In Election by His Own Rules, Four-Fifths of Salvadorans Give Bukele a Second Term

Over 97 percent of Salvadorans in the U.S. voted for Nayib Bukele, who claimed a commanding electoral victory Sunday with over 80 percent of total votes. Opposition parties have been reduced to a minimum, capping an unconstitutional process totally controlled by the ruling party.



Carlos Barrera

Monday, February 5, 2024
Roman Gressier and José Luis Sanz

“According to our numbers, we have won the presidential election with more than 85 percent of votes, and a minimum of 58 out of 60 deputies in the Assembly.”

It was Nayib Bukele who broke the news over X at 6:56 on Sunday night: He won. By a stratospheric margin only seen in recent elections in Cuba, or Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.

It is fair to say, too, that in Guatemala in 1944, Juan José Arévalo, Bernardo Arevalo’s father, won with 86.3 percent.

The numbers reduce any partisan opposition to irrelevance in decision-making. And just as transcendentally, Bukele self-proclaimed victory without awaiting any official result.

Yesterday, the TSE that signed off on Bukele’s unconstitutional reelection bid had its worst performance since El Salvador recovered its democracy. Dozens of polling center volunteers reported that official computers were double- or triple-logging ballots, that paper was missing to make copies of the vote count, and that the heads of voting centers —most of them from ruling party Nuevas Ideas— kept the only copy.

More:
https://elfaro.net/en/202402/el_salvador/27235/in-election-by-his-own-rules-four-fifths-of-salvadorans-give-bukele-a-second-term