U.S. Department of State Washington, DC

Dear Secretary Blinken,

We write today to express our concerns about the state of democracy in El Salvador and, specifically, reports of systematic irregularities in the February 4 presidential and legislative elections. We urge you to call on Salvadoran authorities to give a clear accounting in response to these concerns and to make clear to the Salvadoran people prior to the March 3 elections that the United States’ commitment to electoral integrity requires both transparency and accountability.

Leading up to the first elections, Biden administration officials, including in the State Department, made repeated calls for free and fair elections. However, since the elections, the Biden administration has made no comments in response to the convincing reports by international observer missions, opposition parties, and civil society organizations in El Salvador regarding evidence of vote tampering on behalf of the the governing party, as well as aggression and intimidation by members of the Bukele administration, the Attorney General’s Office, and New Ideas party members throughout the vote count process.

Besides Bukele’s candidacy being unconstitutional, affirmed as early as September 2021 by the U.S. Embassy, the February elections evidenced systematic violations of El Salvador’s own laws, electoral code and established democratic procedures, and of international democratic norms and standards. Of particular concern are indications throughout the electoral process that the governing Nuevas Ideas party had usurped the role of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) as the institutional arbiter of the electoral process.

International observer missions documented widespread irregularities on election day, both in El Salvador and other countries around the world where Salvadoran citizens were excited to exercise their right to vote in both presidential and legislative elections, as well as throughout the extended final scrutiny processes that followed the elections. View a detailed account of the documented irregularities (Annex A), that includes irregularities observed in these three instances: 1) Election Day in El Salvador, 2) Election Day in countries around the world, and 3) the extended final scrutiny.

Together with the last-minute reforms approved by Bukele’s party in the months leading up to the election to radically redraw the electoral map, and undermine local representation and the participation of smaller political parties, the result is a disproportionately high concentration of power by Bukele’s party in the legislative branch (68% of legislative votes resulting in 90% of legislative seats).

On February 11, four of five alternate TSE magistrates sent a letter distancing themselves from the official decisions being made, which they described as not having been made “legally” or “correctly.” Magistrate Julio Olivo publicly shared several letters he wrote to his colleagues, one of which warned of “the presence of people outside the process who have been interfering with the count.” He implored his fellow magistrates to attend to “reports of data manipulation, alterations or interventions by staff in charge of recording data, political party monitors or others,” and, separately, to instruct TSE staff to follow established procedure during the final vote count. The TSE’s November 2023 decision to permit Bukele to run for a consecutive term despite clear constitutional prohibitions indicated that the Tribunal had abdicated its role as the highest and independent authority of the electoral process, raising serious questions as to whether the TSE – or the results they delivered following the elections – are reliable.