El Salvador opposition warns it may request nullification of congressional election results

As El Salvador’s electoral body begins a vote-by-vote count of the country’s elections last week, the political opposition warned they could ask to nullify results of the legislative elections due to irregularities

SAN SALVADOR -- As El Salvador's electoral body begins a vote-by-vote count of last week's election results, the political opposition warned Wednesday they could ask to nullify results of the legislative elections due to irregularities.

No one questions the victory of highly popular President Nayib Bukele, who won re-election with 83% of the votes, but attention has been focused on the fight for the 60 seats in dispute in Congress.

Control of Congress is crucial for Bukele. He hopes to continue to waive fundamental constitutional rights in his war against El Salvador's gangs, which has handed him his soaring popularity, and carry out other parts of his agenda.

Bukele already declared his Nuevas Ideas party had won 58 of the 60 congressional seats following the election Sunday night, despite just a tiny fraction of the count being made public.

Now, the vote count has become a subject of scrutiny after a number of irregularities and glitches resulted in the collapse of the system transmitting results. Because of the chaos, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal called for a manual recount of the legislative election votes and part of the presidential votes.