SAN SALVADOR.- The Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) of El Salvador confirmed the victory of President Nayib Bukele in last Sunday’s elections with 82.66% of the votes.
“With one hundred percent of the minutes scrutinized,” “the data for each contending party for this presidential election is as follows: Nuevas Ideas party, 2,701,725, with a percentage of 82.66,” reported the president of the TSE, Dora Esmeralda Martínez, at a press conference.
Martínez declared that, in fulfilling its functions, “the Court, once again, has respected the will of the sovereign”, ensuring that “the law is followed and that vote” granted to the different candidates is respected.
“This has expressed the will of a people who have attended, which has exceeded the percentage of 2019, this for us is a success because citizen participation must be strengthened in each election,” added the president of the TSE.
For his part, the re-elected president, Nayib Bukelecelebrated the victory on his account on the social network X, with a publication in which he highlighted the improvement in the results obtained compared to the 2019 elections.
“In 2019, we won the presidency in the first round, with more votes than all the other parties combined. But in 2024, we won with practically all the votes of all the parties of 2019, together, including ourselves,” said Bukele, who He concluded his message by giving “thanks to God” and “thanks to the Salvadoran people.”
After Nuevas Ideas, the results obtained by the remaining parties are as follows, in accordance with the data published by the TSE: “FMLN (Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front), 204,167 with a percentage of 6.25%; Arena, 177,881 with a percentage of 5.44%; Nuestro Tiempo party, 65,076 with a percentage of 1.99%.
The null votes were 60,027; that is, 1.84%. Solidarity Force Party, 23,473 with a percentage of 0.72%; match FPS 19.293 with a percentage of 0.59%. Abstentions 15,064 with a percentage of 0.46%; 1,760 contested votes with a percentage of 0.05%”.
The Bukele’s victory confirmed the forecasts of all the surveys, including that of the José Simeón Cañas University (UCA), directed by Jesuits, in which Nuevas Ideas appeared with 81.1% of voting intention.
This will be Bukele’s second five-year term.who will assume the new mandate on June 1.
The Salvadoran president, who enjoys high popularity, based his campaign on the fight the fearsome gangsand warned Salvadorans that if his party did not win the presidential and legislative elections, the war against these criminal organizations would be at risk.
Despite the constant Questions from political parties and human rights organizations to his candidacy – for contravening the constitutional prohibition that prevents immediate reelection -, Bukele managed to get the judiciary to authorize it.
On Sunday, shortly after the closing of the vote and in an event that gathered thousands of his followers in the Plaza Cívica in the historic center of San Salvador, Bukele was declared the winner and said that it had broken “all the records of all democracies in all of history,” even though there were no official results yet.
“Never has a project won with the number of votes we have won this day. It is literally the highest percentage in all of history,” he added from the balcony of the National Palace, where his wife accompanied him.
It is expected that in the next few hours the Electoral Tribunal will begin the final scrutiny of the election of deputies.
National and international organizations have questioned Bukele, criticizing him for alleged human rights violations, but the president accuses them of defending criminals, who for more than three decades controlled much of the territory.
Source: With information from Europa Press / AP
