As all the polls indicated, Nayib Bukele is practically assured of victory in the presidential elections held this Sunday in El Salvador.
With 31% of votes counted, the candidate of the ruling Nuevas Ideas party has overwhelming support of almost 1,300,000 votes.
At a huge distance in second position is Manuel FlowersFLMN candidate, with barely 110,000 votes.
“This day, “El Salvador has broken all the records of all democracies in the entire history of the world,” Bukele assured after knowing the first results. “Never has a project won with the number of votes we have won this day. It is literally the highest percentage in all of history.”
In a speech delivered from the National Palace before a crowd that packed the historic center of San Salvador, the president assured that, according to his data, he would have won the presidential elections with “more than 85%” of the votes.
“And not only have we won the presidency, but we have won the Legislative Assembly with at least 58 out of 60 deputies”, He stated between shouts of “Yes we could” cheered by his followers. So far, no official results of the vote to elect members of the Assembly have been published.
“It would be the first time that a single party exists in a country in a fully democratic system. The entire opposition together was pulverized. El Salvador this day has made history again,” he added.
If the trend is confirmed, Bukele will become the first president to govern the Central American country for a second consecutive term since the current Constitution was promulgated in 1983, which prohibits immediate re-election.
However, the judges of the Constitutional Chamber—elected by the Legislative Assembly in which Bukele’s party had a majority—made a controversial interpretation of the Constitution to give the green light to Bukele’s candidacy, who in December took office. a six-month license to be able to run in these elections.
Governments of other countries such as Mexico, China, Guatemala, Honduras, Panama and Paraguay publicly congratulated Bukele even when official scrutiny data was not yet available.
Beyond the result, Sunday’s day was marked by the delay in knowing counting figures and by the fact that the day closed with just over 31 votes counted.
The Supreme Electoral Tribunal justified its delay in publishing the first official results (which did not arrive until four hours after the polls closed) with the fact that some citizens were not able to vote in centers located abroad despite having arrived before the official closing time, so the organization guaranteed them that they could exercise their right.
Security and human rights
Bukele started as the clear favorite as he counted among the population some approval rates up to 90% since he assumed the presidency in 2019, according to several studies.
During his first term, violence levels were reduced to historic lows in El Salvador, which in 2015 became the country with the highest number of homicides per capita in the world and It is now one of the safest in America.
However, his “war against gangs” and the emergency regime in force in the country for almost two years also earned him thousands of accusations for arbitrary arrests of innocent people, human rights abuses and torture and deaths of hundreds of prisoners.
Since the emergency regime began, under which several constitutional rights remain suspended, more than 75,000 people were arrested for alleged links with gangs so that El Salvador became the country with the highest incarceration rate in the world.
In his victory speech, Bukele dedicated harsh words to the press and international organizations that criticized his security strategy.
“Some who do not live in our country say that Salvadorans live oppressed, that they do not want the emergency regime, that they live in fear of the government (…). The Salvadoran people spoke, not only loud and clear, but in the most forceful way in the entire history of democracy,” he said.
“If that doesn’t convince you, gentlemen journalists, gentlemen of the NGOs, of the international organizations, of the UN, the OAS… If that doesn’t convince them, nothing will convince them.”
Without a doubt, the vast majority of the Salvadoran population approves Bukele’s “iron fist” commitment. In a survey by the Francisco Gavidia University published in January, 86% said they lived safer and only 12% said that, if before it was the gangs that instilled terror, now it is the police and military who are responsible for the situation continuing. equal.
“We Salvadorans have given the example to the entire world that anything can be solved, any problem can be fixed, If there is a will to do it,” he remarked.
However, the president did not offer any specific clues for his second term.
“Now in these next five years, wait and see what we are going to do. Because we will continue doing the impossible, “We will continue to show the world the example of El Salvador,” he simply said.
The only doubt, the margin
Analysis by Leire Ventas, special envoy of BBC News Mundo to El Salvador
President Bukele’s reelection was never in doubt. The only thing that was in question was, really, his margin of victory.
This Sunday, before the official count ended, the popular and controversial politician stood on the stage in front of the National Palace, in the heart of San Salvador, and exclaimed: “Salvadorans have spoken in the most forceful way in the history of the democracy of the entire world.”
“We are the Salvadorans who decide how we Salvadorans want to govern ourselves,” he added, challenging journalists and foreign governments and international organizations, which are very critical of his methods.
“We want to be friends with everyone (…). All we ask is respect (…). What we are not going to be is his lackeys.”
In front of an ecstatic crowd, he claimed to have obtained around 85% of the votes, something that the official results will probably confirm once the records arrive from all corners of the country.
He also assured that his party, Nuevas Ideas, gained overwhelming control of the Legislative Assembly.
If so, this will guarantee the conditions to continue with its controversial security policy that has brought it so much popularity.
But its biggest challenge now is to grow the economy in a country where in the last four years 200,000 people fell into extreme poverty. And in the absence of having presented any plan, it remains to be seen how it will face such a challenge.
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