The population of El Salvador goes to the polls this Sunday (4) to choose the new president, vice-president and deputies of the Legislative Assembly, the country's unicameral Parliament. The current president (who is on leave from office) and candidate for re-election, Nayib Bukele, who is running for the New Ideas party, appears as the favorite in the polls to remain head of state, with more than 80% of voting intentions.
Bukele is running in this election after El Salvador made controversial changes to the country's law and judicial system – which still has a Constitution that prohibits re-election. In order for the current president's entry into this year's dispute to be accepted, the Constitutional Chamber of the country's Supreme Court of Justice, whose members were practically appointed by Bukele's base in Parliament, reinterpreted articles of the Constitution and imposed his resignation as a single condition. from the position of president six months before the electoral race, a measure accepted by Bukele. The opposition and some human rights organizations criticized the decision.
At 42 years old, Bukele is considered the most popular president in Latin America, with an approval rating of over 90%. Nine out of ten Salvadorans approve of the president. Such popularity is due to his government's fight against organized crime that practically controlled the Central American country.
In 2015, El Salvador was considered the most violent country in the world, with a homicide rate of 106.3 for every 100,000 inhabitants. In 2023, the last year of Bukele's first administration, which began in 2019, this rate fell to 2.4 per 100,000 inhabitants, the lowest in three decades.
Throughout Bukele's first administration, El Salvador also recorded around 518 days without homicides, according to official data. “With just one deputy less than Novas Ideias [no Parlamento]the opposition will be able to achieve its true and only plan: freeing the gangsters [como são chamados os membros das gangues] and use them to return to power,” Bukele said in a message posted on social media, asking the population to “protect advances in security” by voting for his party’s deputies for the disputed seats in the Legislative Assembly.
As polls indicate, Bukele's party, which is competing for seats against 9 other parties, is expected to reach almost an absolute majority in the Salvadoran Parliament, winning 57 of the 60 seats being contested. El Salvador recently reduced the number of deputies in its Legislative Branch from 84 to 60, as well as the number of municipalities from 262 to 44. In fact, voting for the election of municipal rulers will take place on March 3rd.
More than 5 million people are expected to go to the polls this Sunday, as this is the number of individuals who are officially registered to exercise their right to vote, which is done using paper ballots inserted into common ballot boxes. You must be over 18 years old to participate in elections in El Salvador, where voting is not mandatory and there are no sanctions for those who do not show up at polling stations. In the last presidential election, only 51% of the population registered to vote exercised their right to vote.
Those over 18 whose residence is registered in El Salvador must consult their voting center on the website of the country's Supreme Electoral Court (TSE), the body responsible for organizing the elections. The polls to choose the new president will be open from 7am local time (10am Brasília time) and will close at 5pm [20h pelo horário de
Brasília]. Salvadorans residing outside the country will also be able to exercise their right to vote.
To win in the first round, one of the candidates must obtain 50% of the votes plus one in their favor. If none reach this percentage, there will be a second round with a date yet to be defined between the two best placed.
The presidential candidates of the opposition parties in these elections are Manuel Flores, from the leftist Farabundo Martí Front for National Liberation (FMLN); Joel Sánchez, from the right-wing Nationalist Republican Alliance party (Arena); Luis Parada, from the progressive Nosso Tempo party (NT); Javier Renderos, from the center-right party Força Solidária (FS); and Marina Murillo, the only woman in the race, who is running for the right-wing Salvadoran Patriotic Fraternity (FPS) party.
The opposition candidates for the presidency, who together are still unable to reach half of Bukele's voting intentions and have little sympathy from the population, have participated in recent weeks in various programs to try to promote their electoral proposals and denounce what they call the “campaign of fear” that is being promoted by the government candidate, who preferred to carry out his entire campaign through social media, where he has a high number of followers. Bukele's opponents are betting their chips on economic proposals, but without ignoring the country's achievements in public security.
If the polls are confirmed and Bukele wins his second term as president, he will become the first Salvadoran leader in the country's recent history to achieve this feat, precisely because the Constitution does not allow for re-election. The last leader of the country who managed to remain in power for two consecutive terms was General Maximiliano Hernández Martínez, who governed El Salvador from 1935 to 1944.
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