Polls open in El Salvador with Bukele on course for second term

Polls have opened in El Salvador with victory in the bag for incumbent President Nayib Bukele thanks to his no-holds-barred war on gangs that has slashed homicide rates in a violence-weary nation.

On Sunday, for the first time since the civil war ended in 1992, the Central American country will vote under a state of emergency imposed for 42-year-old Bukele's gang crackdown.

Bukele, who polls as Latin America's most popular leader, is also expected to expand his hold over the legislative assembly in Sunday's vote.

His government has rounded up more than 75,000 gangsters — real and suspected — since a state of emergency came into effect in March 2022.

Thousands are held in a brand-new prison — plugged as the largest in the Americas — which the president built in a matter of months.

And last year, the country that was once one of the most dangerous in the world saw the murder rate plummet to its lowest level in three decades — far below the world average.

As a result, Bukele enjoys approval ratings hovering around 90 percent despite concerns about rights violations, creeping authoritarianism and grumblings about the economy.

"One feels safe now to visit places you haven't seen for years. Even to discover" new ones, retired architect Claudia Del Velasco, 72, said in the capital San Salvador, though the economy "can improve."

El Salvador's fearsome gangs took some 120,000 civilian lives in three decades, according to the government.

One-party system

With little need to campaign for himself, Bukele has instead focused on beating the drum for his party, Nuevas Ideas, which now holds 56 seats in the 84-member legislative assembly.

The overall number of seats has been reduced to 60 under a Bukele-led reform, in a move critics say will make it much harder for smaller parties to get enough votes to get in.

In 2022, the legislature also approved a law allowing Salvadorans to vote abroad.

Under that reform, all foreign ballots — which tend to favour Bukele — will count towards the department of San Salvador, which has the most undecided seats, according to the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), an NGO promoting human rights.

WOLA Central America director Ana Maria Mendez Dardon said the political opposition could all but disappear in this election.

"There is a risk of having a one-party system in El Salvador," she said.

In a message on X this week, Bukele urged Salvadorans to vote en masse for Nuevas Ideas.

"Our country has changed, nobody can deny it. Our job this Sunday is to ensure that these changes are forever," he said.