El Salvador's Bukele wins supermajority in Congress after painstaking vote count

El Salvador President Nayib Bukele and his New Ideas party have won the supermajority the leader needs in Congress to govern as he pleases, electoral officials announced Monday.

The announcement comes after a painstaking vote counting process, which has raised the hackles of electoral watchdogs and the country’s weak opposition, who cite irregularities.

Bukele handily won re-election Feb. 4 with 84.7% of the vote. What had remained up in the air was if Bukele’s New Ideas party would be equally as successful in legislative elections. On Monday, officials announced that New Ideas won 54 seats of the 60 congressional seats. Allied parties won an additional three seats.

Despite not having the final results, the leader had already declared victory in the presidency and in the congress the night of the election, saying “El Salvador has broken all the records of all democracies in the entire history of the world.”

Flumpkin,

It’s amazing. Afaik this guy openly rants against democracy as an colonial tool of oppression and says he wants to be dictator. The people of El Salvador apparently just don’t care about democracy? 85%? Really?

Nerd02,
@Nerd02@lemmy.basedcount.com avatar

His work in eradicating gang violence was impressive, I get why the few Salvadorians who aren’t behind bars would vote for him. Although I can’t help but wonder about how many people might have gotten unjustly incarcerated because of how much power he’s given to the police.

TheFrirish,

I’m gonna get downvoted for this but imho El Salvadorans were not living a life with the gangs the country was effectively in a constant state of war and violence. yes some innocents are probably incarcerated but it pales in comparison to the number of dead innocents and the constant state of fear. The measures he took were 200% justified.

Deceptichum,
@Deceptichum@sh.itjust.works avatar

1.6% of the whole country is in jail, and they’re put through mass trials where no one has a chance to defend themselves.

We will never know exactly but it’s a lot, and your chance of going to jail is far higher than your chance of being killed by a gang ever was.

EstT,

Interesting, didn’t know about that. Do you have any credible sources / videos?

Flumpkin, (edited )

I only remember a segment on Democracy Now: youtu.be/AqyHzePx3ew?t=440. It must have been an article instead (EDIT: This one: El Salvador’s ‘cool dictator’ boasts country would be ‘a one-party system’ after election win)

You can find more with this search

But they also reported on the “civil war” where many poor people seem to have been unjustly arrested: youtu.be/A4Cw0KtkzWg youtu.be/fvDFFRA6HmI.

mxl,

Winning re-election in a country where re-election is unconstitutional screams democracy.

SeabassDan,

But that’s exactly it, he’s against democracy and has openly been proud of that fact.

mxl,

I was specifically referring to what he said: “El Salvador has broken all the records of all democracies in the entire history of the world.”

Deceptichum,
@Deceptichum@sh.itjust.works avatar

So he’s gonna go full dictator like he wants?

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