Guillermo Peña, a Honduran free-market advocate and director of strategic alliances at Universidad de la Libertad in Mexico, analyzes Honduras’s election results. For Peña, the victory of the National Party’s presidential candidate, Nasry “Tito” Asfura, was no surprise.
He says it was clear that the incumbent socialist Libre party had stalled in third place. In his assessment, the contest was essentially a two-way race between Asfura and Liberal Party candidate Salvador Nasralla.
Peña highlights the role of Donald Trump. In the final weeks of the campaign, Trump gave a strong endorsement of Asfura, which boosted his prominence and chances of winning.
However, Trump then pardoned former President Juan Orlando Hernández—who was convicted of drug trafficking. Hernández is a National Party figure, and Peña argues the pardon effectively worked against Asfura and neutralized the endorsement.
For Peña, Honduras is reaching a pivotal moment, 15 years after the 2009 coup d’état that removed Manuel Zelaya from power. Peña believes it is time to turn the page and move past correcting past wrongs. Instead, he wants to see work on building institutional stability and confidence in the democratic process.
Recommended Links
- Follow Guillermo Peña on X and LinkedIn.
- “Three Regional Trends That Hinge on Honduras,” by Fergus Hodgson.
- “Five White Pills for Honduras,” by Fergus Hodgson.
- “Three Takeaways from the Utopian ZEDEs in Honduras,” by Paz Gómez.
