At 12:30 pm on March 1, the TSE had viewed less than 5% of the minutes.
The capital does not yet have an officially defined winner of the municipal elections, because at the closing of this note (at 12:30 pm on March 1), the Supreme Electoral Tribunal still has not even examined 5% of the minutes.
At that point, none of the most likely candidates, Ernesto Muyshondt and Mario Durán, dared to declare themselves the winner.
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With 15 minutes out of 531, the New Ideas-Gana coalition counted 494,000 and New Ideas 696,000, while ARENA garnered 751,000 votes.
In the latter part of the day, the mayor of the capital Ernesto Muyshondt expressed concern about the government’s actions in light of the closing of the vote, aiming for his second term with the ARENA party.
During the afternoon conference, however, he assured that “from now on we can say that the victory in San Salvador is ours; that we will win the capital again ”.
Ernesto Muyshondt, Mayor of San Salvador, cast his vote in the Concha Viuda de Escalón School Center. Photo Twitter
The mayor was convinced that people were taking into account the projects he was promoting, despite the fact that, as he warns, his management was constantly being blocked by officials from the executive branch.
Mario Durán, the construction chair candidate for the New Ideas Party, also took the victory for granted in several posts that were posted on his social networks throughout the day. At night, the party launched fireworks to warn of the edilicia chairman’s victory, but later, at the party’s headquarters, supporters waited for more important data to mobilize. Until late in the evening, there was no glimpse of the preparation of a party for their candidate.
During the day, Durán told several journalists he was sure of the win, but at night he showed caution in his social media posts.
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Muyshondt, for his part, said the election campaign was affected by the arbitrary use of resources and government institutions.
In this regard, he called on the government in the morning to refrain from using the national civil police or the armed forces during the counting process, and in the afternoon he added an appeal to the international community to be vigilant.
“We are calling the diplomatic corps, and with international observation, with the attorney general’s office to also keep an eye on how these coming hours are developing, especially after the close of the polls,” he insisted.
“I hope they have respect even if the results are already flawed due to the fraud they generated, which has been going on for months,” he said.