El Salvador votes for new president, anti-corruption outsider favoured
- Nayib Bukele appears to be front-runner as voters seek an alternative to traditional parties
Polling places in El Salvador began to close on Sunday in the first round of a presidential election that is expected to be won by an energetic former mayor campaigning as an anti-corruption outsider, ending decades of a two-party system.
Nayib Bukele, 37, has capitalised on the anti-establishment feeling sweeping elections across the region and further afield, as voters seek an alternative to traditional parties.
Since the end of its bloody civil war in 1992, El Salvador has been governed by just two parties: the ruling leftist Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) and its rival, conservative Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA).
Though he describes himself as from the left and was expelled from the FMLN, Bukele has formed a coalition with parties including a right-wing one which together have just 11 seats in the legislature.
“The two groups that created the war still want to keep governing, and what’s more, they’re corrupt,” Bukele told reporters after voting in the capital. Supporters in bright blue T-shirts surrounded him, chanting, “Yes we can”.