El Salvador Perspectives

  El Salvador is at the end of its first three years with  a Legislative Assembly controlled by Nayib Bukele and his Nuevas Ideas (NI) party.  These were three years which had a dramatic impact on Salvadoran democracy.  Here are some of the major steps of the NI-controlled Assembly: 1. Deposed the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Judicial Court .  On its first day in power, May 1, 2021, the NI-controlled Assembly removed all of the magistrates of the Constitutional Chamber, the country's highest judicial authority. It removed the magistrates all at once, without giving them notice or the opportunity to be heard.  2.  Appointed new friendly judges to the Constitutional Chamber.    On the same night it purged the Chamber, the Assembly elected a new slate of judges completely ignoring the process in the constitution for appointing new judges. 3.  Deposed the attorney general .   Still on the same night that the Asse...

Counting votes in Antiguo Cuscatlán In yesterday's election of mayors, Nuevas Ideas appears to have captured 28 municipal governments out of 44 in the newly-gerrymandered maps. (Two of those in coalition with CD).   This total probably came as a surprise to many, in light of Nuevas Ideas dominating showing in last month's presidential and Legislative Assembly elections.  With 78% of the vote nationally counted as of 7:30 Monday morning,  other parties in the lead to win municipalities included GANA(6), PDC (4), PCN (3), Fuerza Solidaria (1), ARENA (1) and a coalition of PDC/PCN (1).  The FMLN was left out of control of any municipality for the first time since it became a political party at the end of the civil war in 1992. Turnout at the polls was low . Perhaps the reason was that people felt disconnected from the new mega-municipalities.  Or these elections may have had less energy without the charismatic energy of Nayib Bukele.  Bukele did not use ...

On Sunday March 3, Salvadorans will go to the polls for the second set of national elections in a month.   In these elections, Salvadorans will elect their mayors and will elect deputies of the Central American Parliament.  (PARLACEN). Three years ago Salvadorans elected mayors in 262 different municipalities.  However, in a measure passed 8 months ago, the Legislative Assembly consolidated those 262 municipalities into only 44 municipalities at the directive of Nayib Bukele.  The old municipalities are now "districts" within the 44 new mega-municipalities which have memorable names like San Salvador East and La Libertad South.   The new municipalities and the districts which make them up are shown at this link .   This reduction in the number of local government bodies was gerrymandering on a dramatic scale.   One analyst portrayed the impact of the change using results from the last elections in 2021. Using the votes cast for may...

The troubled vote count for Legislative Assembly in El Salvador ended today.   Nayib Bukele's absolute control over the legislature was solidified as a product of elections conducted under rules changed for the express purpose of benefitting Nuevas Ideas. Results are here . In the Legislative Assembly elections, on a nationwide basis, Nuevas Ideas was not as popular as its leader Bukele. The party received 71% of the popular vote compared to his 83% in the presidential election. However, because of a series of election law changes passed at the last minute in June 2023, the party will obtain 54 seats, equal to 90% of the 60 seat Legislative Assembly.   How did 71% of the votes turn into 90% of the deputies? It's a matter of election engineering through changing mathematical formulas.  Let me explain.  A year ago, Salvadorans thought they knew the rules of the game for the coming national elections. After all, the country had a law on the books which stated ...

In El Salvador's Adolfo Pineda National Gymnasium, 300 work tables have been set up to tabulate  results for the election of seats in the Legislative Assembly.  Boxes of ballots from all over the country are brought to the facility, where ballots are reviewed and the results "digitized" to produce election results through a process called the "escrutinio final" or "final scrutiny."     However, election observers, the press, and opposition party representatives have been denouncing a wide variety of anomalies and discrepancies in the process.       Each position in the gym works to tabulate the results from individual votes placed into the ballot box at a "Junta Receptora de Votos" or JRV.   Citizens throughout the country were assigned in groups of 700 for each JRV to cast their votes.   (This does not apply to voting from abroad for the diaspora which was a different process, and for which we do not know how those vote...

