The partial count of this Sunday's presidential election (4), in El Salvador, shows that Nayib Bukele will continue to lead the national administration. With around 31.5% of the votes counted, the current president guarantees a landslide victory with 83% support from the population at the polls.
According to the opinion of the Salvadoran Supreme Electoral Court (TSE), the government party, Novas Ideias (NI), obtained 1,295,888 votes, well above the left-wing Farabundo Martí Front for National Liberation (FMLN), with 110,244 votes, and the Nationalist Republican Alliance (Arena), right-wing, with 96,700.
The “electoral success” of the current head of state of the small Central American nation is the result of his strict actions against drug trafficking and the criminal gangs that controlled different regions of the country.
In 2015, El Salvador was classified as the most dangerous country in the world, with a homicide rate that reached 106.3 homicides for every 100,000 inhabitants. This reality changed drastically after the arrival of Bukele, in 2019, who decreed a national state of exception and began a fierce fight against organized crime.
His government's first major action came in 2022, after a massacre led by a criminal organization, which resulted in the deaths of 87 people. As a result, the Salvadoran leader decreed a federal state of emergency, suspending citizens' rights, a measure that remains in force and is expected to last, at least, until March of this year.
After strict measures against crime, the homicide rate fell to 7.8 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants in the same year. In 2023, this rate reached just 1.7 homicides per 100,000, according to official statistics.
Furthermore, the creation of the Terrorism Confinement Center (Cecot), the mega-prison of the Americas, was another big step towards consolidating its war on crime. According to information from the Ministry of Infrastructure of El Salvador, the prison is intended for leaders of criminal factions such as Barrio 18 and Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13), the largest operating in the country, and has already received more than 70 thousand prisoners in the country. last year.
Bukele's administration also restricted several constitutional rights, including those of defense and freedom of association and movement, initiating a series of police operations that arrested thousands of criminals across the country. Such security-oriented actions have earned it an exorbitant 90% popularity.
The Salvadoran nation's changing outlook has attracted major foreign investors, such as JPMorgan, who have created interest in the country's bonds. Furthermore, the new government gave a turnaround in tourism, which in 2023 recorded more than 30% growth, compared to the previous year, with a total of 3.2 million visitors, transforming its capital, São Salvador, and other regions before taken by crime, in places that are safe for the population.
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