The above image, by El Faro, shows the likely composition of the legislative assembly, with over 90% of votes counted. The seats represented by “N” are for President Bukele’s Nuevas Ideas party.
Last weekend, Bukele’s Nuevas Idea (New Ideas) party, together with its ally, GANA (the white bird in the above graphic), gained a definite majority in the legislative assembly. This will allow them to elect an attorney general and Supreme Court judges, and approve budgets and constitutional reforms without concern for opposition.
El Faro, in analysing the election and election campaigning (here in English), noted that many people likely voted for the president’s party, rather than for any concrete proposals made by his party.
Underreported and unpunished, femicides in El Salvador continue
Like in Honduras and Mexico, there is almost complete impunity when it comes to rape and femicides in El Salvador.
A 2017 survey found that 67% of Salvadoran women had experienced some form of violence in their lives, Nacla reports. And although El Salvador passed a gender violence law in 2011, establishing sentences of 20 to 50 years for femicide, acknowledging and prosecuting such cases is very difficult. The pandemic and stay-at-home measures have further exposed these challenges.
Women’s activist groups in El Salvador, including groups that are pro abortion rights and women’s human rights, came together to provide a hotline for women with psychological and legal support. They received more gender-based violence cases in the first six months of the pandemic than during all of 2019.
|