Voting for a New President

El Salvador's Supreme Tribunal for Elections (TSE) has now announced that the March 9th Presidential Runoff Election was won by Salvador Sanchez Ceren of the FMLN, the party of the left.  This was a squeaker election - the opposing ARENA party, led by San Salvador's Alcalde, Norman Quijano, was only 6000 votes behind Sanchez Ceren, and ARENA continues to dispute the results.  However the army and police have both gone on record as supporting the winner announced by the TSE - and in a country with a long history of military rule, that was a central declaration for democratic rule.

Most international observers have called the elections free and fair with few irregularities which is a very strong, positive step in the right direction for El Salvador.


Here are some of Darren's photos from election day:

A street scene from the voting center in Escalon, near the PazSalud base house:

The red, white and blue tricolor is ARENA's signature.  Here's the FMLN's red tent:

And here's the careful process for certifying a voter, who has to present his official identity document and be matched to his photo and ID by poll workers before he can vote.  The electoral process has been carefully designed to be transparent. The count of votes at a particular election center, for example, is done in public and certified by the poll officials and party representatives.