Salvadorans are already voting in elections that
are expected to give reelection and greater power to President Nayib Bukele
, applauded for putting ruthless gangs behind bars with a relentless "war" that suspended civil liberties.
Bukele, a 42-year-old former publicist, is almost guaranteed a second five-year term,
with an overwhelming popularity of 90%
and no major adversaries, and could even annihilate the opposition in the new 60-seat Congress, which he already comfortably controls. .
In a vote for the first time under a state of emergency since the civil war ended in 1992, some 6.2 million Salvadorans, 740,000 of them abroad, are called to vote in a ten-hour day
that will close at 8 p.m. Argentina.
Relieved with the tranquility that came to their neighborhoods previously taken over by the violent Mara Salvatrucha and Barrio 18 gangs,
Salvadorans applaud Bukele's "iron fist" policy
, even at the cost of granting some freedoms.
"Security has improved, before not everyone could be here. I hope this continues and the economic situation improves," Santos de Martínez, a 66-year-old housewife, told AFP after voting in La Campanera ( northeast of the capital San Salvador), once a bastion of Barrio 18.
After a bloody weekend with 87 deaths, Bukele
imposed a state of emergency in March 2022 that totaled almost 76,000 detainees
and reduced murders to historic lows (officially 2.4 per 100,000 inhabitants in 2023) in the previously It was the country with the highest rate of criminal violence in the world.
But organizations such as Amnesty International (AI) and Human Rights Watch (HRW)
denounce arbitrary arrests, torture and deaths in prison
.
Some 7,000 innocent people were freed, but many imprisoned were left unable to communicate with their families.
An image alluding to President Nayib Bukele displayed in a cafeteria in San Salvador (El Salvador).Photo EFE
Its power is immense.
Bukele, of Palestinian descent and who mocks his critics who call him a "dictator",
controls, in addition to Parliament, the justice system, the Prosecutor's Office and the rest of the state apparatus.
Magistrates renewed by that Congress interpreted the Constitution in his favor and, despite reelection being prohibited, allowed him to run for a new mandate, to which analysts and opponents
assure that his candidacy is unconstitutional.
Today, the opposition is in pieces
.
Its five candidates barely appear in the polls, including those of the leftist Farabundo Martí Front (FMLN), Manuel Flores, and the right-wing Nationalist Republican Alliance (Arena), Joel Sánchez.
"With another five years, he will have enough time to consolidate a hegemonic party dynamic," commented political scientist Álvaro Artiga, from the Central American University (UCA).
Very sure of his re-election, the most popular president in Latin America, according to a regional survey,
has not even asked for the vote for him.
Stirring fear that the gangs will return, he asked to vote for his Nuevas Ideas party and not lose a single one of the 56 seats it has in the outgoing legislature of 84 deputies, so as not to put the war against the gangs at risk.
A voting center in Soyapango, El Salvador.
Photo Bloomberg
This millennial regular on social media
, who dresses in jeans and a sweater, with a trimmed beard and gelled hair, came to power in 2019 with 53% of the votes, promising change to a population fed up with the Arena-FMLN bipartisanship that did not resolve the issues. problems of insecurity and poverty.
"After security, now we are concerned about the high cost of living, that is the great challenge," former president of the Central Bank, Carlos Acevedo, told AFP.
29% of the 6.5 million Salvadorans living in the country are poor,
according to ECLAC, and many continue to emigrate to the United States in search of work.
Some 3 million live abroad and send remittances worth 8 billion dollars annually, vital for the local population.
"Apart from security, I would like them to increase the educational aspect
. It is quite important, especially for youth who expect better opportunities," said Isabel Argueta, 20, at the voting center on the capital's Olímpica Avenue, where she will vote. Bukele.
Even with everything and his popularity, the president did not manage to get Salvadorans to use the bitcoin that in 2021 he imposed as legal tender in a dollarized economy, according to him, to boost it.
With between five and seven million followers on the X networks, Tiktok, Instagram and Facebook, Bukele, married to psychologist Gabriela Rodríguez and father of two girls, also promotes megaprojects and tourism in "the safest country in Latin America."
Source: AFP and EFE
P.B.