On Friday, February 9, El Salvador's Supreme Electoral Tribunal announced the final results of the presidential election.  We already knew Bukele had won in a landslide, the only real question was the exact margin of victory. With turnout around 52%, Nayib Bukele won with 82.7% of the votes: The votes for Legislative Assembly have not yet been counted . The announcement of the final results in Bukele's unconstitutional reelection came on the 4th anniversary of Bukele's first major step towards asserting authoritarian power in the county.  On February 9, 2020, Nayib Bukele sent armed troops ahead of himself into the Legislative Assembly.   He was demanding that the Assembly, then controlled by parties other than Nuevas Ideas, approve a loan package to buy military equipment.  As Bukele sat himself down at the place of the president of the Assembly, with his troops ringing the legislative chamber, Bukele sent a clear message that he wanted an  Assembly subs...

Just a short post today with links to election observation reports from multiple organizations which provided election observers during Sunday's elections and the process leading up to it.   As of Wednesday night, a recount had commenced for all of the ballots for Legislative Assembly as well as a portion of the presidential ballots where vote tallies had not been previously completed. There are growing concerns about the ability of the TSE to guarantee the credibility of final results when they do appear.  An audio recording of a private meeting between the TSE and political party leaders obtained by El Faro included a suggestion by the chair fo the TSE that there might have been internal sabotage of the computer systems to tally and transmit votes.  Meanwhile the start of the recount of presidential ballots finally got underway hours late at a hotel in San Salvador. Some are now calling for the election to be redone on March 3, when national elections for municipa...

Tweny-four hours after polls closed in El Salvador's national elections, criticism is mounting for the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) after an ongoing breakdown in its ability to provide preliminary election results. Results published on the site of the TSE were last updated at 5:34 in the morning El Salvador time, showing Bukele garnering 83% of the votes after 70% of the voting table results had been processed.  Almost none of the Legislative Assembly results had been processed.   While there is still no doubt that Bukele won in a landslide, the exact size of his victory and the number of seats his Nuevas Ideas party will hold are still not known. The vote tallies displayed on the TSE website had inconsistencies which led most observers to doubt their credibility. During the course of the day Monday, the TSE issued a communique asking the election boards in each department to promptly deliver all the ballots and election materials to the central facilities of the TS...

El Salvador held elections on Sunday for president and for deputies to the country's Legislative Assembly.  Easily cruising to reelection was Nayib Bukele, the country's millennial president, first elected to a five year term in 2019.  He was re-elected despite six provisions in the constitution which prohibit a president of El Salvador from serving two successive terms.  High court judges, put in place by Bukele's Nuevas Ideas party when it got control of the country's congress in 2021, gave him a path to ignore those constitutional prohibitions.   At the time of writing this post, 31.5% of the votes for president had been counted, and Bukele led with 83% of the votes.   The next closet candidate was Chino Flores from the FMLN with 7.1% of the vote. [UPDATE:   As of 7:15 Monday morning El Salvador time, there are no preliminary results in the elections after the system for transmitting results from voting centers to the TSE was producing an...

The international press has turned its attention to little El Salvador, despite everything else going on in the world.   My newsfeed is overflowing with articles discussing the Bukele phenomenon in the days before Sunday's election.   Here is just a selection: A Brutal Crime Crackdown Is Emboldening Leaders Across Latin America  (Bloomberg) Why the 'world's coolest dictator' is on course for a landslide win in El Salvador  (NPR) Gangsters in El Salvador are terrified of strongman Nayib Bukele  (The Economist) The ‘cult’ of Bukele: El Salvador’s bitcoin-loving strongman heads for second term  (Financial Times) El Salvador’s Bukele has everyone’s attention as he seeks reelection in spite of the constitution  (AP) El Salvador’s vice president discusses controversial crackdown on gangs, upcoming election  (PBS NewsHour) ‘Trapped in this hell’: How one El Salvador town transformed under Bukele  (AlJazeera) He Cracked Down on Gangs and Ri...

El Salvador now has a gleaming new national library in the center of San Salvador, courtesy of a donation by China.   The modern structure is located on Plaza Barrios in the historic center of the capital city, next to the old National Palace and directly across from the Metropolitan Cathedral.  President Nayib Bukele holds the building up as a symbol of the new El Salvador under his rule.    I had a tour of the library during the second week of January.  Although seven weeks had passed since the opening of the library to the general public, visitors still needed to wait outside on a weekday morning in a long queue to gain admittance through a guided tour.  Tours were given by smiling young people with internships, including tours given in English to foreign tourists who might want to see Bukele's library.   The first floors you encounter in the library are dedicated to children's books and learning from the earliest ages.  In addition t...