2024-02-05 06:19:59
Bukele’s message was received with an explosion of fireworks in San Salvador. Exit poll gave Bukele 87% of voting intentions
The president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, stated this Sunday that he was re-elected with more than 85% of the votes, in a message published on the social network X.
“According to our numbers, we won the presidential elections with more than 85% of the votes and a minimum of 58 of the 60 deputies in the Legislative Assembly. A record in the entire democratic history of the world”, celebrated the president on X, formerly Twitter.
Bukele’s message was met with an explosion of fireworks in San Salvador. Shortly before, the director of the research company CID-Gallup, Luis Haug, had released an exit poll that gave Bukele 87% of voting intentions.
The Supreme Electoral Court closed voting at 5pm local time, after a day in which 6.2 million voters were asked to go to the polls.
In a press conference held after voting, Bukele asked Salvadorans to support the continuation of the state of exception with their vote, to preserve the achievements of “the war” against criminal groups.
“It is important that we vote, to ensure that we have a Legislative Assembly that can continue approving the exception regime”, asked the president, a few minutes before the end of the vote.
Bukele rejected criticism from human rights organizations of the exception regime (in force since March 2022), which point to the arrest of thousands of innocent people as an “error”.
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Organizations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch denounce arbitrary detentions, torture and deaths in prison. Around 7,000 innocent people have been released, but many remain imprisoned, unable to communicate with their families.
The president defended that El Salvador has the highest incarceration rate in the world and said that all police “make mistakes” when arresting innocent people.
“What is coming for El Salvador is a period of prosperity, because there is no longer any impediment to opening a business, studying, working. There is no longer any impediment to tourism”, added Bukele.
Faced with accusations that he installed a dictatorship in the country, the president denied that he was attacking democracy: “We are not replacing democracy, because El Salvador never had democracy. For the first time in history, El Salvador has a democracy, and it is not me who says that, but the people.”
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© Agence France-Presse
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