After being declared president-elect of Honduras on Christmas Eve, conservative Nasry Asfura posted a video on his social media with a message for the reconciliation of a deeply divided and polarized society. Asfura (Tegucigalpa, 67 years old), supported by American President Donald Trump, intends to cover the page of a chaotic month in this Central American country. It all begins on November 30, with the presidential elections and a vast and disorganized vote, full of interruptions, technical failures, thousands of inconsistent documents, accusations of candidates against electoral authorities and accusations of fraud. “This is a time of reconciliation, unity and peace. We must recognize ourselves as we are, one Honduran family,” says Asfura.
The National Party candidate, however, will have to make great efforts to govern a country in which the majority of the electorate supports him, since he won the election with the minimum, with 40.2% of the vote, less than a percentage point above his main opponent, the television presenter Salvador Nasralla, of the Liberal Party.
You will also have to separate yourself from the portmanteau image of your political group, accompanied by the leadership of former president Juan Orlando Hernández, sentenced in the United States to 45 years in prison for his links to drug trafficking. Even though Hernández was pardoned by Trump in a maneuver by which the American tried to influence the presidential election, an administration plagued by accusations of corruption still weighs on the memory of Hondurans.
One of the biggest successes was that of the Honduran Social Security Institute, which suffered an embezzlement of more than 200 million dollars. Journalistic investigations revealed that part of this money was used to finance the electoral campaign of the National Party, of which Hernández is a member. The ex-president is also encouraged to buy the favors of judges and civil servants to be re-elected, while the Honduran Constitution absolutely prohibits a second term. His detractors assure that part of his government’s power rests on pacts with drug traffickers.
Asfura tries to distance himself from this past and presents himself as a pragmatic, campesino and effective politician, capable of leading Honduras from the abyss of poverty, inequality and violence that torment it and of launching modernity in this nation of a million inhabitants. “Honduras, I am ready to govern. I am not going to talk to you,” he promised.
This is no easy task, given that World Bank data shows that poverty is as high as 63% in Honduras, institutions are weak, rural areas are corrupt and vulnerable to climate change and natural disasters. This demonstrates the damage caused by hurricanes Eta and Iota, which caused the loss of more than 4.5 million people, according to the Permanent Emergency Commission of Honduras (Copeco). Honduras also continues to be one of the most violent countries for activists and journalists, as demonstrated by the assassination of environmentalist Berta Cáceres, which weighs heavily on collective memory.
Born to Palestinian immigrants, Asfura earned a civil engineering degree and developed a business career in the construction industry. It is with this profile of a builder that he burst into politics: he ensures that the public function must be exercised like the administration of a company and with this idea he managed to be elected mayor of the Central District — which includes the capital, Tegucigalpa, and near Comayagüela — between 2014 and 2022.
During his tenure, Asfura developed infrastructure projects in a capital where pedestrian paths are somewhat exotic, he widened roads, built uneven roads and tunnels to alleviate the city’s chaotic traffic, improved the drainage system and paving, according to the same, more than 200 kilometers of streets. Because of this technical server profile, he sometimes calls “Papi a la orden”, the nickname he uses on his social networks.
A management which has not been free of controversy, since his detractors have accused him of having mismanaged public funds while he was mayor of benefiting from companies allegedly linked or close to his political party. The Specialized Fiscal Unit against Corruption Networks (UFERCO) spent in 2020 the embezzlement of 29 million lempiras (approximately one million euros) to cover the expenses of its companies and even to make transfers to the personal accounts of its daughters.
Asfura has denied all accusations. During his tenure as mayor, he also abandoned a failed project that left its predecessor, known as Trans-450, a $150 million project designed to provide a decent public transportation route to a population that clamored for it. The project was not completed and the metrobus stations remain forgotten and vandalized, a sign of the cancer of corruption that is metastasizing in this small Central American country. Asfura, moreover, was among those who called Pandora Papersas a shareholder of companies at sea in Panama, following an investigation into the Honduran Contracorriente environment. He denied this participation.
The conservative politician, who likes to cross himself in all his public appearances and cite God as the guarantor of his political triumphs, has reached the ultra-high who travels in America. On the field, he thanked Trump for his support, with whom he showed great and loyal support, even though he was close to the Argentinian Javier Milei – “we share the same principles and values,” he said – and he was congratulated for the triumph of José Antonio Kast in Chile, when he recognized his “commitment to the defense of democracy and freedom”.
In Honduras, where social and political conservatism has historically predominated, interspersed with moments of reform and internal tension, Asfura clings to traditions for support. He is trying to return to his country’s history of instability – former President Manuel Zelaya was overthrown in a military coup in 2009, a feat that still divides society – to which he has been conciliatory during a campaign full of attacks and denunciations from other opponents. I maintain a profile close to the population, a man respectful of the traditional family and deeply religious and remains calm during the most chaotic moments of the electoral race. “The stability of the country is above any personal ambition,” I said.
It is this cautious appearance that he is trying to sell now that he has been declared president, with the idea of reconciling a divided and polarized society. It remains to be seen whether this goal will be achieved during a mandate that appears difficult, with a Congress dominated by the opposition and a country that demands urgent reforms against corruption, effective actions against gangs and organized crime and measures to end the misery that affects millions of Hondurans. It will undoubtedly take something more than the call for reconciliation on Christmas Eve.
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