Nasry Asfura, the conservative candidate for Honduran president backed by US President Donald Trump, was declared the winner on Wednesday more than three weeks after the November 30 election, which was beset by delays, technical problems and allegations of fraud.

The Honduras electoral authority, known as the CNE, said Asfura won 40.3% of the vote, edging out center-right Liberal Party candidate Salvador Nasralla who garnered 39.5%. The candidate of the ruling LIBRE party, Rixi Moncada, came in a distant third.

Asfura ran on a broad pro-business platform saying private investment was necessary to move the country forward, while his political agenda focused on jobs, education and security. He has also signaled he may swap Honduras’ allegiance to Taiwan, and away from Beijing.

The results were so close and the ballot processing system so chaotic that around 15% of the tally sheets, comprising hundreds of thousands of ballots, had to be counted by hand to determine the winner.

In the weeks following the vote, LIBRE repeatedly called for protests against what they denounced as an “electoral coup.” The protests interrupted the manual count, blocking officials from accessing the building where tally sheets were being stored.

The results were approved by two electoral council members and one deputy, as disputes continued over the razor-thin vote. The third council member, Marlon Ochoa, was not present in the video declaring the winner.

“Honduras: I am ready to govern. I will not let you down,” Asfura said in a post on X following the confirmation of the results.

He is due to take office on January 27 for the 2026 2030 term.

Nasralla rejected the CNE’s declaration, saying it had excluded ballots that should have been counted, but urged his supporters to remain calm and refrain from any acts of disruption or violence.

“I will not accept a result based on omissions. Democracy does not shut down because of exhaustion, nor because today is the 24th — this is the saddest Christmas for the Honduran people,” Nasralla said at a press conference in the capital Tegucigalpa on Tuesday afternoon. This is his third unsuccessful bid for the Honduran presidency.

The head of the Honduran Congress also rejected the results.

“This is completely outside the law. It has no value,” Congress President Luis Redondo, of the ruling LIBRE party, wrote on X.

Trump backs Asfura

Trump threw his support behind Asfura, a 67-year-old politician and businessman who is the former mayor of the capital Tegucigalpa, writing in a Truth Social post before the election that he was the “only real friend of Freedom in Honduras” and urging people to vote for him.

Trump also threatened to cut off US financial support to Honduras if Asfura did not win and pardoned former President Juan Orlando Hernandez, also of Asfura’s National Party, who had been serving a 45-year sentence in the US on drug trafficking and weapons charges.

Amid delays in the count, Trump weighed into the election again alleging fraud without providing evidence and saying there would be “hell to pay” if Honduras changed preliminary results that had put Asfura ahead.

Trump’s backing of Asfura, experts say, is part of his push to mold a conservative bloc across Latin America, stretching from Nayib Bukele in El Salvador to Javier Milei in Argentina.

Both Nasralla and the ruling LIBRE party have decried Trump’s comments as election meddling. Nasralla told Reuters in early December that the last-minute interference from Trump had damaged his chances of winning.

“The United States congratulates President-elect Asfura and looks forward to working with his administration to advance prosperity and security in our hemisphere,” US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on X following the results.

Rubio urged all parties to accept the outcome in order to “ensure a peaceful transition”.

The Secretary General of the Organization of American States, Albert Ramdin, said the group “takes note” of the results and will issue a report with findings and recommendations in the coming days.

“The General Secretariat is aware of the difficulties experienced during the electoral process, recognizes the work carried out by Honduran institutions, and regrets that the full recount of the votes cast by citizens has not yet been completed,” Ramdin said in a post on X.

‘Papi, at your service’

Asfura was born in Tegucigalpa on June 8, 1958, into a family of Palestinian descent. He studied civil engineering but did not complete his degree. In the 1990s, he worked in various city administrations gaining a reputation as an efficient but low-profile official, and was also a congressman and minister for social investment.

In 2013, he became mayor of Tegucigalpa and the surrounding district and gained popularity by delivering on infrastructure projects, earning the nickname “Papi, at your service” for his public works, which his team continued to use in the presidential campaign.

Asfura projects a modest and hardworking image, dressed in jeans and rolled-up sleeves, but is under investigation, along with other former officials from his administration in the capital, by authorities who say he was part of a scheme to embezzle public funds and launder money. Asfura has said the actions against him are politically motivated and denies wrongdoing.

“Extremes don’t work,” he said during the campaign when asked if he represents the far-right. “We must seek a balance (...) People don’t care if you’re ugly or beautiful, left or right, green, red or blue; what they want are solutions.”