The rightward political realignment in Latin America continued as Nasry “Tito” Asfura, the Trump-endorsed National Party of Honduras candidate, was declared the winner of Honduras’s presidential election on Wednesday, more than three weeks after votes were cast.
After a protracted vote-counting process, marked by technical glitches and allegations of fraud, Asfura, 67, defeated his Liberal Party of Honduras rival, Salvador Nasralla, 72, by a narrow margin of 40.3 percent to 39.5 percent. LIBRE candidate Rixi Moncada finished a distant third.
Fox News reported:
The results of the race were so tight and the ballot processing system was so chaotic, that about 15% of the tally sheets, which accounted for hundreds of thousands of ballots, had to be counted by hand to determine the winner.
Asfura’s supporters, including President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, were obviously delighted by the final outcome.
But many Nasralla backers are questioning, and in some cases rejecting, the results.
Chief among them is Honduran Congress President Luis Redondo, who considers Asfura’s victory an “electoral coup.” He said, “This is completely outside the law. It has no value.”
In the video below, released on Wednesday, Redondo expressed his concern that “those who call themselves observer missions remain silent.”
Their silence, he said, should be viewed as “political submission to the dominance and pressure exerted by Donald Trump and the sectors that currently back him.”
The election was held on Sunday, November 30. Fox reported that preliminary results the next day showed Asfura ahead of Nasrallah by two points, 41% to 39%.
Quickly, however, Asfura’s lead had vanished and the race became a virtual tie.
Two days after the election, the National Electoral Council announced that “technical problems” with the website tallying vote totals had caused it to crash, according to The Associated Press.
Trump reacted to the announcement on Truth Social at the time: “Looks like Honduras is trying to change the results of their Presidential Election. If they do, there will be hell to pay!”
The next three weeks saw bitter recriminations between all of the parties involved — in fact, much like we’ve grown accustomed to here in the US!
Asfura, a former mayor of Tegucigalpa with a strong reputation for leadership, campaigned on “infrastructure, public order and efficiency,” as per Fox.
Trump endorsed Asfura days before Hondurans went to the polls. He wrote on Truth Social, “If he doesn’t win, the United States will not be throwing good money after bad.”
Fox reported that before the polls opened, Trump announced his pardon of former President Juan Orlando Hernandez, a former National Party of Honduras leader, who was serving a 45-year sentence in the U.S. for drug trafficking and conspiracy.
Asfura’s victory is only the latest example of a broader shift toward right-leaning and conservative leadership across Latin America.
Earlier this month, “ultra-conservative” candidate José Antonio Kast won a landslide victory in Chile’s presidential election. His conservative administration will be a major departure from that of the country’s current socialist President Gabriel Boric.
PBS reported:
Chilean voters overwhelmingly embraced his pledge to crack down on increased crime, deport hundreds of thousands of immigrants without legal status and revive the sluggish economy of one of Latin America’s most stable and prosperous nations.
In October, Bolivian voters elected conservative Rodrigo Paz as president, ending nearly two decades of socialist rule.
Earlier this year, Ecuadorian voters reelected President Daniel Noboa (who first won office in 2023). Noboa’s presidency followed years of left-wing governance in the South American country.
In El Salvador, President Nayib Bukele, who first won the presidency in 2019, was reelected in a landslide victory in February 2024. His hard-right, law-and-order agenda remains very popular among El Salvadorans.
And no list would be complete without mentioning Argentina’s election of President Javier Milei in December 2023, a conservative who defied the odds. When he took office, Argentina’s economy was in a severe crisis. Among the country’s many problems, decades of Peronist policy had driven inflation to more than 200% and the poverty rate to 40%. Milei’s governance has been transformative for the nation’s economy.
The embrace of conservative candidates by Latin American voters reflects growing frustration with inflation, crime, and corruption. Increasingly, voters are backing leaders who promise tougher security measures, market-friendly economic reforms, and a decisive break with entrenched political elites.
While the region remains politically diverse and cyclical swings are common, the recent pattern suggests a broader realignment, with voters in several countries prioritizing security and economic stability, over traditional left-wing platforms.
Elizabeth writes commentary for Legal Insurrection and The Washington Examiner. She is an academy fellow at The Heritage Foundation. Please follow Elizabeth on X or LinkedIn.
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