El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele and his wife show off their inked ring fingers after voting in the presidential election at a polling place in San Salvador on the 4th (local time). AFP Yonhap News
landslide victory in presidential election, first ‘reappointment’
80% support ‘war on gangs’
Supreme Court filled with pro-women figures
Authoritative interpretation opens the way for re-election
“There are concerns about a dictatorship”
El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele was re-elected with an overwhelming approval rating in the presidential election held on the 4th (local time). He succeeded in being re-elected thanks to his high popularity despite the constitutional ban on reappointment, but the international community is growing concerned that El Salvador could become a dictatorship. The controversy over human rights violations by him, who declared a ‘war on gangs’ and imprisoned 1% of the population, is expected to continue.
According to Latin American media outlet Infobar, President Bukele announced through According to the initial vote count by the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE), President Bukele has an approval rating of about 83%. Neither the TSE nor the Organization of American States (OAS) election watchdog has issued an official comment on his victory.
It is observed that the ruling party ‘New Ideas (NI)’ won a landslide victory in the general election held along with the presidential election. President Bukele said, “We won at least 58 out of 60 seats in the general election,” and added, “This is the first time that there has been a (de facto) single-party system under El Salvador’s democracy.”
Bukele’s victory was a predictable result. Five candidates ran in the presidential election, but the opinion poll results so far showed that the prevailing opinion was that there was no rival to President Bukele.
President Bukele, who ran as a center-right third party candidate in the 2019 presidential election, was elected president, breaking the 30-year two-party system. In El Salvador, which was one of the countries with the highest murder rate in the world, he promoted a strong ‘war on gangs’ and enjoyed high popularity, with an approval rating of over 80% throughout his term. In fact, the number of murders, which was 105.2 per 100,000 people in 2015, plummeted to 2.4 last year. However, for this purpose, the largest prison in the Americas was built, which is raising concerns in the international community due to large-scale crackdowns and controversy over various human rights violations such as torture, beatings, and mass detention. It is reported that more than 75,000 of the 6.3 million people have been arrested since the war on gangs began in March 2022. Approximately 1% of the population and 2% of adults are detained, and the human rights organization Christosal estimates that 30% of these people are actually connected to gangs.
President Bukele has broken the ban on reappointment and is running for re-election, sparking controversy over whether El Salvador is heading toward becoming a dictatorship. When he won the 2021 general election, he replaced the Supreme Court justices with pro-Gentlemen figures, and later, the Supreme Court issued a new authoritative interpretation that bypassed the provisions of the Constitution, opening the way for him to run for re-election. For this reason, as the opposition party and the international community continued to condemn him, he described himself as “the world’s coolest dictator.”
The Associated Press commented on the results of this election, saying, “Many voters expressed (in the election) their willingness to give up some elements of democracy in order to prevent gang violence.” Tyler Matias, an Americas researcher at Human Rights Watch, said President Bukele’s popularity is “because he believes this is the only solution to the increasing violence,” adding, “There is a growing rejection of the basic principles of democracy and human rights. “People who feel that this concept has failed are supporting authoritarian populism,” he explained.
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2024-02-05 12:36:00
