El Salvador is gearing up to elect a new president and vice president for the 2014-2019 term on February 2nd.
A second round is scheduled for March 9 in case no candidate achieves an absolute majority.
Five political parties are presenting candidates for these offices.
The list below summarizes the options available to voters for president and vice president:
- Salvador Sánchez Cerén and Oscar Ortíz Ascencio will run for FMLN.
- Norman Noel Quijano González and René Alfredo Portullo Cuadra will represent ARENA.
- José Óscar Morales Lemus and Rafael Antonio Mejía López are the candidates for FPS.
- René Alcides Rodriguez Hurtado and Adriana Patricia Bonilla García will run for the PSP.
- Elías Antonio Saca González and Francisco Esteban Antonio Laínez Rivas represent the hope of MU.
Following a recent legislation passed by the Legislative Assembly on January 24, 2013, citizens living abroad will be allowed to cast a ballot for the first time in El Salvador’s history.
As a result, 10,337 are expected to vote abroad via mail, and 132,081 will be voting at precincts located abroad.
1,591 polling centers will be distributed across the 262 municipalities of this rather small (8,124 sq mi) but densely populated Central American nation.
Although voting will follow the traditional pencil and paper methods, El Salvador is relying on technology to capture, transmit and publish results. President of the TSE (Superior Electoral Tribunal), Eugenio Chicas, expects to have preliminary results by 10 pm thanks to this technology.
In order to secure a proper implementation of the automated platform, authorities are conducting a series of tests. The latest, carried out on January 16th, raised optimism as the entire platform demonstrated the benefits automation can bring to election administration. In one and a half hours, 90% of the data was transmitted.
