General elections were held in El Salvador on 4 February 2024 to elect the president, vice president and all 60 deputies of the Legislative Assembly. This was followed by a second set of elections on 3 March 2024 in which voters elected all 44 mayors and municipal councils of the country’s municipalities and all 20 of El Salvador’s deputies to the Central American Parliament (PARLACEN).

The Supreme Electoral Court (TSE) allowed thirteen political parties to participate in the election. Seven parties presented presidential candidates; incumbent president Nayib Bukele ran for re-election with Nuevas Ideas, the political party he established in 2018, while the presidential candidates presented by the political opposition were Joel Sánchez of the Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA), Manuel Flores of the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), Luis Parada of Nuestro Tiempo, Javier Renderos of Solidary Force, and Marina Murillo of the Salvadoran Patriotic Fraternity (FPS). Ten parties participated in the legislative elections, eleven in the municipal elections, and nine in the PARLACEN election. Opinion polling indicated significant leads for Nuevas Ideas in the presidential, legislative, and municipal elections, as well as high support for Bukele’s re-election.

In September 2021, the Supreme Court of Justice ruled that the incumbent president could run for immediate re-election, overturning a 2014 ruling that reaffirmed that re-election was prohibited and despite the country’s constitution prohibiting immediate re-election. In September 2022, Bukele officially announced that he was running for re-election. In June 2023, Bukele officially registered as a presidential candidate for Nuevas Ideas, and the following month, Nuevas Ideas formally confirmed Bukele as its presidential candidate. Various lawyers, journalists, and opposition politicians criticized Bukele’s re-election bid as authoritarian and unconstitutional, while most Salvadorans—both inside and outside the country—remain highly supportive of his campaign. In October 2022, the Legislative Assembly passed a law which would allow Salvadoran expatriates to vote in the election. Several opposition politicians criticized the decision, claiming that it would lead to electoral fraud. In December 2022, Bukele suggested reducing the number of municipalities. In June 2023, he officially presented his proposals to the Legislative Assembly to reduce the number of municipalities from 262 to 44 and the number of seats in the Legislative Assembly from 84 to 60; both proposals were approved by the Legislative Assembly that same month. The reductions were criticized by lawyers, economists, and opposition politicians as gerrymandering, undemocratic, and an attempt to consolidate the government’s power.

On election day, Bukele declared himself the winner in the presidential election, declared Nuevas Ideas the winner in the legislative election, and various foreign media outlets called the election for Bukele. These declarations came before the TSE made an official statement regarding the final results as vote counting for both the presidential and legislative elections was delayed due to technical problems. On 9 February 2024, the TSE completed counting votes for the presidential election and officially declared Bukele the winner, having accumulated 84.65 percent of the popular vote in a landslide victory. On 18 February, the TSE completed counting votes for the legislative election; Nuevas Ideas won 54 of the Legislative Assembly’s 60 seats. The political opposition issued two petitions the TSE to nullify the results of the legislative election citing irregularities and allegations of fraud, but the TSE dismissed both petitions. Nuevas Ideas won 28 municipalities, its allies won a further 15 municipalities, and the opposition won 1 municipality. The elected deputies, mayors, and municipal councils are scheduled to assume office on 1 May, while Bukele and Ulloa are scheduled to assume office on 1 June.

Sources and further reading:

El Salvador’s President Bukele wins re-election by huge margin, BBC News 05.02.24

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-68196826

Bukele’s authoritarianism in El Salvador may prove contagious, Financial Times 07.02.24

https://www.ft.com/content/57ada708-5571-4ac6-95ba-da85fa2bb7ea