Nayib Bukele won the Presidency of El Salvador on Sunday, in an election which upset decades of two-party control.
According to the BBC:
With most votes counted, the former mayor of San Salvador had nearly 53% of the vote with his closest rival, the conservative Carlos Calleja on 32%.
BBC
There has been no significant challenge to the vote count, and both rivals from the two dominant political parties have conceded defeat. The results are expected to be made official within two days.
El Salvador has two large political parties: the socialist Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional / Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) and the Alianza Republicana Nacionalista / Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA).
Bukele was originally a FMLN member and was a popular Mayor of first the city Nuevo Cuscatlan and then the country’s capital city, San Salvador. He leans left in his politics, but issues with the aggressively socialist policies of FMLN caused him to be expelled from the organization in 2017.
After exploring the possibility of an independent run for the Presidency, Bukele instead joined a small third party, the Gran Alianza por la Unidad Nacional / Grand Alliance for National Unity (GANA). GANA is a center-right offshoot from ARENA.
After multiple corruption scandals undermined confidence in his rivals, Bukele was given a potential path to victory due to existing name recognition and dissatisfaction with the state of the country.
A new leader in El Salvador may be exactly what is needed to stem the tide of migrants leaving the country. President Trump has not as yet noted the defeat of El Salvadorean nationalist party, despite making border security one of his high-profile issues.
