Elections in El Salvador: Nayib Bukele sweeps the polls and comfortably wins a second term

Nayib Bukele swept the presidential elections and secured a second term in El Salvador. According to the first exit results reported by CID-Gallup, the 42-year-old president won with more than 80% of the votes against his rivals, Luis Alberto Parada, Joel Humberto Sánchez, Juan Manuel Flores, José Javier Rinderos and Marina Murillo.

According to Bukele, who published on his X account, his party obtained 58 out of 60 deputies in Congress. In his own words, "the record in the entire history of democracy."

The elections were held on Sunday, February 4, and Salvadorans were able to vote from 7:00 am to 5:00 pm local time. According to authorities, the election day occurred normally, and no irregularities were recorded.

According to the Supreme Electoral Tribunal of El Salvador (TSE), there were 5.47 million citizens eligible to vote, distributed in 1,676 electoral centers, which were distributed in 44 municipal constituencies.

Bukele came to power in 2019 and led a security reform that made him one of the most popular leaders on the continent. As previously reported by Voz Media, El Salvador became the safest country in Latin America. Four years later, Bukele took a leave of absence to run for a second term, which he comfortably won.

A nod to Javier Milei after the electoral victory

Bukele gave a brief press conference after voting in the afternoon, where he took the opportunity to talk about Javier Milei, the libertarian president of Argentina. "I wish you the best, and if we can collaborate on something, we are at your service," he said, later confirming that they had already spoken by phone.

He offered to help with security, a very hot topic in Argentina. "Because the problem is smaller, the medicine could be smaller. (...) I believe that all countries have differences and it is clear that El Salvador is not the United Kingdom, the same could be said that El Salvador is not Argentina either. There are differences, even Argentina's security problem, which exists, is perhaps not as pressing as it was in El Salvador and, therefore, the measures that can be shared on our part, suddenly do not need to be so drastic," added the president.

This is a developing story...