Legislative elections were held in El Salvador in February and March 2024. In the first round on 4 February, voters elected all 60 deputies of the Legislative Assembly. In the second round on 3 March, voters elected mayors and municipal councils for all 44 of the country's municipalities and all 20 of El Salvador's deputies to the Central American Parliament (PARLACEN).
The Supreme Electoral Court (TSE) allowed 13 political parties to participate in the election. Of those, ten parties participated in the Legislative Assembly election, eleven in the municipal elections, and nine in the PARLACEN election. Opinion polling indicated significant leads for , the political party of President Nayib Bukele (who was seeking re-election in the concurrent presidential election), in the legislative and municipal elections. In December 2022, Bukele suggested reducing the number of municipalities and, in June 2023, the Legislative Assembly approved his proposals to reduce the number of municipalities from 262 to 44 and the number of seats in the Legislative Assembly from 84 to 60. The reductions were criticized by lawyers, economists, and opposition politicians as gerrymandering, undemocratic, and an attempt to consolidate the government's power.
won 54 seats. Its alliesâÂÂthe Christian Democratic Party and the National Coalition PartyâÂÂwon an additional 3 seats, while the opposition, consisting of the Nationalist Republican Alliance and Vamos won the last 3 seats. won 28 municipalities, its allies won an additional 15 municipalities, and the opposition won 1 municipality. The elected deputies, mayors, and municipal councils assumed office on 1 May.
On 30 December 2022, Salvadoran president Nayib Bukele tweeted that he believed the country's 262 municipalities should be reduced to only 50, claiming that it was "absurd that 21,000 km<sup>2</sup> are divided into 262 municipalities" (""). Various economists, lawyers, and politicians argued that the proposed reduction was an attempt to consolidate power through gerrymandering, would grant an electoral advantage, and would lead to data manipulation to favor the government.
In February 2023, Ernesto Castro, the president of the Legislative Assembly, confirmed that was considering reducing the number of deputies in the Legislative Assembly from 84 to 64 and the number of municipalities from 252 to 50. Claudia Ortiz, a deputy from Vamos, criticized the announcement and remarked that the proposed reforms could help form a one-party state. She also argued that the time to make electoral reforms had passed and that the changes would violate Article 291-A of the electoral code that prohibits electoral reforms up to one year before an election. On 15 March, the Legislative Assembly voted to repeal Article 291-A.
On 1 June 2023, Bukele formally proposed legislation to reduce the number of municipalities from 262 to 44 and the number of seats in the Legislative Assembly from 84 to 60. Regarding the municipal reduction, he stated that the present municipalities would be transformed into districts. Regarding the legislative reduction, he stated that the number of seats would return to the number that were present before the 1992 Chapultepec Peace Accords that ended the Salvadoran Civil War. The Legislative Assembly approved the legislative reduction on 7 June and the municipal reduction on 13 June. Both reductions would go into effect on 1 May 2024. ARENA stated that the reductions were a "tactic to swing the electoral field in ['] favor" (""). ÃÂscar Ortiz, the secretary-general of the FMLN, described the proposals as "institutional fraud" for occurring during the lead up to the 2024 election.
Legislative and municipal elections were scheduled to be held in El Salvador three years after the 2021 legislative election. All 60 Legislative Assembly deputies, 44 mayors and municipal councils of the country's municipalities (second-level subdivisions), and 20 Central American Parliament deputies were elected through a popular vote. El Salvador's constitution mandated that the election would be "free, direct, equal and secret". The Legislative Assembly election was held on 4 February 2024, concurrent with the presidential election. The elections for the 44 municipalities and the Central American Parliament were held on 3 March 2024.
Voting was held from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. CST. A total of 1,595 voting centers were available across the country. Voting was not compulsory. Electronic voting for Salvadoran expatriates began at midnight on 6 January 2024. Expatriates were able to vote at 81 voting centers in 60 of the country's embassies and consulates in 30 countries. For the legislative election, votes cast from outside of the country were counted towards selecting deputies in the department of San Salvador. Guillermo Wellman, a magistrate of the TSE, stated that individuals arrested during the country's gang crackdown were ineligible to vote. There were a total of 6,214,399 registered voters.
