Azcona spent the years from 1935 to 1949 living in Cantabria, Spain with his maternal grandparents.

This was the first transfer of power from one constitutional, elected president to another since 1948, and the first time it happened democratically since 1932.

While his followers and a large proportion of the population would favour him due to the perceived honesty and integrity of his government, another group would challenge this view, arguing that he pursued a weak economic policy (artificially maintaining a 2:1 exchange rate between the Honduran lempira and the US dollar), ran up large budget deficits and did little to develop investment opportunities in the country.

Many people still remember the fuel supply problems, mostly in the last part of his government due to foreign credit issues.

On 24 October 2005 at 12.30 a.m. (local time UTC−6) just as he was going to bed in his home in Tegucigalpa, Azcona died suddenly from another heart attack, at the age of 78.