Honduras Elections 2021: Who is Nasry Asfura, the construction entrepreneur who seeks to be the new president

Also known as “Tito” and “Papi a la Orden”, the mayor of Tegucigalpa since January 2014, Nasry Asfura, is the candidate of the ruling National Party of Honduras for the elections this Sunday, which seeks to be the successor of Juan Orlando Hernandez.

Asfura is a construction businessman, of Palestinian origin, who was born on June 8, 1958 in Tegucigalpa, a city in which, as mayor, he has built many infrastructure works of steel and cement to stimulate the circulation of vehicles, giving an air of modernism to some regions of the Honduran capital.

He is the father of three daughters, he is married to Lissette Del Cid and since the end of the last century he has been holding various public positions, including alderman (councilor) of the Mayor’s Office of Tegucigalpa and minister of the Social Investment Fund, among others.

In his political campaign in search of the presidential chair, Asfura promises “work and more work”, while the bases of his Government Plan summarize them in six basic points such as “Citizen democracy, social peace and transparency; Economic development, job creation and investment attraction, and Human capital, gender equity, education and health ”.

The other pillars are “Fiscal responsibility and transparent management of public resources; Infrastructure, Housing, Water and Environment and Foreign Policy ”.

The leader of the National Party always wears blue jeans, a rolled-up shirt of the same color, and field work shoes, arguing that he is not an employee to be in a comfortable office.

He drives his own vehicle, in which he says he has traveled more than 40,000 kilometers during his campaign “listening to what the people need,” and by his own decision he has never inaugurated the works he has built with official ceremonies or speeches.

Nor has he left a plaque with his name and that of the other directors of the Mayor’s Office of Tegucigalpa in the public works built in his two terms as head of the local government, which some residents of the capital recognize and others call him a demagogue and have exceeded building. many steel and cement works.

Nasry Asfura, who professionally identifies himself only as “a bachelor”, who enrolled in the University in a career in civil engineering, but did not continue, uses old technology mobile phones, through which he attends many of his work affairs.

Some opposition sectors have been pointing out that Asfura is used as a pawn by the Honduran president, Juan Orlando Hernández, in the event of a possible possibility of continuing in power.

The mayor of the capital has denied those versions and reiterated that he seeks on his own to be the next president of Honduras, for which he asks his compatriots the vote “to work together” and “transform the country”, as he has done with the capital. .

In 2020 Asfura was singled out by a unit of the Public Ministry for alleged money laundering, fraud, embezzlement of public funds and abuse of authority, but this year a ruling by the Judiciary ruled out the possibility of taking him to trial.

Asfura has rejected the local accusations, as well as the implication in the Pandora Papers.

His challenge in Sunday’s general elections is to give the National Party its fourth consecutive term in power.

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