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Insecurity and the economy dominate El Salvador presidential vote
SAN SALVADOR, Feb 1, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Nayib Bukele is favored to win El
Salvador’s presidency when voters head to the polls on Sunday, as the country
grapples with violence, corruption, poverty and an exodus of migrants seeking
to reach the United States.
El Salvador is one of the most violent countries in the world, the three
presidents preceding the current incumbent have all been charged with
corruption, and it is battling to reduce illegal immigration to the US after
President Donald Trump threatened to cut off aid.
The closest challenge to Bukele — a 37-year-old former mayor of the
capital who represents the conservative Grand Alliance for National Unity
(GANA) party — should come from 42-year-old supermarket magnate Carlos
Calleja of the right-wing Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA).
In a distant third is leftist candidate and former foreign minister Hugo
Martinez of the Farabundo Marti Front for National Liberation (FMLN).
Between them, ARENA and FMLN have dominated Salvadoran politics for the
last 30 years.
“We’re not going to let the same people as always govern us, we’re going to
make history,” Bukele said at one of his last campaign rallies.
He has promised to increase investment in education, implement new programs
to confront insecurity, and to fight corruption.
More than five million people are eligible to vote. If no individual
receives more than 50 percent of the vote, a run-off between the top two
candidates will take place on March 10.
Some 23,000 police officers and 15,000 soldiers will be on duty on election
day.
– Insecurity and the economy –
Polls suggest that insecurity and a weak economy will be the two major
challenges facing the new president.
El Salvador is beset by gang violence and registered 3,340 murders last
year. Authorities say most of those were gang related.
Gangs are said to have 70,000 members, 17,000 of whom are behind bars.
The other main worry for Salvadorans is the dollarized economy. Although it
grew by 2.6 percent in 2018, its biggest rise in five years, that is
considered insufficient to cover the demand for new employment.
The election winner will have to juggle the need to raise taxes to cover an
external debt of more than $9.5 billion while trying to maintain social
programs in a country where the minimum wage of $300 a month is barely enough
to buy food.
“The challenge for the new leader is to satisfy the demand for fairer
salaries and avoid the social exclusion that forces many to flee the
country,” said Raul Moreno, an economics professor at the state university.
Just over 30 percent of El Salvador’s 6.6 million inhabitants live below
the poverty line.
During the last few months of 2018, more than 3,000 Salvadorans joined
caravans marching towards the US, fleeing gangs and a lack of employment.
People “are leaving their country because there’s no hope here,” said Jose
Maria Tojeira, director of the Human Rights Institute at the Central American
University.
“Politicians are more interested in their own future than that of the
majority. This is a country that expels its citizens.”
BSS/AFP/MRI/2040 hrs