SAN SALVADOR: El Salvador‘s Supreme Electoral Tribunal has confirmed the landslide re-election of President Nayib Bukele with nearly 83 percent of the votes, after completing the final tally of the poll results.
Bukele, 42, claimed this week to have won more than 85 percent of the presidential vote.
He garnered 2.7 million votes of the 3.2 million cast, or 82.66 percent, after ballots at all polling stations were counted, electoral tribunal president Dora Martinez said in a statement on Friday.
Bukele’s victory has been widely attributed to a “war” on gangs credited with slashing homicide rates in the violence-weary Central American country.
Manuel Flores of the far-left Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) came a distant second with 6.25 percent of the vote, according to Martinez.
Joel Sanchez, of the right-wing Arena party, obtained 5.44 percent.
Turnout in the Sunday poll was 52.6 percent of the 6.2 million people registered to vote, Martinez said.
Bukele was first elected president in 2019, ending about 30 years of alternating power between the FMLN and Arena.
After the final vote count, the leader thanked “the Salvadoran people” for their support in a post on social media platform X.
El Salvador was once considered one of the most violent countries not actively at war, but last year its murder rate declined to its lowest level in three decades — far below the global average.
Rights advocates have questioned a nearly two-year state of emergency under Bukele, because it allows arrests without warrants. More than 77,000 suspects have been detained, of which about 7,000 were released after being proven innocent.