2024 Salvadoran general election

2024 Salvadoran general election

4 February 2024
Opinion polls
Registered6,214,399
Presidential election
Turnout52.60% ( 0.72pp)
 
Candidate Nayib Bukele Manuel Flores Joel Sánchez
Party NI FMLN ARENA
Running mate Félix Ulloa Werner Marroquín Hilcia Bonilla
Popular vote 2,701,725 204,167 177,881
Percentage 84.65% 6.40% 5.57%

Results by department

President before election

Nayib Bukele
NI

Elected President

Nayib Bukele
NI

Legislative election

All 60 seats in the Legislative Assembly
31 seats needed for a majority
Turnout
52.02% ( 1.77pp)
Party Leader Vote % Seats +/–
NI Xavier Zablah Bukele 70.56 54 −2
ARENA Carlos García Saade 7.29 2 −12
PCN Manuel Rodríguez 3.26 2 0
PDC Reinaldo Carballo 2.99 1 0
Vamos Cesia Rivas 2.94 1 0
This lists parties that won seats. See the complete results below.
Results by department
President of the Legislative Assembly before President of the Legislative Assembly after
Ernesto Castro
NI
Ernesto Castro
NI

General elections were held in El Salvador in February and March 2024. In the first round on 4 February, voters elected the president, vice president, and all 60 deputies of the Legislative Assembly. In the second round on 3 March, voters elected mayors and municipal councils for all 44 of the country's municipalities and all 20 of El Salvador's deputies to the Central American Parliament (PARLACEN).

The Supreme Electoral Court (TSE) allowed 13 political parties to participate in the election. Seven parties ran presidential candidates; incumbent president Nayib Bukele ran for re-election with Nuevas Ideas, the political party he established in 2018, while the political opposition's presidential candidates were: Joel Sánchez of the Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA), Manuel Flores of the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), Luis Parada of Nuestro Tiempo, Javier Renderos of Solidary Force, Marina Murillo of the Salvadoran Patriotic Fraternity (FPS). Ten parties participated in the legislative elections, eleven in the municipal elections, and nine in the PARLACEN election. Opinion polling indicated significant leads for Nuevas Ideas in the presidential, legislative, and municipal elections, as well as high support for Bukele's re-election.

In September 2021, the Supreme Court of Justice ruled that the incumbent president could run for immediate re-election despite the country's constitution prohibiting immediate re-election, overturning a 2014 ruling that reaffirmed that re-election was prohibited. In September 2022, Bukele officially announced that he was running for re-election. In June 2023, he officially registered as a presidential candidate for Nuevas Ideas, and the following month, Nuevas Ideas formally confirmed Bukele as its presidential candidate. Various lawyers, journalists, and opposition politicians criticized Bukele's re-election bid as authoritarian and unconstitutional, while most Salvadorans—both inside and outside the country—remained highly supportive of his campaign. In October 2022, the Legislative Assembly passed a law that allowed Salvadoran expatriates to vote in the election. Several opposition politicians criticized the decision, claiming that it would lead to electoral fraud. In December 2022, Bukele suggested reducing the number of municipalities and, in June 2023, he officially presented his proposals to reduce the number of municipalities from 262 to 44 and the number of seats in the Legislative Assembly from 84 to 60 to the Legislative Assembly. The Legislative Assembly approved both proposals that same month. The reductions were criticized by lawyers, economists, and opposition politicians as gerrymandering, undemocratic, and an attempt to consolidate the government's power.

On election day, Bukele declared himself the winner in the presidential election and declared Nuevas Ideas the winner in the legislative election. Various foreign media outlets called the election for Bukele. These declarations came before the TSE made an official statement regarding the final results because vote counting for both the presidential and legislative elections was delayed due to technical problems. On 9 February 2024, the TSE finished counting votes for the presidential election and officially declared Bukele the winner, having accumulated 84.65 percent of the popular vote in a landslide victory. On 18 February, the TSE finished counting votes for the legislative election; Nuevas Ideas won 54 of the Legislative Assembly's 60 seats. The political opposition submitted two petitions the TSE to nullify the results of the legislative election, citing irregularities and allegations of fraud, but the TSE dismissed both petitions. Nuevas Ideas won 28 municipalities, its allies won an additional 15 municipalities, and the opposition won 1 municipality. The elected deputies, mayors, and municipal councils assumed office on 1 May, while Bukele and Ulloa assumed office on 1 June.