Preliminary data show that the New Ideas party would get a qualified majority. Analyst and academician Óscar Picardo sees the new configuration as a risk, the loss of the balance between the legislative, executive and judicial powers.
The Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) analyzed 86% of the minutes, preliminary data, updated until 12:30 on March 1, show that Nuevas Ideas has a great advantage over other parties, both for mayors and for the Assembly legislative.
The calculation made by FOCOS TV shows that the Assembly for the period 2021 – 2024 would be composed of 52 deputies from New Ideas, 5 from GANA, 7 from the New Idea-Ghana alliance, 7 from ARENA, 5 from FMLN and from the remaining parties had one legislator.
The data show that allied parties to the Government add 64 seats, ie more than the qualified majority.
You may read: New ideas, with a big advantage in counting the preliminary elections
The New Ideas (NI) party, which Bukele helped form and challenged the elections for the first time, along with the Grand National Alliance (Ghana), which brought him to power in 2019, together garnered well over half of the vote. for the Parliament, according to the preliminary control of 86% of the votes, issued by the TSE.
The real-time preliminary number allows the TSE to mark the number of votes each political organization receives.
The official count will begin on Tuesday, where it will be established how many of the 84 seats in the Assembly correspond to each party.
With an absolute majority, Bukele will be able to influence the appointments in the Supreme Court of Justice, the Office of the Comptroller and the Prosecutor’s Office, with which he had disputes.
And if it reaches a qualified majority (56 seats), it can also undertake reforms such as constitutional ones.
In addition: “the electorate has decided to concentrate power in one person,” says FMLN secretary general
Analyst and academician Óscar Picardo predicts a meeting that will only press the button in favor of Bukele and there will not be too many discussions, which is a risk.
In a televised interview on Monday, Picardo warned that changing the number of deputies in the Legislative Assembly could lead to a restructuring of the state, which is a risk, because the balance between the legislative, executive and judicial powers is lost.
“A president aspires to have a less belligerent Assembly. But the risk of having full control of the Assembly, as it appoints the Supreme Court of Justice (SCJ), the Court of Accounts (CCR), the General Prosecutor’s Office (FGR) generates a democratic concern, that the balance of power is lost and given that behind the new ideas are dominated by the figure of a person who is the president, not of a structured political institute with a theoretical, ideological basis, everything is Nayib Bukele ”, Picardo considered.
According to the TSE number, ARENA and FMLN will be a minority in the new Assembly.
New ideas too won in 16 town halls of the 19 municipalities that San Salvador has, the most populous department in the country.
Also: Mario Durán appears as the winner of the San Salvador City Hall
For the director of the Institute of Human Rights at the Jesuit University of Central America (UCA), José María Tojeira, the delivery of a $ 300 bond to needy families, food and supplies to cope with COVID-19 was echoed in an affected population pandemic, in a country where external debt reaches 90% of GDP.
On February 9, 2020, Bukele was accompanied by heavily armed military and police officers to enter the Legislative Assembly amid deputies’ refusal to approve a loan for a security plan proposed by his government. This is just one of the actions for Bukele to be considered by the opposition as authoritarian and disrespectful of democratic norms.