Yoseline Pineda ran out of all her newspapers in a few hours. The saleswoman, who is 18 years old and has been distributing press throughout the historic center of San Salvador for three years, believes that this Monday was her fastest sale; Nobody wants to be left without a copy of it. “Bukele re-elected!”, “Bukele president!” shout the covers with the photo of the president and his wife, Gabriela Rodríguez, in the presidential palace in the capital. Nayib Bukele left on Sunday after ten at night to announce himself as the winner of the elections, without waiting for the official results. The president said that he had obtained 85% of the votes and 58 of the 60 deputies in the Assembly, according to his own numbers.
Traces of the party remain in Gerardo Barrios Square. A floor painted with white and blue confetti the color of Bukele's party, Nuevas Ideas. The balcony where the president came out to announce that “it will be the first time that there is a single party in a fully democratic system” because “the opposition has been pulverized” is now bricked up. The president does not live there, but in a private residence guarded by the Army, called Los Sueños.
Even with the workers dismantling the stage, René Chavarría takes a photo with the facade of the national palace. He didn't have time to come on Sunday night to celebrate, but he “had his heart here,” so he came first thing in the morning. “The president is setting an example for the world,” he says. After 44 years living in the United States, he is thinking for the first time about returning to stay: “I am rediscovering my country, doing tourism, thanks to the president's wise way of handling the situation.”
In March 2022, Bukele established an emergency regime under which he has dismantled the gangs and detained 76,000 people. Human rights organizations have presented 6,000 appeals to the Constitutional Court to free innocent people. Meanwhile, the country has changed its face: the cities have been protected by security and homicides have plummeted. That has been Bukele's message to run for re-election that is prohibited in the Constitution of El Salvador: “We have gone from being the homicide capital to being the safest country in the Western Hemisphere.”
Sonia was left almost without sleep to be able to watch the president's speech. The woman wakes up at three in the morning to get to her job as a cleaner in a hotel in the capital, which is about 20 kilometers from her house. “But she was worth the sleepless night,” she says excitedly as she smilingly shows her finger stained with her vote. In the tangled streets of her neighborhood, shootings and corpses left by the gangs were common. She didn't sleep every time her children left the house to go to school. Now “everything is calm,” she says.
Plaza Libertad, in the center of San Salvador, is full. Dozens of people spend the morning on the stone benches. Many are unemployed, they wait in the park because sometimes work comes up there: someone who needs their house cleaned, a garden fixed, or their sink repaired appears. Some carry their work tools and backpacks for when the opportunity arises. Unlike in other areas, there is no party in the park. “Yesterday I was at the polls and I couldn't find anyone to vote for,” says Pablo Castro, 63, who summarizes the corruption established by the old majority parties, ARENA, on the right, and the FMLN, on the left, and led the country into despair. “A champion emerged, who said that's it to the gang members and that's fine, we needed him, but power in one hand intoxicates, exalts. A dictatorship of a new elite is being established here. Meanwhile, the Salvadoran reality is in the parks,” says this sociologist, 63 years old and with a sad look, who has been without a formal job for a decade, and is waiting to see if something does appear today, even if it is temporary.
In the Bukele Government, extreme poverty has almost doubled, from 4.5% to 8.5%, according to the El Salvador Multipurpose Household Survey. Food inflation has reached up to 16%, which has led to the economy being the first concern of Salvadorans in all the surveys carried out during the political campaign. Unemployment, the high cost of living and poverty followed. Raúl Domínguez, 32, has voted for Bukele because he has done a good job, but he believes that his re-election is unconstitutional. He also believes that now, without gangs, the president must worry about maintaining the network of schools and hospitals, “abandoned and without investment.” Bukele has won and celebrated, but after the party, he goes back to work.
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