San Salvador (EFE).- The Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) handed Nayib Bukele his credential as the elected president for the 2024-2029 term, after achieving re-election on February 4th for a second consecutive term despite the Constitution prohibiting it.

The vice president-elect, Félix Ulloa, also received his credential at a ceremony held at the National Theater of San Salvador, in the heart of the capital, and broadcasted nationwide on radio and television.

"The Supreme Electoral Tribunal fulfills its duty to the country by declaring citizens elected through the free, sovereign, secret, and equal vote of the population," said TSE president Dora Esmeralda Martínez.

She ensured that "we fulfill our duty to the country by delivering the official credentials to the elected authorities" and described the democratic participation of more than 3 million citizens (just over 50% of the electoral roll) in the past elections as "historic," which "testifies to the people's faith and confidence in the system and the tribunal's work."

Martínez added that the previous election day unfolded "completely normal and orderly, with a peaceful and trouble-free vote."

The event was attended by deputies, members of the current government's cabinet, justices of the Supreme Court of Justice (CSJ), accredited ambassadors in the country, representatives of international organizations, and special guests.

Bukele's Victory

On February 18th, the TSE confirmed Nayib Bukele's victory, from the ruling party Nuevas Ideas (NI), in the presidential elections of February 4th, which gave the current president 84.6% of the valid votes, more than 2.7 million.

Bukele and Ulloa will continue in a second term at the helm of the government of El Salvador starting June 1st for a period of five years.

He thus became the first president to be re-elected in El Salvador since the country entered democracy, despite the constitutional prohibition of immediate re-election.

Before Bukele, the dictator and military man Maximiliano Hernández Martínez had done so, who ruled between 1931 and 1944.

The final scrutiny of the February 4th elections confirmed that Bukele obtained 2,700,725 votes (84.6%) in the first round. The leftist Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) obtained 204,167 votes (6.40%), and the right-wing Nationalist Republican Alliance (Arena) obtained 177,881 (5.57%).

Bukele, with Arab roots and the son of businessman Armando Bukele and Olga Marina Ortez, made a big leap in Salvadoran politics after his expulsion from the FMLN, now a minority opposition party, in 2017.

His experience as a publicist and his image as a young and relaxed politician allowed him to capitalize on Salvadorans' discontent with the political class.

Bukele swept the first round in the 2019 elections and broke with the so-called "bipartisanship" of the FMLN and Arena, which was repeated in Congress in 2021 when his image earned the Nuevas Ideas (NI) party an absolute majority in Congress.