Elections: Buckili shakes the specter of election fraud in El Salvador | EL PAÍS America Edition: The World Gazette

President of El Salvador, Watch this, He has hinted that the Electoral Court is making deliberate mistakes with the aim of hurting his party, New Ideas (NI), in Parliament elections Which was celebrated this Sunday in which the president set himself the goal of obtaining 56 deputies that would allow him to control the council.

Buckley, whose party will easily win the legislative elections, according to all opinion polls, said that the Electoral College had committed violations as a result of a “mistake” but accused that others, however, were intentional, referring to the delay he was subjected to. By the supervisors of his party in receiving the credentials or in the “intentional turtle move” in front of the ballot box “to reduce the vote.” The president accompanied the accusations by harsh criticism of a number of electoral court judges, whom he described as corrupt and serving dark interests, although he avoided uttering the word fraud.

Parallel to the complaints, the Salvadoran president appeared on television, when the elections were still full of voters, to signal to his followers the beginning of the “auction process”, an old strategy already implemented by Chavezmo in Venezuela and which seeks to mobilize in the last hours of the day the largest number of voters with Like thinking. “Now that these people travel abroad, we need people to end the 40-year-old party system that has dominated the country,” Buckley insisted from the Presidential Palace at 2:30 pm local time.

Because of queues that waited in some places in the capital for two hours, Buckily asked voters to be patient. Covering his head with a baseball cap, the 39-year-old said, “What extra two hours of waiting if we have to wait 40 years to remove them from power?

Bukele’s reaction is more like an electoral strategy than a real complaint that presented simple logistical errors as the sole evidence. International observers consulted by EL PAÍS or the US Chargé d’Affairs, Brendan O’Brien, ruled out signs of fraud. The diplomat stressed in a press conference that “it is very important not to say that there is fraud as there is no fraud, and it is important to wait for the results.” Although polling stations are now officially closed, Salvadorans are entitled to vote if they are in line before 5 pm.

The specter of fraud is one of the strategies used by the president, who accuses the Electoral Court of working against him, as it is controlled by the opposition parties of the Farabundo Martí Front.FMLN) And Arena (National Republican Alliance), clearly steeped in electoral preferences, and still have a presence in the mainstream apparatus.

In this election, Naguib Boukil does not win. new ideas Its subsidiary parties have set a goal of reaching 56 deputies, which will allow them to control the board and make important appointments such as the attorney general, one-third of the Supreme Court justices, the attorney general, or the Comptroller’s office. . , Among others. Failure to reach this figure would be a failure for Buckley, who is the most popular on the continent, and would force him to negotiate with other seats, an extraordinary job for someone accustomed to driving.

Throughout Sunday, large lines of voters were seen in front of schools to elect MPs, mayors, and members of the Central American Parliament (Parlacium). Health measures due to the virus caused voters to wait on the street in the sharp Salvadoran sun. The large gatherings of voters on the street made it difficult to gauge the rather low enthusiasm, which was sparked by legislatures of this nature, which rarely exceeded 53% of the turnout.

Under the harsh sunshine in the Montreal neighborhood of the capital, Robin Osorio, a 43-year-old neighbor, asked the parties to reconcile on the new stage, thus being able to finish some of the social projects that had reached his slum. “I see more illusion than other occasions for the assembly elections,” he told EL PAÍS minutes after the complex ballot was deposited in the cardboard ballot box.

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