Versión Español
EspañolAt midnight on Wednesday, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) announced the final count of El Salvador’s runoff presidential election. The electoral body announced that the difference between the two candidates was still only 6,364 votes in favor of the incumbent candidate Salvador Sánchez Cerén, of the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), over opposition candidate Norman Quijano, of the Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA) — so the ruling party is set to remain in power in El Salvador.
With 100 per cent of votes counted, the FMLN won 1,495,815 votes (50.11 percent), while ARENA obtained 1,489,451 (49.89 percent). The number of contested ballots was 3,198, and there were 19,579 null votes.
The official count had been suspended several times due to disputes with the ARENA party, whose representatives abstained from the counting tables, demanding the annulment of the elections and the start of a vote-for-vote count. Therefore, the TSE cannot declare the newly elected president of El Salvador until it resolves the appeal filed by ARENA.
Since the party questioned the transparency of the process, hundreds of supporters have protested outside the courthouse denouncing electoral fraud.
Source: La Prensa Gráfica.
