Yearbook 2019
El Salvador. The February 3 presidential election was
historically in many ways. Nayib Bukele of GANA (Grand
Alliance for National Unity) won in the first round and not
only became the first candidate to break the hegemony of
ARENA (Republican National Alliance) and FMLN (Front
Farabundo Martí for National Liberation) in El Salvador in
30 years, but also with his 37 years became the youngest
head of state ever in the country's history. The victory
margin, 53%, was also exceptionally large; he got more votes
than all rivals together. Bukele also won in all the
provinces of the country, in eight of them with more than
50% of the vote, five of which were the country's most
populous. But it was due less to Bukele's popularity than to
disastrous results for the rival parties, especially the
FMLN, which received fewer votes than ever.
According to
CountryAAH, a major reason for his victory was the electorate's
sympathies with Bukele's attacks on the political
establishment that ARENA and FMLN constituted and which have
been the focus of corruption investigations in recent years.
However, dissatisfaction with the established parties was
also reflected in the low turnout - only 52%. Analysts felt
that his policies were in line with the populism that swept
across Latin America in recent years, and he himself had,
among other things, a pronounced hostile attitude to
established media. How he intends to manage the country's
large budget deficit was not mentioned during the election
campaign. Foreign policy, he said, wants to approach the
United States and distance himself from the region's less
democratic leaders.
San Salvador - city of El Salvador
San Salvador, the capital of El Salvador; 567,700 residents (2011), 2.4
million in the metropolitan area. The city is at 682 m altitude, surrounded by
volcanoes; the area is geologically active and the city has been repeatedly
ravaged by earthquakes. It is now completely rebuilt as a modern metropolis and
there are no remnants of Spanish colonial architecture. San Salvador has a
dominant role as the country's commercial, financial, political and industrial
center and is also a traffic hub by rail to the port city of Acajutla on the
Pacific.
The city has grown a lot since 1980; The civil war in El Salvador drove
thousands of rural workers into refugee camps around the capital, and even
though the camps have been closed down, many have become residents. The strong
urban growth has, among other things, caused by a growing air pollution which is
amplified by the location with frequent temperature inversions and thus stagnant
air.
The city has several universities: the national (1841), a Jesuit (1965) as
well as right-wing universities, created during the Civil War, when the conflict
between the right and the left was strongest. Following the peace agreement in
1992, the city has seen a resurgence as a cultural center.
San Salvador was founded by the Spaniard Diego de Alvarado in 1525. It was
only after the colonial period and the earliest independence period that the
city from 1834 gained the status of capital. A series of earthquakes, 1854,
1873, 1917 and 1919, caused widespread devastation, and again in the 1980's, an
earthquake and civil war in the country caused great devastation and many died.
The devastation of major earthquakes in 2001 was less than in the past, which is
interpreted as a result of earthquake-proofed newly constructed properties since
the 1980's.
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