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By: Joshua Scheer/Columnist
Trump is clearly upset about the Honduran election; no one should be surprised. I would be too, if I spent so much time and energy trying to influence it.
Here’s what he posted on his Truth Social account: “Looks like Honduras is trying to change the results of their Presidential Election. If they do, there will be hell to pay! The people of Honduras voted in overwhelming numbers on November 30th. The National Electoral Commission, the official body charged with counting the Votes, abruptly stopped counting at midnight on November 30th. Their count showed a close race between Tito Asfura and Salvador Nasralla with Asfura holding a narrow lead of 500 votes. Their tally was stopped when only 47 percent of the Vote was counted. It is imperative that the Commission finish counting the Votes. Hundreds of thousands of Hondurans must have their Votes counted. Democracy must prevail!”
However, the latest vote count shows Trump’s preferred right-wing candidate, Nasry Asfura, is winning by about 515 ballots. According to Al Jazeera, the National Election Council is urging calm: “Faced with this technical tie, we must remain patient and wait for the CNE to finish counting. Subsequently, the special counting process will be carried out in order to finalize the general count.”
“Hell to Pay” and “Democracy must prevail!” Strange words coming from a man deeply invested in setting up his friend and influencing an election. Both things are frightening, especially as Trump is on a war footing in Venezuela right now — so he clearly means it. As many have written and reported Trump’s pardon of Juan Orlando Hernández undermines U.S. anti-drug efforts and represents blatant interference in Honduras’s democracy.
Ben Norton has called this “the most blatant electoral fraud I have seen in my life… .Right-wing candidates are stealing votes. This comes while the US government is openly meddling in Honduras’ election. Trump campaigned for right-wing, drug cartel-linked, oligarch candidate Tito Asfura, and Trump threatened to punish Honduras if he is not ‘elected’ as president.”
For on-the-ground coverage, Drop Site News reporter José Luis Granados Ceja, reporting from the ground, writes that Hondurans delivered a major blow to the ruling LIBRE Party and boosted traditional political forces — a result shaped in part by the unexpected and overt intervention of Donald Trump.
With voters seemingly rejecting the left and socialist-leaning status quo, Honduras is shifting back toward familiar power elites, raising new questions about foreign influence, democratic backsliding, and what this election means for the country’s future. Here is his article:
In an interview on Monday’s Democracy Now!, Amy Goodman spoke with Rodolfo Pastor, the former secretary of the presidency under current President Xiomara Castro, and Dana Frank, professor of history emerita at the University of California, Santa Cruz and author of The Long Honduran Night: Resistance, Terror, and the United States in the Aftermath of the Coup.
They discuss both Trump’s involvement in the election and the pardoning of convicted drug kingpin Juan Orlando Hernández.
Again, we will continue to follow this story and hope to speak with Ben Norton soon to discuss it in more detail, and we’ll continue covering U.S. interference in Honduras, election irregularities, and the broader implications of foreign influence on democratic processes.
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