El Salvador votes in presidential election that the 'world’s coolest dictator' has clear path to win
Salvadorans are headed out to vote in a presidential and legislative election that’s largely about the tradeoff between security and democracy
SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) — Salvadorans are headed out to vote Sunday in a presidential and legislative elections that’s largely about the tradeoff between security and democracy.
With soaring approval ratings and virtually no competition, Nayib Bukele is almost certainly headed for a second term as president.
El Salvador’s constitution prohibits reelection. Nonetheless, about eight out of 10 of voters support Bukele, according to a January poll from the University of Central America. That's despite Bukele taking steps throughout his first term that lawyers and critics say chip away at the country's system of checks and balances.
But El Salvador's traditional parties from the left and right that created the vacuum that Bukele first filled in 2019 remain a shambles. Alternating in power for some three decades, the conservative Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA) and leftist Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) were thoroughly discredited by their own corruption and inefficacy. Their presidential candidates this year are polling in the low single digits.
