San Salvador, El Salvador
Reuters
Salvadorans voted on Sunday in elections expected to hand President Nayib Bukele another landslide victory, with many happy to overlook the young leader’s authoritarian drift after he crushed gang violence that had paralysed life in the poor Central American country.
Bukele, 42, appears poised to become the first Salvadoran President in almost a century to be re-elected.
Supporters of El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele of the Nuevas Ideas party, who is running for reelection, gather on the day of the presidential election in San Salvador, El Salvador, on 4th February, 2024. PICTURE: Reuters/Jose Luis Gonzalez
Wildly popular, Bukele has campaigned on the success of his security strategy under which authorities suspended civil liberties to arrest more than 75,000 Salvadorans without charges. The detentions led to a sharp decline in nationwide murder rates and transformed a country of 6.3 million people that was once among the world’s most dangerous.
But some analysts have said the mass incarceration of one per cent of the population is not a sustainable long-term strategy.
Five other presidential candidates are contesting the elections, including politicians from the former leftist guerrilla Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) and the right-wing Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA). These two traditional parties between them governed for 30 years until 2019.
Polls show most voters appear set to reward Bukele for decimating the crime groups that made life intolerable in El Salvador and fueled waves of migration to the United States.
Victor Lopez, a 65-year-old construction worker, was among the first 10 people lined up at a voting center on one of the capital San Salvador’s main avenues.
“We have to continue the changes that are happening in our country – positive changes. We have no crime, tourism has skyrocketed and other positive things,” Lopez told Reuters.
“We cannot let the corrupt people from before have power again because then the projects that the government is executing could not be executed,” Lopez added.
Pre-election polling put support in the single digits for the FMLN and ARENA candidates, with voters fed up after decades of traditional politics marked by violence and corruption.
Voting centers were plastered with Bukele’s New Ideas cyan blue, with supporters wearing celestial Nayib t-shirts. There was very little presence of support for the opposition.
“The country has changed so much, we don’t want it to fall into the hands of the past, so I’m happy to vote for him,” said Roberto Hernandez, a 46-year-old accountant in the capital. “The opposition is where it is because of its actions.”
He dismissed concerns about authoritarianism, but said Bukele needs to address the economy in a second term.
Authoritarian drift
A firebrand politician who often spars with foreign leaders and critics on social media, Bukele came to power in 2019 trouncing traditional parties with a vow to eliminate gang violence and rejuvenate a stagnant economy.
He has used his New Ideas party’s supermajority in the legislative assembly to reshape courts and institutions, solidifying his grip on key parts of the government. He also championed the introduction of Bitcoin as legal tender, drawing criticism from the International Monetary Fund.
Nuns stand in a queue at a polling station to vote during the presidential and parliamentary elections, in San Salvador, El Salvador, on 4th February, 2024. PICTURE: Reuters/Jose Cabezas
El Salvador’s Supreme Electoral Tribunal last year permitted him to run for a second term even though the country’s constitution prohibits it. Opponents voiced fears Bukele would seek to rule for life, following President Daniel Ortega from next-door Nicaragua.
Rights groups have said El Salvador’s democracy is under attack. Bukele has taken such concerns in stride, at one point changing his profile on X, the social media platform, to say: “World’s coolest dictator.”
Salvadorans seem unfazed, with polls showing about 80% of them support him.
“There is still a huge amount to do but, step by step, we will resolve entire decades of looting and neglect,” Bukele wrote on X this week, tapping into voters discontent with former political parties.
Once re-elected, Bukele’s biggest challenge is likely to be the economy, Central America’s slowest growing during his time in power. More than a quarter of Salvadorans live in poverty.
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Some voters said it was already a deciding factor.
“The economy is going to collapse, there is going to be hunger and everyone will regret voting for cyan (the colors of Bukele’s party), everything is more expensive,” said civil engineer Miguel Medina, 73, who is supporting the FMLN.
He added he was worried about critics being silenced, due process violations, and democracy.
“I don’t like that he has put a lot of people (in jail) that haven’t done anything, that is a problem,” he said. “Having a balance of power would be a triumph for us.”
Extreme poverty has doubled and private investment has tumbled under Bukele. There has not been much momentum on his highly publicized plans for Bitcoin City, a tax-free crypto haven powered by geothermal energy from a volcano.
The IMF, which is negotiating a $US1.3 billion bailout with El Salvador, in late 2023 described the country’s fiscal situation as “fragile.”
