Trump tells Honduras ‘there will be hell to pay’ as presidential vote count stalls | Honduras
Donald Trump accused officials in Honduras of “trying to change” the outcome of the country’s presidential election; because the two right-wing candidates technically tied and the announcement of vote counts was paused.
Virtual vote counting was slow and erratic before it was disrupted around noon Monday. The election court said it was due to a technical problem and insisted that manual counting was continuing.
On his social network, Trump accused officials of “trying to change the results” and said “if they do this, there will be a heavy price!” he warned.
This was the latest in a series of dramatic interventions by the US president. Before the vote, Trump had backed Nasry “Tito” Asfura, who was only 515 votes ahead of his rival Salvador Nasralla on Monday, and said that US support for the country was contingent on Asfura’s victory.
He is also an ally of Asfura, making an extraordinary promise to pardon former president Juan Orlando Hernández, who was convicted of drug trafficking in a New York court last year and sentenced to 45 years in prison for allegedly building a “cocaine highway to the United States.”
On Tuesday, as election officials pleaded for patience, Hernández’s wife, Ana García de Hernández, announced that the former president had been released from a US prison.
“God is faithful and never fails! Yesterday, Monday, December 1, 2025, we experienced a day we will never forget. After almost four years of pain, waiting, and difficult trials, my husband, Juan Orlando Hernández, became a free man AGAIN, thanks to the presidential pardon granted by President Donald Trump,” she wrote.
Trump’s pardon surprised many observers; He questioned why the US president was using his “war on drugs” to justify overthrowing Venezuela’s dictator Nicolás Maduro and at the same time freeing a man convicted of such crimes.
In Honduras, the amnesty was seen as a new attempt by the US president to interfere in the election.
Rixi Moncada, candidate of the left-wing ruling party, accused Trump of “interventionism” and “imperial, direct foreign intervention” in the election process. Moncada served as finance minister under current president Xiomara Castro, who was unable to seek reelection because presidential terms were limited to a single term.
Before the election, Trump claimed that Moncada was a “communist” and that his victory would hand the country over to “Maduro and his narco-terrorists.”
When the results were suspended on Monday, Moncada was in third place with 19.16% of the votes. Asfura ranked second with 39.91%, followed by right winger Salvador Nasralla with 39.89%.
Nasralla, a veteran politician and TV host who served as Castro’s vice president before leaving to launch his own presidential bid, has been labeled by Trump as a “borderline communist” who was only running to split the vote between Moncada and Asfura.
The election court has up to 30 days to announce the result. All three candidates expressed concern about the delay and called for greater speed.
Asfura said, “Let’s not keep the country in a tense situation.”