Deputies of the Legislative Assembly were elected by the D'Hondt method, which was changed in June 2023 from the hare quota largest remainders method used in previous elections. Mayors, municipal council members, and Central American Parliament deputies were elected by open list proportional representation. The 60 deputies of the Legislative Assembly were elected in 14 constituencies for the country's 14 departments (first-level subdivisions), the 44 mayors and municipal councils were elected for each constituency, and the 20 Central American Parliament deputies were elected from one nationwide constituency.
Legislative candidates had to be at least 25 years old while municipal candidates had to be at least 21 years old. All candidates had to have been Salvadoran citizens by birth. Per article 38 of the Law of Political Parties, at least 30 percent of a party's total candidates for the legislative, municipal, and PARLACEN elections must be women. In addition to the 60 deputies elected to the Legislative Assembly and the 20 deputies elected to PARLACEN (referred to as proprietary deputies), an additional 60 substitute deputies were elected to the Legislative Assembly and 20 substitute deputies were elected to PARLACEN. Voters in each of the 44 municipalities elected 1 mayor and a varying number of members to the municipal council. Each municipal council consisted of 1 trustee, 4 proprietary aldermen, and 4 substitute alderman, however, two municipalities elected 8 proprietary alderman and two more elected 10 proprietary alderman due to those municipalities' larger size. In total, 624 people were elected to hold public office in the 2024 elections, a decrease from 3,206 in 2021.
Political parties must be registered with the TSE to be able to participate in elections. The following table shows the thirteen political parties that were eligible to participate in the 2024 election.
held a majority in the 13th Legislative Assembly; GANA, the PDC, and the PCN supported ' government. The opposition consisted of ARENA, the FMLN, , and . Within the Central American Parliament, the fifteen deputies from and GANA belong to the Center-Democratic Integration Group, the four deputies from ARENA and the PCN belong to the Integrationist Democratic Unity, and the sole FMLN deputy belongs to the Parliamentary Group of the Left.
In the years following the 2021 legislative election, three deputies and twenty-two mayors from ARENA left the party and become independents, as had eleven mayors from the FMLN, and one deputy and two mayors from GANA.
Eighteen deputies elected to the Legislative Assembly in 2021 did not run for re-election in 2024 because they chose to run for another office, were eliminated during their party's primary elections, were suspended by their party prior to the election, or they chose not to seek public office in 2024.
According to Ernesto Castro, the majority of ' deputies were seeking re-election. During the primaries, 60 legislative candidates, 44 municipal candidates, and 20 PARLACEN candidates were also confirmed. formed one municipal coalition with GANA for San Miguel Centro and two municipal coalitions with Democratic Change for Sonsonate Oeste and Santa Ana Norte.
On 16 July 2023, the Nationalist Republican Alliance elected 42 municipal candidates and 60 candidates to the Legislative Assembly. According to Citizen Action, ARENA stated that it would not disclose its entire list of candidates due to alleged threats made against its candidates for participating in the elections.
In July 2023, ÃÂngel Monge, a member of the FMLN's political commission, stated that the FMLN would not form coalitions for the Legislative Assembly but would still consider forming coalitions for the municipal elections. The party elected 44 municipal candidates and 60 candidates for the Legislative Assembly from all 14 departments on 16 July 2023. According to Citizen Action, the FMLN stated that it would not disclose its entire list of candidates due to alleged threats made against its candidates for participating in the elections.
The Grand Alliance for National Unity (GANA) formed one municipal coalition with for San Miguel Centro and one municipal coalition with the PCN for Chalatenango Centro. Unlike in the 2021 election, GANA did not form coalitions with for the Legislative Assembly elections.
The PCN formed a coalition with the Christian Democratic Party (, or PDC) to jointly contest both legislative seats of Morazán. It also formed a coalition with the Citizen Power civil movement for legislative seats and municipalities in San Salvador. The coalition is unofficial as Citizen Power is not a registered political party. The PCN formed one municipal coalition with GANA for Chalatenango Centro and two municipal coalitions with the PDC for the Morazán Norte and Morazán Sur.
