Salvadorans went to the polls this Sunday to decide whether or not the president, Nayib Bukele, will continue in office for another consecutive term.
The day took place in the midst of a state of exception and with questions about the immediate re-election of the president who enjoys high popular approval.
Bukele's New Ideas party is expected to win 57 of the 60 seats in the Legislative Assembly, which are also elected in these elections, a figure that could rise with the votes of Salvadorans abroad.
Some 24,000 National Police agents and more than 3,000 national and foreign observers were deployed for the ten-hour day in which the participation of up to 5.5 million Salvadorans was projected.
[The re-election of Nayib Bukele in El Salvador is almost certain. But what will he do with his new mandate?]
The polls opened, in many places, minutes late.
Candidates from the opposition parties denounced anomalies in the integration of some of the Vote Receiving Boards in the 1,595 centers.
"We denounce that in some voting centers nationwide new ideas in complicity with the bodies of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal and Prosecutor's Office, imposed people who were not accredited, replacing those who had credentials or were assigned," said deputy Anabel Belloso, from the leftist Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN).
The president of the electoral court, Dora Esmeralda Martínez, ordered the local electoral authorities to allow the entry and development of the functions that correspond to the citizens who were selected to join the voting boards.
Salvadorans went to the polls this Sunday to elect their president.Salvador Melendez / AP
Despite questions about his candidacy for contravening the constitutional prohibition that prevents immediate re-election, Bukele, 42, enjoys a high percentage of popularity among Salvadorans compared to the other five candidates for power.
He is the first president of the democratic stage of El Salvador with the option of seeking immediate re-election and, if he wins, he would be the first to repeat the position.
The path to re-election opened in 2021, when the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court, which had been appointed by the ruling majority Congress without following the legal procedure, changed a criterion for interpreting the Constitution.
With more than 80% of the voting intention, according to three recent surveys from two universities and the Fundaungo organization, the president was far ahead of his opponents, who have achieved percentages of less than 5%.
Manuel 'El Chino' Flores, had 4.2%;
Joel Sánchez, of the right-wing Nationalist Republican Alliance (Arena), 3.4%;
Luis Parada, from Nuestro Tiempo, 2.5%;
Javier Renderos, from Fuerza Solidara 1.1% and Marina Murillo from the Salvadoran Patriotic Fraternity 1%.
"I believe that at this point this is already defined. It is very difficult for anyone to compete with (Bukele)," said political scientist Álvaro Artiga, professor of Political Science at the José Simeón Cañas Central American University (UCA), directed by Jesuits.
Artiga affirms that "there is a kind of cult of the ruler everywhere" and an example is the sales of crafts and items, where Bukele's face predominates.
José Dionisio Serrano, 60, expressed pride in being the first person in line, at a school converted into a voting center, in an area previously controlled by gangs.
Serrano, a soccer coach, said that he will vote for Bukele and his Nuevas Ideas party.
"We need to continue changing, transforming. We have lived through very difficult stages of life, the truth is. As a citizen I have lived through stages of war, and with this situation that we live with the gangs. Now we have a great opportunity for our country. I want the generations to come will live in a better world," he said.
He has lived in the Mejicanos area most of his life, but had to flee a few years ago when members of the Barrio 18 gang threatened him and shot him in the foot.
So much so that he is still afraid to call her by her name, calling her "the one with the numbers."
Asked about criticism of Bukele because he is seeking re-election despite a constitutional prohibition, he responded: "they are stone laws, they are laws that the same man has made. But really what the people want is something else."
In Santa Tecla, Manuel Santillana, 62, watched with his wife the preparations for the opening of voting at the Marcelino García Flamenco School Center.
"We are ready to vote, it is a duty we have to our country," said Santillana.
"You have to tell the truth, everything is calm, without problems, tell the truth," he added.
[El Salvador admits “mistakes” in its war against gangs but Bukele will not stop it if he is re-elected]
Another voter, José Salvador Torres, stated that he was satisfied with the situation in the country.
"I already voted, to comply, I'm going to calmly wait for the results, although
we all know who is going to win
," said Torres, 45, a construction worker who before voting said: "I come to vote for myself." presi (president)".
T-shirts and scarves with the image of President Nayib Bukele are sold during the presidential and legislative elections.YURI CORTEZ / AFP via Getty Images
Bukele's popularity is underpinned by the change in the security environment that, according to citizen opinion surveys, the Central American country is experiencing.
In the past, El Salvador was designated as one of the most violent in the world.
Now, more than 80% of the population believes that the situation has improved.
For almost two years, the country has been living under an emergency regime that is renewed month by month at the request of Bukele in Congress and that involves the suspension of fundamental citizen rights such as the right to a lawyer or the right to be informed of the reasons for the arrest.
Under this context, more than 76,000 people have been imprisoned — 90% are without a judicial sentence — and although this strategy has been widely questioned by human rights organizations, it constitutes the foundations of the heavy-handed policy that Bukele proposed to fight against crime and gangs in his last years in office.
A voter waited at a Vote Receiving Board in Panchimalco, San Salvador.Alex Peña / Getty Images
The opposition candidates have also seen the economic support they received diminished since, according to analysts, the business groups that for decades have had influence in the state apparatus, are now close to President Bukele because they have found the opportunity to do business.
Much of the campaign has focused on digital media.
In some cases, because the parties do not have resources for traditional promotion and in others, as a media strategy.
Bukele has limited himself to publishing messages on social networks, where millions follow him.
He has not appeared in any public event, nor in interviews on television or newspapers.
"The majority of people are informed about social networks. They believe more in a YouTuber or an influencer than in a journalist," said Omar Serrano, vice-rector of Social Projection at the UCA, when presenting a recent study of electoral opinion by the UCA. .
"We are facing an electoral campaign and absolutely unequal elections," Serrano stressed.
"Probably the most asymmetrical elections we have had since the peace agreements. It is a matter of one, practically, there is an abysmal difference."
With information from the
EFE agencies
and
The Associated Press.