The image of being a hard-working man who rolls up his sleeves and often just wears jeans is eagerly embraced by Nasry Asfura. “I travel through Honduras in my own car, I drive myself, I don’t fly in a helicopter. I know the condition of the roads. Nobody is going to tell me stories: what I say I have experienced and what I promise I will deliver,” he presents himself at the social media.
On Wednesday evening, Nasry (Tito) Asfura, leader of the Conservative National Party, was declared the winner of the presidential elections in Honduras, with a very narrow majority of 28,000 votes. The results took four weeks to arrive due to technical problems, and even allegations of fraud and election interference by the US. Asfura himself announced: “Honduras: I am ready to rule, I will not let you down. God bless Honduras.”
Asfura, born in 1958 in the Honduran capital Tegucigalpa, is not a complete unknown. He was also a candidate in the previous elections, but lost to current President Xiomara Castro. Asfura is the grandchild of Palestinian immigrants who fled to Honduras in the 1940s. He studied civil engineering, but did not complete his studies. He became successful in construction, and from 1990 he worked mainly in the capital Tegucigalpa, where he was elected mayor in 2013. In that post he paid a lot of attention to infrastructure and was re-elected in 2017.
During his campaign, he liked to emphasize that he was also called “Papi a la orden” (Papa, at your service) and posted that nickname on campaign signs. In an interview he told how he got it: in 2004, a taxi driver allegedly approached him at the construction site of an access road. The taxi driver was happy with the road under construction and asked how things were going. In his own words, Asfura then replied: “You will see, Papi, at your service.”
It all fits within the image of the hardworking man who serves the people. Asfura is still under investigation for corruption into the embezzlement of public money and money laundering practices. According to Asfura, the investigation is politically motivated. “I don’t owe anyone anything, I’m not afraid of anything… I can look people straight in the eye. I have nothing to hide,” he said during the campaign. He wants to fight corruption, he emphasized.
‘True friend’
However, the Conservative National Party he leads has often been linked to corruption, and his party colleague (and former president) Juan Orlando Hernández was sentenced to 45 years in prison in the US in 2024 for smuggling at least 400 tons of cocaine. Although President Trump says he is doing everything he can to combat drug trafficking, he recently pardoned Hernández. The evidence in the controversial lawsuit against Hernández was extensive, but Trump said federal prosecutors had treated his conservative kindred spirit “improperly.”
When asked about his political signature, Asfura does not want to commit himself to anything. “Extremes don’t work. We have to look for balance. People don’t care whether you are ugly or beautiful, left or right, green, red or blue. They want solutions.” In the campaign he emphasized security, employment and education. He wants to strengthen the armed forces and the national police and is further aiming for foreign investments. He wants to intensify relations with the US in particular.
The latter was reason for Trump to warn the Hondurans not to let anyone else win. “The only true friend of freedom in Honduras is Tito Asfura. Tito and I can work together to fight the narco-communists and provide the Honduran people with the necessary assistance,” he wrote in a message on Truth Social. If that didn’t happen, he would turn off the American money tap. He emphasized that he has great confidence in Asfuro because it will do a lot for “the great people of Honduras.”
Although the electoral council in Honduras declared Asfura the winner, there are still doubts about the legality of his victory. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio called on the other parties to respect the outcome. He said he looked forward to working with the new president “to advance our bilateral and regional security cooperation, end illegal immigration to the United States, and strengthen economic ties between our two countries.”
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