El Salvador: Bukele and Absolute Power

There were no surprises in Sunday's legislative elections in the Republic of El Salvador: with a turnout of just over 51%, the party - New Ideas ("Nuevas Ideas") of the young and popular president, Nayib Bukele, swept to victory. In the absence of official results that depend on a few hundred votes, the evolution of the vote count anticipates a landslide victory, even more than expected.

Initial forecasts predict that the ruling party will win the 56 seats in the Legislative Assembly that it needs for an absolute majority. The two traditional parties, which have alternated in government for several years, have achieved meagre results - ARENA, twelve, and the FMLN, eight - which condemns them to the status of opposition, without any capacity to exercise it in practice.

The absolute majority, which strengthens the president's role and means that all decisions, reforms or appointments that he is required to present to Parliament will be guaranteed approval. And with hardly any debate. The very deputies who will make up the opposition recognise that their role will be null and void. Some have described it as decorative.

They will not even have options for debate in the face of a majority that is very rare in democratic parliaments. The result is logically received with enthusiasm by Bukele's supporters, but also with concern by his defeated opponents, who are joined by the opinions of analysts, many intellectuals and businessmen.

El Salvador, they say, remains a formal democracy, similar in substance to those of other Latin American countries. But with absolute power comparable to that of some dictatorships. Only the media, some of which act quite independently, are the only hope that the government and other constitutional bodies will be subject to criticism. And denunciation.

With such a majority, the president will be able to appoint the High Court of Justice, the Court of Auditors and the Attorney General's Office without parliamentary resistance or debate, and will be able to tackle constitutional reform without any problems. Salvadoran democracy retains freedom of expression, with some independent newspapers, which holds out a glimmer of hope for public opinion.