The president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, would win reelection with 81.9% of the votes in the elections on February 4, estimated this Thursday a poll by the private Central American University (UCA, Jesuit).
In a simulation of the tally made with a ballot, Bukele, of the Nuevas Ideas (New Ideas) party, obtained 81.9% of the intended vote, according to the poll which has a margin of error of 2.7% and which was conducted from January 3 to 14 with a sample of 1,264 people.
In a distant second place is the candidate of the leftist Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), former deputy Manuel Flores, with 4.2%; while the right-wing Nationalist Republican Alliance (Arena), with businessman Joel Sánchez, reaches 3.4%.
The same survey gave the candidate for Our Time (NT, center), Luis Parada, 2.5%; while two other candidates from minority parties together add up to 2.2%. The rest voted null or abstained.
The country is facing “the most asymmetrical elections” since 1992, declared the vice-rector of the UCA, Omar Serrano, when presenting the study.
On Tuesday, in another survey conducted by the Francisco Gavidia University (UFG), also private, Bukele obtained 70.9% of the intended vote, the FMLN 2.9% and Arena 2.7%. The rest hovered around 1%. 21.2% abstained from commenting or said they would annul their vote.
Both the FMLN and Arena dominated Salvadoran politics after the civil war (1980-1992), until Bukele in 2019 broke that two-party system.
With an electoral roll of 6.2 million voters, Congress will also be renewed in the elections, currently dominated by the ruling party and its allies and which will have 60 deputies instead of the current 84 after an electoral reform.
The projection, according to the UFG survey, is that the New Ideas party would obtain 57 deputies, Arena 2, and the Christian Democratic Party 1.
The president received a six-month leave from Congress on November 30 to launch his re-election campaign.
Bukele enjoys broad support for his “war” against gangs, which brought tranquility to the population, but at the cost of civil rights limited by a state of exception that has ruled since March 2022, according to human rights groups.
A controversial ruling by the Constitutional Court empowered Bukele to run for a second consecutive term, although the Salvadoran Constitution did not allow reelection.
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