The PDC formed a coalition with the PCN to jointly contest both of Morazán's legislative, as well as the seats for both the Morazán Norte and Morazán Sur municipalities. The PDC disclosed its full list of 20 legislative, 23 municipal, and 2 PARLACEN candidates on 24 September.
SofÃÂa Vaquerano, legal secretary of , stated that the party would not form coalitions with individuals who had been accused of being corrupt. Initially, Claudia Ortiz stated that the party was open to forming a coalition with other parties, but later stated that the party would not seek any political coalition.
The Salvadoran Independent Party (PAIS) legislative, municipal, and PARLACEN candidates to the TSE, however, Roy GarcÃÂa (the party's leader) stated on Facebook that this announcement was not legitimate and that all of the party's candidates were invalid. He added that the party should wait and reorganize for the 2027 legislative election. On 4 October, the TSE passed a resolution to deregister the party and bar it from participating in the 2024 election.
Solidary Force formed a municipal coalition with Democratic Change for Usulután Oeste. The Salvadoran Patriotic Fraternity (FPS) did not register any legislative candidates. but it did register 20 PARLACEN candidates. Democratic Change formed two municipal coalitions with for Sonsonate Oeste and Santa Ana Norte and one municipal coalition with Solidary Force for Usulután Oeste. Salvadoran Democracy did not participate in the 2024 election.
Registration for independent candidates began on 5 May 2023 and ended on 5 September. Manuel Meléndez was the only independent to begin registration with the TSE, however, he abandoned the registration process on 16 August.
Various groups such as CIESCA, Fundaungo, , TResearch, and UFG conducted opinion polling prior to the 2024 presidential election; virtually every poll indicated significant leads for Nuevas Ideas.
The TSE published the legislative election's final results on 18 February; won 54 out of 60 seats, a supermajority. ARENA and the PCN both won two seats while and the PDC each won one seat. The FMLN, GANA, and lost all of their seats in the Legislative Assembly, while the Democratic Change and Solidary Force parties failed to win any seats. Additionally, and Democratic Change failed to receive more than 50,000 votes and could possibly lose registration with the TSE per article 47, section C of the Law of Political Parties, which mandates the dissolution of such parties.
On 25 February 2024, Citizen Action published its findings regarding what the results of the legislative election would have been had the Hare quota (largest remainder method remained) in place, the Legislative Assembly had not been reduced from 84 to 60 seats, and the votes from expatriates had not been consideredâÂÂthe manner in which previous legislative elections were conducted prior to the June 2023 electoral reforms. According to the group's findings, the composition of the Legislative Assembly would have been: with 60 seats, ARENA with 7, the FMLN with 6, GANA and with 3 each, the PCN and PDC with 2 each, and with 1. According to Citizen Action, the electoral reforms only benefited . It also concluded that, even without the results, the party and its allies would have retained a two-thirds majority.
The following table displays the number of votes and seats each political party received from each of the country's 14 departments. The vote total for San Salvador includes votes cast from the exterior. The party with the most votes in a department is highlighted in its party color and the party with the second most votes and seats in a department is in .
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Nuevas Ideas, GANA, the PDC, the PCN, Solidary Force, and ARENA all won at least one mayorship, while the FMLN, Vamos, Nuestro Tiempo, Democratic Change, and the Salvadoran Patriotic Fraternity did not win any. Turnout for the municipal election was the lowest since the end of the Salvadoran Civil War in 1992. In total, the opposition won 1 mayorship, 1 trustee, 24 proprietary aldermen, and 23 substitute aldermen in 16 of the 44 municipal councils; this accounts for around 10 percent of all municipal council positions. and its allies won the remaining 90 percent of municipal council positions.
According to , had the reduction of municipalities not occurred, would have still won the most municipalities, but it would not have won more than half of the municipalities, instead winning only 122 compared to 152 in 2021. Additionally, the FMLN and Democratic Change, parties which failed to win any municipalities, would have won 21 and 1 municipalities, respectively.
Turnout for the PARLACEN election was the lowest in 25 years and reached just 29.88%. ' attributed the low turnout and almost 10 percent of the vote being blank or invalid to PARLACEN's general unpopularity in El Salvador, with many invalid ballots containing messages questioning PARLACEN's functions or relevance.
