El Salvador Elections: Perfect cannot be the enemy of good
By Isaac Sim
Image Source: Deutsche Welle (DW) News
Results:
Presidency: Nayib Bukele (NI)
Legislative Assembly total seat count: 60, 31 seats required for a majority
NI (Anti-Establishment Catch-All Party): 54 Seats (4% gain in proportion of seats)
ARENA (centre-right political party): 2 Seats (5% loss in proportion of seats)
TPP (centrist ex-military junta political party): 8 seats (3 seat gain)
Final Result: Nayib Bukele wins the presidential elections in a landslide, and Nueva Ideas retains its supermajority in the legislative assembly.
Nayib Bukele, the president of El Salvador, has been called many things—unconstitutional, authoritarian, and dictatorial being the least of them. Ever since he took power in 2019, he had been lambasted by opposition members, the liberal media, and NGOs like Amnesty International alike for his controversial, and (truth be told) quasi-draconian policies. Little more than a year into his term (in 2020), he marched 40 soldiers into the legislative assembly chambers to, at gunpoint, force through a bill approving funding for his Territorial Control Plan: a bill that would see more than a hundred thousand people—2% of the population—imprisoned. Reports of torture, arbitrary arrests, and disregard for civil rights would pervade his term in office.
Even the lead-up to the 2024 elections were mired in Bukele’s dubious actions: from the sudden authorisation of re-elections allowing Bukele to run for a 2nd term, to the salient reduction of seats in the Legislative Assembly—all as municipality borders were redrawn and gerrymandered.
Yet, the people have spoken. In spite of all his shortcomings and an ostensible reduction in human rights, Bukele has been effective, reducing crime rates and gang-related violence in the country by unprecedented leaps and bounds. This poses the question to all of us: can we accept a social contract which trades away more liberties than we’re used to, in return for more protection? For the people of El Salvador, the answer is yes—enabling Bukele to act with popular sovereignty.
Who are we to claim otherwise?