El Salvador: Bukele Reelected in Landslide Victory
The Salvadoran president and his Nuevas Ideas party now have a blank check to wield unlimited power.
By Circles Robinson
HAVANA TIMES – With the country under a State of Exception to combat gang violence, Nayib Bukele was declared the winner with 70% of the votes counted.
Based on his exit polls, Bukele, 42, claimed victory shortly after the polls closed instead of waiting for any preliminary returns from the Electoral Tribunal.
With just over two-thirds of the votes tallied -as the electoral authorities had to manually process the voting results when the automated system failed- Bukele had 83% of the votes. Five other parties divided up the remaining 17% with the FMLN receiving nearly 7% and Arena 6%, the parties that governed between the 1992 peace accords and 2019 when Bukele won his first term.
In the legislative elections Bukele claimed his Nuevas Ideas party won 58 of the 60 seats cementing a new period with no effective opposition to his government.
While there were claims of irregularities in the vote tabulation process, due to technical problems according to the Electoral authorities, by Monday morning 70% of the votes cast were tallied.
The Tribunal’s difficulties added to numerous government abuses of authority in recent weeks, noted El Faro online. On Sunday, the purportedly nonpartisan voting stations were all comprised of members of Bukele’s Nuevas Ideas, and the ruling party repeatedly violated rules against campaigning on election day and at voting sites.
Bukele’s extreme popularity stems from the increased citizen security after curtailing most of the gang violence and extorsion of businesses through massive incarceration of mostly young males. The trade-off has been seeing civil liberties and due process suspended under the State of Exception in force since March 2022.
The president and his party now have a blank check to wield unlimited power.