His advantage was so great that Nayib Bukele did not even wait for official results to proclaim his long-awaited and resounding victory in the elections that will allow him to be president of El Salvador for five more years.
Hours later and with 70% of the vote, the candidate of the ruling Nuevas Ideas party was confirmed to have overwhelming support of more than 1.6 million votes.
At a huge distance in second position is Manuel Flores, FLMN candidate, with 139,000 votes.
The opposition could do nothing in the face of the overwhelming popularity of the president, who in his first government managed to make El Salvador one of the safest countries in America although he also received accusations of serious human rights abuses.
“This day, El Salvador “It 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.”
Bukele will thus remain in power for another five years and 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 and finally gave the green light to his candidacy.
“Now, in these next five years, wait and see what we are going to do. Because we will continue to do the impossible, we will continue to show the world the example of El Salvador,” she said.
But what were the main keys for Bukele, considered the most popular president in Latin America, has achieved a historic electoral result?
1. Greater security (among complaints of human rights violations)
Without a doubt, the main key to Bukele’s victory is having reduced levels of violence to historic lows during his first government in El Salvador, which in 2015 became the country with the highest number of homicides per capita in the world.
Since the emergency regime for the country was approved in March 2022, more than 75,000 people have been arrested for alleged links to the gangs that for decades terrorized Salvadorans and that, currently, are practically dismantled.
Security returned to most of the country. Salvadorans claim that they can move freely between areas that previously had “invisible borders” as they were controlled by rival gangs. Merchants and businessmen stopped suffering from extortion and other countries were interested in replicating Bukele’s “iron fist” model.
“This place wasn’t safe at all until the president did that.” [el estado de emergencia]. “I think it was the best decision and that he is the best president who has ever existed,” a young woman named Dennise told BBC Mundo last year on a visit to La Campanera, a neighborhood that was previously one of the most dangerous in the capital. San Salvador.
However, the fact that some constitutional rights are suspended during the emergency regime caused the government to receive thousands of accusations for arbitrary arrests of innocent people, human rights abuses, violations of due process and torture and deaths of hundreds of prisoners.
Since this controversial measure came into effect, the number of people in prison has tripled and the country reached the highest incarceration rate in the world. Currently, two out of every 100 adult Salvadorans are in prison.
Bukele denied the criticism and accusations against his government. But last August, the government said 7,000 detainees had been released.
“When you manage an operation of this size, there could be a mistake and people could be detained without having any ties to the gangs,” the Salvadoran vice president admitted last year. Felix Ulloa, in an interview with the BBC. “As they say, the perfect is the enemy of the good,” she justified.
Bessy Rios, Salvadoran political analyst and lawyer, affirms that Bukele managed to control the gangs in a “very impressive” way, but at “a high cost to society.”
“The quid pro quo of ‘I give you security in exchange for your human rights’ has worked for the Executive. And it is unfortunate because people should understand that the State cannot extort you and give you one thing in exchange for another: “It must guarantee you both human rights and security,” he tells BBC Mundo.
2. High popularity and “image change” for the country
Despite these criticisms, Bukele is still considered the most popular president in Latin America with an approval rating of up to 90% according to several studies, so there was little doubt that his electoral results would be overwhelming.
Along with his highly valued image in El Salvador, another of the keys to his success was the transformation of the country that Bukele strove to transfer to an international level. And one of the first global headlines made by the country was when he became the first in the world to adopt bitcoin as legal tender in 2021.
Bukele admitted that his risky bet on cryptocurrency — whose use today on the country’s streets is totally anecdotal — would also serve as a “makeover” for a country that until then was only internationally recognized for its violence.
The president adopted other initiatives to draw attention to El Salvador and convey its new reality. Thus, it became the venue for major events such as Miss Universe or the Central American and Caribbean Games. He also received a visit from Lionel Messi’s Inter Miami to play against his national soccer team.
Tourism began to be interested in traveling to a place to which it previously paid little attention. Last year, San Salvador airport increased its annual number of passengers by 32%, and the country ranked as the fifth in the world in which the arrival of international tourists increased the most (40%) compared to 2019, according to the World Tourism Organization.
In addition, the country recently witnessed the construction of large megaprojects financed by China such as the new National Stadium or the impressive National Library, a large seven-story, 24,000 m2 glass urn that has been operating 24 hours a day, every day of the year since its inauguration. in November.
However, despite these image changes, Improving the economy will continue to be Bukele’s great challenge in this new mandate.
“Although he has controlled the violence and held these events of international stature, he has not managed to achieve a miracle or economic takeoff. His bet to boost the economy is tourism, but today that has not been seen. In fact, in El Salvador the miracle continues to be done by women who manage to feed their families with the same budget,” says analyst Ríos.
Indeed, according to FAO data from 2020 to 2022, more than 48% of the Salvadoran population suffered from food insecurity that led them to not eat enough due to rising prices. The basic basket became more expensive by an average of almost US$54 between 2019 and October 2023, despite the fact that the minimum wage in El Salvador is US$365.
3. An opposition on the verge of extinction
In addition to the achievements made during Bukele’s first government, another key to his success is the fact that the opposition against him is in an extremely weakened situation and without options to confront it.
In the elections five years ago, the president managed to break with the traditional two-party system that historically governed El Salvador since the end of its civil war.
And this Sunday, the candidates of those two formations (FMLN and Arena) were an abysmal distance away from Bukele in the results count, like the rest of the opposition candidates for the presidency.
Several factors played against him. Aside from the president’s overwhelming popularity, Bukele insisted during the campaign on warning about what could happen if the country returned to the past.
“With just one less representative, we would lose that majority and put the war against the gangs at risk. (…) The opposition will be able to achieve its true and only plan: “free the gang members and occupy them to return to power,” he said in a message posted on his social networks.
Another obstacle for the opposition is the fact that the Assembly in which Bukele’s party has a majority approved reducing the number of deputies from 84 to 60 for this new legislature and adopting the D’Hondt formula to distribute the seats. which favors the majority parties. In this case to yours, New Ideas.
Its defenders assure that the measure aims to save costs on bureaucracy and promote transparency, but critics emphasize that it is only a tactic by Bukele to maintain greater control over the Assembly.
Furthermore, the parties did not receive the political debt from the Ministry of Finance, which is the public financing mechanism for the electoral process that is calculated based on the votes received in the previous elections, so they practically did not have funds to carry out their campaigns and convey their proposals to citizens.
In fact, according to pre-election surveys, between 65 and 85% of the population admitted not knowing the five candidates who presented themselves as a presidential alternative to Bukele.
And although in recent years there were several opposition parties that considered uniting to confront Bukele’s overwhelming popularity, the option of a single candidacy ended up being shipwrecked.
“The most important challenge for the opposition is to become an option, because although there are people upset with the emergency regime and other irregularities, that does not make them return to the arms of the traditional parties but rather they prefer not to vote,” says Ríos.
“And that is dangerous, because people do not have them as an option and are hopeless (…). They should put aside their personal agendas and partisan interests to be able to form a single common front, because just as they are separated, it is not going to happen,” he concludes.
Click here to read more stories from BBC News World.
And remember that you can receive notifications. Download the latest version of our app and activate them so you don’t miss our best content.
- Do you already know our YouTube channel? Subscribe!