If poll predictions play out, the two parties that have ruled El Salvador for the past 30 years could lose their grip on power. The favorite to win Sunday's vote is a young outsider who has vowed to stamp out corruption.
Image: Reuters/J. Cabezas
Advertisement
Salvadorians have begun voting to elect their new president in the sixth election since the end of the country's 1980-92 civil war.
Polling stations opened at 7:00 a.m. local time (1300 UTC) on Sunday, with local media reporting large queues from early morning.
About 5.3 million people are registered to cast ballots.
Nayib Bukele is tipped to win the presidencyImage: Getty Images/AFP/M. Recinos
Although the race is expected to be close, opinion polls suggest Nayib Bukele, a candidate for the right-wing Grand Alliance for National Unity (GANA), has the best chance of winning. A victory for the 37-year-old would be significant, given that he isn't from either of the two main parties that have dominated Salvadorian politics since 1989.
Carlos Calleja, 42, of the conservative nationalist Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA) is predicted to finish in second place, while Hugo Martinez, the candidate for the ruling leftist Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN), is trailing in third position.
If no candidate receives more than 50 percent of the vote, a second round runoff between the top two candidates will take place on March 10.
Plagued with poverty, violence
In the last few months of 2018, more than 3,000 Salvadorans joined caravans marching towards the US border. That wave of migration has mainly been driven by violence, abject poverty and unemployment.
Bukele, a former mayor of the capital, San Salvador, pledged during his campaign to boost the economy, invest in education, curb the exodus of migrants and crack down on corruption. But if he becomes president, he may not have an easy time implementing changes because his GANA party is unlikely to have a majority in Congress.
Central American immigrants turn to Mexico
Most migrants to the United States from the so-called "Northern Triangle" of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador are staying in Mexico for now — because of Donald Trump's new immigration policies.
Image: Reuters/C. Jasso
No longer first choice
In a migrant shelter in the southern Mexican city of Tenosique, near the Guatemalan border, a refugee from Honduras says he originally planned to move to the United States with his family. Trump's election has changed everything. "I wanted to go to the United States with my family, but we've seen that the new government there has made things harder."
Image: Reuters/C. Jasso
Lingering in Mexico
Concepcion Bautista from Guatemala cradles her newborn son in the same migrant shelter. She says she plans to head for the United States, but will linger in Mexico to see how US President Donald Trump's immigration policies play out. Her goal is to reunite with her family up north...
Image: Reuters/C. Jasso
A mere transit country?
…but for the time being, she believes applying for asylum in Mexico is a smarter move. Mexican asylum data and testimony from migrants in Tenosique suggest that although fewer Central Americans are trying to enter the US, plenty are still fleeing their poor, violent home countries, with many deciding to stay longer in Mexico, which has traditionally been a transit country.
Image: Reuters/C. Jasso
Tough immigration policies
The Trump administration has pointed out a sharp decline in immigrant detentions in the first few months of this year as a vindication for the president's tough immigration policies. The measures are already having another effect. In California, where farmers usually rely on workers from Mexico to bring in the harvest, many Mexicans are staying away, preferring to find work in their own country.
Image: Reuters/C. Jasso
Asylum applications on the rise
Migrants from Central America play football in the migrant shelter in Tenosique. The number of people applying for asylum in Mexico has soared by more than 150 percent since Trump was elected president. These days, Mexican immigrants would rather set up in Canada than the United States.
Image: Reuters/C. Jasso
Human smugglers up the price
One man from Guatemala says the prices charged by people smugglers have risen sharply since Trump took office, now hovering around $10,000 (9,100 euros), up from about $6,000 a few years ago. Migrants sit below a mural in Mexico with the words: "Our demand is minimal: justice."
Image: Reuters/C. Jasso
A new home
With Mexico's immigration authorities controlling migration more assiduously, Central Americans were forced to take more isolated, dangerous routes where the chances of being mugged were higher. "We've gone north several times, but every time it's got harder," says one man, who was deported from the United States in December. "Now, it's better if we travel alone, along new routes."
