Legislative elections in El Salvador: Bukele’s party aspires to consolidate its power

Some 5.4 million Salvadorans are called to vote this Sunday for renew the Congress, mayors and deputies in the Central American Parliament, in a crucial election for the president Nayib Bukele in his aspiration to consolidate his power with a legislative majority.

The 1,595 polling centers across the country are expected to open at 7 a.m. local time, 13 GMT for a ten-hour shift.

The elections will be monitored by some 40,000 security personnel, including police, military and international observers.

Out of ten left-to-right parties on the political spectrum, Salvadorans will have to elect 84 deputies to the Legislative Assembly, the authorities of 262 mayors and 20 deputies to the Central American Parliament, an example of regional integration.

The polls announce the end of the control that the Republican Nationalist Right Alliance (Arena) and the former guerrilla Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN, left) have exercised in Congress since 2018.

These parties have dominated Salvadoran politics from the 1992 peace accords, which ended 12 years of civil war, until Bukele came to power in 2019 as an alternative to bipartisanship.

Consolidation in power

Sunday’s vote could mark the president’s consolidation of power if he manages to achieve a legislative majority with his allied New Ideas (NI) parties, which he helped form, and the Grand National Alliance (Gana), which l ‘appointed to the presidency.

The analyst and professor of political science Juan Ramón Medrano believed that the two extremes are at play: that the president controls the legislature with a majority of NI and Gana; or that Arena and the FMLN hold the majority of the seats.

“For democracy, it is never good that power is concentrated in one party and in the hands of the president, because it is the checks and balances that allow there to be no abuse of power” , warned Medrano.

With the control of the legislature, Bukele can influence appointments to the Supreme Court of Justice, the Comptroller’s Office, and the Prosecutor’s Office, with which he has had disputes, as well as promote constitutional reforms in his interest..

A few days before the competition, the Episcopal Conference of El Salvador denounced the “Exacerbated” violence that reigned in the countryside, and it claimed the lives of two FMLN activists and urged Salvadorans to go to the polls with the future in mind.

These events came days after Bukele criticized the peace accords and questioned the work of the signatories on behalf of the victims.

“Let us vote following the voice of a well-formed conscience and let us think of the future”, asked the Catholic bishops.

Preliminary results of the competition could be known on Sunday at midnight, although official results could take up to 15 days.

Fear of violence

The influential Jesuit University José Simeón Cañas (UCA) warned in an editorial that the elections are taking place “in an atmosphere of tension and confrontation which could lead to violence and cast doubt on the results”.

“Everything suggests that this process will not be easy: a rarefied political context and an institutionality weakened by the permanent and open challenge of the executive to the laws add to the complex elections themselves”, warned the UCA.

Bukele ignored the ban on broadcasting political messages three days before the vote and aired television ads calling for votes for his allies and criticizing his opponents..

The UCA and leaders also cautioned against the political use of the national civilian police and military to influence the vote and favor government allies.

“Eso es peligroso y por eso queremos pedirle to the OAS, to the comunidad internacional, que vigil este proceso, que nos ayuden a que ese tipo de actos no se vaya a dar”, urgió el saliente presidente del Congreso, Mario Ponce, de Sand.

(With information from AFP)