El Salvador’s president will be re-elected, not fair or free
El Salvador is holding its national elections Feb. 4 for president and legislative assembly. Unfortunately, we already know that the election will be neither free nor fair.
We also know that the presidential winner will be current President Nayib Bukele, who is running for re-election even though the Salvadoran constitution bars a president from an immediate return to power, no matter how popular he may be.
Bukele hand-picked a new supreme court and attorney general once his party took control of the national legislature in 2021. After firing the previous justices and attorney general, in violation of constitutional procedures, the new court reinterpreted the constitution to allow him to run for re-election.
His disregard for the rule of law in favor of giving him near total power has now extended to assuring that the 2024 election will assure his party an absolute majority in the assembly and dominance of local government, too. It is designed to be neither free nor fair.
It will not be free because the country is being governed under a 2022 state of emergency that essentially bars normal public campaigning. It effectively prevents party rallies and public demonstrations, and has included arrests of environmental advocates and some 82 attacks against journalists.
Recently, it also has meant the deployment of the army into rural communities where they are clearly an intimidating presence.
No wonder that a group of eight El Salvador civil society organizations joined in “Observa El Salvador 2024” last week to issue a report that raised concerns over the impact of the state of emergency, calling on the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) to assure that “the respective military and police authorities…presence does not inhibit and generate negative effects on the population during the electoral process.”
The elections also are clearly not going to be fair. There is no level playing field in El Salvador. The
TSE has not made public its agendas, meeting results or resolutions for a year.
The consequences can be seen in a monitoring report of campaign advertising issued by a respected non-governmental organization, “Accion Ciudadana”, that showed 97% of all party publicity in December came from Bukele’s Nuevas Ideas party.
Contrary to international norms and El Salvador’s electoral code, which barred changes in the procedures voters face in the year prior to elections, Bukele’s national assembly majority enacted wholesale changes last June.
The assembly repealed that part of the electoral code. It then reduced the members of the assembly from 84 to 60, used gerrymandering and other methods to select winners of legislative seats to virtually assure elimination of smaller parties and reduced the number of municipalities, voiding the concept of local representation. The assembly also expanded international voting but directed those votes for the legislature to expand seats in San Salvador, where Bukele previously was mayor.
Bukele is definitely popular. Most polls put him at 75-85% popularity after nearly five years in office. His narrative claiming credit for major reductions in crime is partially accurate.
While homicides had already dropped before he took office, there is no question that his imprisonment of some 75,000 Salvadorans dismantled gangs responsible for widespread killings, extortion, rapes and terror. Homicides now are down.
However, not all of those swept up in those arrests were gang members. The violations of civil and human rights and the subsequent deaths and torture in prisons reported by human rights organizations should not be ignored.
Sustaining security without further violating the rule of law and democratic norms should be the major demand of the international community. We also should be worried that other countries will follow the idea that popularity justifies giving leaders power without the need to comply with the law. An OAS electoral observation mission is already in El Salvador. All observers should be aware that even if no one is barred from voting on Sunday and the votes are counted accurately, Salvadorans will have been denied a “free and fair” election.