The latest vote count shows Nasri Asfulura, a right-wing candidate who supports President Trump, leading her rival by just 515 votes.
Published December 2, 2025
US President Donald Trump has slammed Honduras’ announcement that it will conduct a manual count of the November 30 presidential election.
The National Electoral Council (CNE) called for “patience” as counting began on Tuesday. Earlier, the company said a partial digital tally had left two leading candidates locked in a “technical tie.”
Recommended stories
list of 4 itemsend of list
In a ferocious attack on social media late Monday, Trump accused election officials of trying to “change” the election results and doubled down on vague threats of retaliation if his favored candidate was not declared the winner in a close race beset by problems with results websites.
In the latest update, CNE Director Ana Paola Hall said that with 57% of votes counted, right-wing candidate Nasri Asfullah, backed by President Trump, leads her centrist rival Salvador Nasrallah by just 515 votes.
“In the face of this technical close call, we must remain calm, be patient and wait for the CNE to finish its tally,” she said.
“A special tally process will then take place to finalize the general tally.”
“Hell will pay.”
In response to President Trump’s threat to cut off aid to Honduras if the Nationalist Party’s Asfura candidate did not win just before the vote, he posted on his Truth Social platform claiming that the CNE had “abruptly stopped” counting votes.
He insisted it was “essential” for authorities to finish the count and that “democracy must prevail.”
“Honduras appears to be trying to change the outcome of the presidential election,” he wrote. “If that happens, you’ll pay in hell!”
Mr. Trump said that the United States could work with Mr. Asufura in the fight against drug trafficking, and was a vocal supporter of Mr. Asufura, the former mayor of the capital Tegucigalpa, which had a major impact on his election campaign.
His comments followed similar interference in Argentina’s parliamentary elections in October, when he threatened to cut support if President Javier Millay’s Avança Liberal Party did not win.
Millay’s party won with more than 40 percent of the vote.
President Trump said Friday that he intends to pardon former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, even as he cheered Asufura’s anticipated role in helping fight Trump’s so-called “war on drugs.”
Mr. Hernandez, the last Nationalist president in a country recently dominated by left-wing political forces, is serving a 45-year prison sentence in the United States for drug trafficking and firearms charges.
Nasrallah claims he is in the lead
Mr. Asfullah’s rival, Mr. Nasrallah, a former TV presenter, posted on X that internal estimates show Mr. Asfullah leading with 44.6 percent of the vote.
“We are not declaring ourselves the winner, we are just predicting the results that will be reflected in the CNE,” he said, drawing criticism from the Asfura National Party for considering the vote ahead of the final count.
Whatever the final outcome, the election was a clear defeat for the country’s ruling leftist party, with fellow candidate Lixi Moncada far behind in third place with 19% of the vote.
