The Nationalist Republican Alliance (Arena, right) and the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN, left) together with the parties Gran Alianza por la Unidad Nacional (Gana), Vamos, Fuerza Solidaria and the Christian Democratic Party (PDC). They will hold their internal elections this Sunday to select candidates for elective office.
While not everyone will seek to challenge Nayib Bukele, who is seeking an unprecedented re-election that his critics say is unconstitutional, for the presidential house, they will use their best cards to decide seats in the legislature and mayors .
From these instances they will seek to impose a lockdown that will prevent the government from pushing through initiatives with the majority of votes it now has.
The six tents come at odds with polls forecasts that expect a broad victory for the Nuevas-Ideas formula, Bukele and his vice-president Félix Ulloa, after attempts to create unity between opposition parties around a couple who backed the proposal , failed were civil society.
Irreconcilable differences between the right and the left prevented that unity, which benefited Bukele’s party the most, which must go to the polls with little resistance to remain in government for another five years.
Arena, which has been plagued by desertions in recent days, will seek to ratify the presidential formula made up of expatriate businessmen Joel Sánchez and Hilcia Bonilla, something that some of their members didn’t like, while the FMLN bets on Manuel “El Chino” Flores and Werner Marroquín, the latter also from the diaspora.
The day before, the Nuestro Tiempo party, center, voted for the 2024 formula of Luis Parada and Celia Medrano, a former military and lawyer residing in the United States and a former FMLN and human rights campaigner.
It is noteworthy that the parties must respect the proportion of women in their candidacy, i.e. 30 percent of the so-called gender quota.
Nuevas Ideas is reportedly the one that has made the most progress in this regard among formations that have already completed their internships, with 37.5 percent women on the legislative list.
From the list of candidates for the position of deputy of the Legislative Assembly for 2024, resulting from its internal elections conducted by the Marquee on July 9, it appears that out of 120 candidates for a seat as owner or deputy, 45 from the women’s sector.
ode/lb