Salvadorans on the Eastside reflect on their country’s upcoming elections

On a sunny Saturday afternoon, El Sereno resident Ana Salina could be found sitting on a bench covered by the veranda outside Los Molcajetes, a popular Salvadoran restaurant chain in Los Angeles. Salina, who is from Santa Ana, El Salvador, was waiting to be seated inside. “I really love the food here,” Salina said.

Salina loves her country and travels there every year to visit family. She’s particularly invested in this year’s general election which will occur on Sunday, Feb. 4. Salina plans on voting for the current president, Nayib Bukele, but is unsure how to cast her vote.

“My son is going to help me figure out where the voting will take place because right now I don’t know where to go,” said Salina. 

For the first time, the tiny Central American nation is giving its citizens in 29 different countries the opportunity to vote online. The Salvadoran diaspora is vast and about 20% of the nation’s population lives abroad; about 2.5 million reside in the U.S. Many of these citizens migrated to other places during the decade-long civil war that occured throughout the 1980’s. 

Like Salina, many in the diaspora still maintain a deep connection to their motherland. El Salvador opened up their electronic voting system in early January, and The Associated Press reported a record breaking 51,226 Salvadorans living abroad cast their votes within the first three days. 

Salvadoran citizens have until Sunday to vote electronically. To ensure an even greater turnout, El Salvador’s Supreme Electoral Tribunal has enlisted the help of Argentina-based NGO Transparencia Electoral to promote the vote in the U.S. The organization, which has remote workers based in the U.S and throughout Latin America, typically assists governments in analyzing their federal election processes. 

Eduardo Repilloza Fernández, general director of Transparencia Electoral, spoke to Boyle Heights Beat about their efforts. 

Repilloza Fernández outlined the voting process. In order to vote online, citizens need to have been registered last year during the Supreme Electoral tribunal’s registration period. Applicants were required to have a foreign address registered on their Salvadoran ID card. 

Citizens can still vote in person at select polling stations. Voting will take place from 7 a.m to 5 p.m PST. 

Repilloza Fernandez has spent the last two weeks contacting Los Angeles-based non-profits and media organizations with possible ties to the large Central American community that is present in LA. In the 1980’s, many of these Salvadoran immigrants settled in Central and South LA, though a small group still calls the Eastside home. “Now we want to spread this information about how you vote and where you vote here,” he said. 

The electronic voting system was instituted during a particularly critical election year. In 2021, The Salvadoran Supreme Court abolished the country’s one-term limit. This allows the current president Nayib Bukele, who is a popular figure for the Salvadoran diaspora, to run for re-election. 

Bukele, the son of a wealthy Salvadoran businessman of Palestinian descent, rose to power in 2019 by building his social media presence and forming key political relationships with both the country’s left and right leaning parties. Bukele is running against Manuel Flores, former lawmaker and member of the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front, El Salvador’s former ruling left wing political party, out of which Bukele was kicked out. 

The sitting president is expected to win by a wide margin thanks to immense support he’s garnered over the years for his extreme policing methods. He’s targeted the country’s biggest gangs including Mara Salavatrucha, more commonly known as MS-13. Salvadoran gangs were established in LA by teen youth who sought to protect themselves from local Mexican gangs. 

As the years progressed, these small cliques became organized criminal groups. The U.S government arrested members and deported them back to El Salvador but developed no formal process to rehabilitate them or keep them incarcerated. Gangs like MS-13 and 18th Street grew bigger and established their presence in El Salvador often through violent means.  

Bukele’s policies that include the mass arrests of any individuals thought to be affiliated with local gangs has garnered criticism from global human rights groups but praise from Salvadoran citizens like Ana Salina who says she adores the president because her visits to El Salvador are now more peaceful. “I really like him because he’s doing a lot of things for the country and we have the freedom to arrive without fear,” Salina said. 

Noemí Amaya, a Salvadoran cook who was preparing pupusas at a stand outside Northgate Market on Soto Street, echoed the same sentiment about feeling safe to walk the streets. 

“There’s not a lot of violence anymore because so many of them [gang members] are in prison now,” Amaya said. She wasn’t aware that she could vote from LA and isn’t sure if she will but, like many Salvadorans living abroad, she supports Bukele’s potential second term.

Unlike most, Carlos Ortez, owner of vegan restaurant Un Solo Sol on 1st Street, is skeptical of Bukele’s presidency. Like other immigrants who left El Salvador during the conflict in the 1970’s and 80’s, he experienced government suppression firsthand. 

Ortez attended the San Jose Externado, A Jesuit Catholic school in the capital city San Salvador, which was under surveillance by the right-wing military government. “I left because they would have killed me eventually since I came out of this school which was under surveillance and threat.”

That experience, along with his beliefs in liberation theology, have left him critical of any leader in El Salvador who tests the limits of their constitutional power. “I’ve never been a friend of authoritarian regimes in general, it’s not my style,” Ortez said. 

Like Amaya and Salina, Ortez is glad people at home are enjoying newfound peace but is still wary of what’s to come. 

“It’s good that a lot of families and communities are breathing easier now because of less violence,” said Ortez, “But what is next?”