After the results of the legislative election were published, Lourdes Argueta, a member of the FMLN's political commission, stated that the party "did not need a seat to [...] defend the people's interests". Regarding Claudia Ortiz winning re-election to the Legislative Assembly with , Mauricio Funes stated that she "has fought the battle and I am sure that she will continue to fight". The Resistance and Popular Rebellion Bloc called for Salvadorans to "reject this electoral farce". When asked about ' 500,000-vote difference between the presidential and legislative elections, Castro stated that "there is no comparison" and that such comparisons were "apples to oranges" ("") as Bukele was a "phenomenon at the global level". After GANA lost all its seats in the Legislative Assembly, Gallegos, who himself lost his seat, stated that he would continue to support Bukele regardless of his political situation.
After polling stations closed for the municipal and PARLACEN elections, Bukele posted on X that and its allies had won 43 of the 44 municipalities, claiming that the only municipality the opposition won was . He acknowledged that some of ' municipal candidates lost as voters were unsatisfied with their current tenures. Bukele's announcement came before any official announcement from the TSE. Milagro Navas, ARENA's sole elected mayor, celebrated her victory against Minister of Housing Michelle Sol and stated that she would cooperate with Bukele's government. After the FMLN failed to win any mayorships, the party leadership stated that the FMLN would undergo a "total reorganization", adding that "this is not the end, it is the closing of a chapter".
The TSE released the first preliminary results late on 4 February 2024, but stalled until the morning of 5 February, with its website crashing shortly before midnight local time. The TSE attributed the delay to "multiple actions that have hampered the development of the transmission activities of preliminary results" and shortages of paper to print out vote tallies. It advised electoral boards at polling stations to resort to contingency measures such as tallying votes by hand and taking photographs or scans of manual tallies before sending them to the TSE. Deputies from ARENA, the FMLN, , and criticized the TSE's counting delay. claimed that there were inconsistencies between preliminary vote totals published by the TSE in published statements and on its website.
ARENA, the FMLN, , and all called for the TSE to launch a recount. On 5 February 2024, the TSE stated that it would conduct a manually count the legislative ballots "vote by vote" at the José Adolfo Pineda National Gymnasium, and that the results would be finalized within 15 days. The recount for legislative ballots began on 11 February and ended on 18 February. A similar recount occurred for the concurrent presidential election. During the recount process, opposition politicians accused the TSE of manipulating the recount to benefit by including unfolded ballots that were marked in black pen; according to the TSE's election procedures, only folded ballots filled out in black crayon were considered valid.
On 6 February 2024, GarcÃÂa Saade stated that ARENA would ask the TSE to nullify the Legislative Assembly election results as well as the concurrent presidential election results "not because of what has happened, but because of what will happen afterwards", while the FMLN and stated they would ask the TSE to nullify the legislative election results due to irregularities. On 10 February, ARENA stated that it would petition the TSE to postpone the municipal and PARLACEN elections by 15 days and to not use the same electoral system that was used during the presidential and legislative elections. On 13 February, the TSE announced that it would not postpone the municipal or PARLACEN elections. On 19 February, leaders from ARENA, Vamos, and jointly announced they had submitted a petition to the TSE to nullify the legislative elections due to irregularities and allegations of fraud. Later that day, the FMLN stated it would do the same. On 21 February, the TSE denied the joint petition, declaring it unfounded; the TSE did the same for the FMLN's petition the following day. In response to the TSE's declaration, Failer stated that the TSE was "ignoring the structural fraud that corrupted this election".
The TSE ratified the results of the Legislative Assembly election on 18 March and the municipal and PARLACEN elections on 11 April. The TSE granted the elected deputies their legislative credentials on 20 March, the elected mayors and council members their municipal credentials in late April 2024, and the elected PARLACEN deputies on 25 April. The elected legislative deputies, mayors, and municipal council members assumed office on 1 May 2024. That same day, the reductions of legislative seats and municipalities went into effect. The 20 PARLACEN deputies are scheduled to assume office on 28 October 2026.