The five deputy magistrates who make up the Electoral Tribunal of El Salvador have dissociated themselves from the elections which on February 4 gave a landslide victory to the controversial president Nayib Bukele. The Salvadoran newspaper The lighthouse published three letters sent by these officials to their colleagues in charge of the collegiate body, in which a week after the elections they denounced that during the trial actions were committed that were far from the “legal” and “correct” way of conducting a trial. type and state that “we are no longer in a position to accept decisions that have not been legally issued” or “declarations and commitments made unilaterally”.
Bukele was re-elected with an overwhelming majority of 82% of the vote, according to results released by the Electoral Court on February 9, after chaotic days of vote counting due to the failure of the preliminary recount system. The electoral authorities have reported that they will open all the ballot boxes and carry out a count to determine the number of deputies elected to the National Assembly. The electoral body said the final count “was a success” and despite criticism from the opposition and local observers, the victory of Bukele and his New Ideas political movement was taken for granted.
The trial, however, was denounced by five deputy magistrates of the court, who said that decisions were made that did not comply with the law. In addition to the failure of the vote transmission system, these officials warned of criticism from the opposition, which insisted that the court did not provide timely information on the mechanism to be followed to count votes. The right-wing Arena party decided to withdraw from the vote, believing that the electoral authorities did not guarantee “the conditions for a transparent process”, as reported. The lighthouse.
In one of the letters published by Salvadoran media, the magistrates report having warned that the TSE “did not have time to solve” the problems the electoral system was facing. According to this letter, “the magistrates state that on January 25 they knew they ‘were in an irremediable crisis’ that had already altered a good part of the General Electoral Plan (PAGEL). This plan is made up of 25 programs (or work axes) into which the organization of the electoral process is divided and which is considered the backbone of the entire organization. The crisis and the unmodified sentences in the last days of January, according to the deputies, could have only one result: a crisis on voting day”, reports The lighthouse. Officials also expressed doubts about whether the election equipment was functioning properly. “Have they been tested adequately? “Were changes made that prevented its correct functioning?”, expressed the magistrates, who also say they asked to be informed about the decisions taken by the organization regarding the trial. “We cannot take any responsibility for the problems that were presented to us prematurely and for the consequences that were reflected on February 4 [día de la elección]”, they denounce.
On election day itself, President Bukele declared a landslide victory, before the electoral tribunal ruled on the results. That night, the Salvadoran president announced his victory with 85% without waiting for the official results and attacked the opposition and the press. The victory allows Bukele, 42, to continue the emergency regime and his controversial policy of combating violence, which has allowed him to dismantle the so-called maras, gangs that spread terror in the Central American country. Under the emergency regime imposed eleven months ago by the president, more than 70,000 people have been incarcerated. Human rights organizations have denounced that in many cases there are illegal captures, bogus trials and that serious violations have been committed in the country’s prisons. Bukele has criticized these complaints and despite them he maintains high consensus among the population, who applauds the measures against the mafias. “Yes, okay, some unpleasant things have happened,” residents told this newspaper, “but we are a thousand times better than before.”
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