote count that fueled international concern.

On Tuesday night a number of electoral officials and candidates were already fighting and contesting the results of the election. Meanwhile, followers in Asfura’s campaign headquarters erupted into cheers.

Asfura, in a video statement released late Wednesday night, promised to be a unifying force for the Central American nation.

“Today, with deep gratitude, I accept the honor of being able to work for you. I extend my hand so we can walk together with determination to work tirelessly for Honduras. I will not fail you,” he said.

The results were a rebuke of the current leftist leader, and her governing democratic socialist Liberty and Re-foundation Party, known as LIBRE, whose candidate finished in a distant third place with 19.19% of the vote.

Trump takes a spotlight in Honduras

Secretary of State Marco Rubio congratulated Asfura on Wednesday, writing on a post on X: “The people of Honduras have spoken … (the Trump administration) looks forward to working with his administration to advance prosperity and security in our hemisphere.”

The European Union and a number of right-leading leaders across Latin America, namely Trump-ally Argentine President Javier Milei, also congratulated the politician.

Asfura ran as a pragmatic politician, pointing to his popular infrastructure projects in the capital. Trump endorsed the 67-year-old conservative just days before the vote, saying he was the only Honduran candidate the U.S. administration would work with.

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Nasralla has for weeks alleged the election was fraudulent, and said Wednesday that electoral authorities who announced the results “betrayed the Honduran people.”

On Tuesday night, he also addressed Trump in a post on X, writing: “Mr. President, your endorsed candidate in Honduras is complicit in silencing the votes of our citizens. If he is truly worthy of your backing, if his hands are clean, if he has nothing to fear, then why doesn’t he allow for every vote to be counted?”

He and other opponents of Asfura have maintained that Trump’s last-minute endorsement was an act of electoral interference that ultimately swung the results of the vote.

A chaotic election

The unexpectedly tumultuous election was also marred by a sluggish vote count, which fueled even more accusations.

The Central American nation was stuck in limbo for more than three weeks as vote counting by electoral authorities lagged, and at one point was paralyzed after a special count of final vote tallies was called, fueling warnings by international leaders.

After expressing democratic concern about the lack of results days before, Organization of American States Secretary General Albert Rambin wrote Wednesday on X that the OAS “takes note” of the results announced and noted it is “closely following events in Honduras.”

It also condemned electoral authorities for announcing the results while the final .07% of votes were still being counted.

A rightward shift in Latin America

For the incumbent, progressive President Xiomara Castro, the election marked a political reckoning. She was elected in 2021 on a promise to reduce violence and root out corruption.

She was among a group of progressive leaders in Latin American who were elected on a hopeful message of change around five years ago but are now being cast out after failing to deliver on their visions. Castro said last week that she would accept the results of the elections even after she claimed that Trump’s actions in the election amounted to an “electoral coup.”

But Eric Olson, an independent international observer during the Honduran election with the Seattle International Foundation, said the rejection of Castro and her party was so definitive that they had little room to contest the results.

“Very few people, even within LIBRE, believe they won the election. What they will say is there’s been fraud, that there has been intervention by Donald Trump, that we we should tear up the elections and vote again,” Olson said. “But they’re not saying ‘we won the elections.’ It’s pretty clear they did not.” ___ Janetsky reported from Mexico City.