El Salvador’s president is directly elected for a five-year term. In 2019, Nayib Bukele won the presidential election in the first round with 53 percent of the vote and was inaugurated that June. Voter turnout was 52 percent. Organization of American States (OAS) observers deemed the election free and generally fair, and praised the peaceful transfer of power.

The 84-member, unicameral Legislative Assembly is elected for three years. The Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA) and Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) had dominated Salvadoran politics since the first postwar election in 1994. However, in the 2021 legislative elections, ARENA won only 14 seats and the FMLN won 4, while President Bukele’s newly constituted NI won a supermajority with 56 seats. The remaining 10 seats went to smaller parties.

European Union (EU) and Latin American election observers attested that the results reflected the popular will but found that the campaign environment was flawed in favor of NI, with violations of electoral law that included the use of significant state resources to favor the party.

El Salvador’s electoral framework is designed by the Legislative Assembly and administered by the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE).

In September 2021, the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice (CSJ), dominated by unconstitutionally appointed magistrates allied with Bukele, ruled that the president may serve two consecutive terms, in violation of the constitution. The TSE complied with the change, saying that the ruling could not be appealed. In January 2023, the NI-controlled legislature modified the criminal code to penalize “obstructing candidacies,” which was widely seen as a measure to intimidate the critics of Bukele’s reelection. In October 2023, President Bukele registered his candidacy for election in 2024.

El Salvador’s presidential, legislative, and municipal elections are scheduled for February and March 2024. In March 2023, the NI-controlled legislature repealed a ban on modifying the electoral system within a year of the next election. In June, the government pushed through major reforms, which reduced the number of legislators from 84 to 60 and changed the voting system. The reforms also reduced the number of municipalities from 262 to 44, which decreased the number of elected municipal authorities, thus eliminating many offices held by opposition members. NI is structurally favored to win the offices that remain. The changes are widely recognized as strongly favoring the ruling party.

Score Change: The score declined from 3 to 2 because the government enacted major electoral reforms that were expected to favor the ruling party in the 2024 elections.

Salvadorans have traditionally been free to organize in different political parties or groupings. However, in 2021, politically motivated corruption charges resulted in raids on opposition party offices, and figures from ARENA and FMLN were arrested or had arrest warrants issued against them. Those who were arrested remain in pretrial detention. Meanwhile, the Legislative Assembly set up commissions to investigate past bonus payments to politicians and public funding of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). While these actions were all ostensibly linked to fighting alleged corruption, they were denounced by opposition parties, human rights groups, and other critics as political persecution and attempts to silence the opposition.

The government unconstitutionally instituted a state of emergency in March 2022 and extended it on multiple occasions, using it to arbitrarily arrest more than 70,000 people. The state of emergency has served to intimidate citizens and deter them from criticizing government policy and potentially corrupt practices, limiting the ability of opposition parties and candidates to effectively campaign ahead of the 2024 elections.

Score Change: The score declined from 3 to 2 because the ongoing state of emergency has deterred criticism of Bukele’s government and limited the ability of opposition parties and candidates to effectively campaign.

Opposition parties are legally able to increase support and gain power through elections. President Bukele’s election marked a departure from the executive dominance of ARENA and the FMLN. Both parties collapsed in the 2021 legislative and municipal elections, while new parties gained representation.

However, in 2023, opposition parties faced extreme pressure from the government, and were incapable of mounting any viable electoral alternative in the run-up to the February and March 2024 presidential, legislative, and municipal elections. Furthermore, the municipal and electoral reforms passed in June 2023 decreased the opposition parties’ opportunities to gain representation in the upcoming elections. The reforms reorganized the country’s municipalities and severely reduced the number of elected offices, effectively eliminating many held by opposition members, and NI is structurally favored to win the offices that remain. NI has also used state resources, including illegal surveillance technology, to undermine opposition members.

Score Change: The score declined from 4 to 3 because the Bukele administration has adopted numerous policies that unduly disadvantage the opposition, including a reorganization of the country’s municipalities that severely reduces the number of elected offices.

Gangs have threatened political candidates and elected officials, but their influence has been drastically diminished under the state of emergency in effect since March 2022.

High-level politicians from all major parties have been accused of links to organized crime. Journalists have regularly uncovered evidence of covert engagement between the Bukele government and gang leaders, chiefly to rein in gang-related crimes—especially homicides—in exchange for various concessions. A criminal investigation into the government’s negotiations was shut down in 2021 after the government-controlled legislature replaced the attorney general.

All citizens have full political rights and electoral opportunities under the law, regardless of gender, ethnicity, religion, or sexual orientation, but women and racial, ethnic, religious, and other minority groups are underrepresented in the legislature and in high-level government positions. A 2013 statute requires that 30 percent of legislative and municipal candidates be women, but the proportion of women in the Legislative Assembly dipped under this threshold following the 2021 elections, and only 11 percent of mayors are women. The interests of women, LGBT+, and Indigenous peoples are poorly represented in practice.

The Bukele administration repeatedly interfered with the legislature’s ability to determine policy until Bukele’s NI party gained a supermajority in the legislative session that commenced in May 2021, which enabled it to swiftly rubber-stamp new laws and policies. The NI government routinely denies opposition legislators access to key information, including draft legislation, inhibiting substantial deliberation of proposed laws. The government also makes record use of legislative process waivers, which expedite most legislative proposals to a vote within hours of their submission to the legislature. Bukele has harassed lawmakers from other parties who criticize NI policies or officials.

The governing party dominates most public institutions, and the Bukele administration has co-opted other government bodies that might have served as a check on its power.

Corruption—including embezzlement, money laundering, and other forms of self-enrichment—remains a problem in government, and anticorruption bodies and prosecutions have been systematically dismantled since 2020. In 2021, the government shut down the International Commission against Impunity in El Salvador (CICIES), an OAS-supported anticorruption agency that assisted Salvadoran prosecutors.

Under the state of emergency that began in March 2022, the Bukele government removed administrative regulations on the use of public funds and state contracts. Furthermore, authorities restricted the right to access public information, impeding civil society’s ability to expose corrupt actors, and passed a law that enables authorities to manage public funds without adhering to the relevant law. NI has also never publicized the sources of their party and electoral funding, and no senior officials in the Bukele administration have disclosed their assets, as required by law.

In August 2023, the legislature appointed new members to the Court of Accounts, which performs audits of the executive branch and public funds. At least some of the new members—including the court’s head—are tied to the governing party, in breach of a Constitutional Court verdict.

The 2011 Access to Public Information Law instituted strong mechanisms for transparency and oversight of public institutions. While there have always been issues with compliance, government bodies have been far less transparent during the Bukele presidency. Executive and legislative decrees impinge on the independence of the oversight and enforcement body, the Access to Public Information Agency (IAIP), which is now governed by partisan commissioners.

Government officials continue to withhold information on expenditures, including the state’s investment of more than $100 million in Bitcoin, even amid widespread allegations and indications of corruption.

NI has routinely used its parliamentary supermajority to pass laws while providing minimal information to opposition lawmakers and the public. Government plans and expenditures are not publicly accessible, and neither is basic information about the ongoing state of emergency, including the number of incarcerated persons.

Score Change: The score declined from 1 to 0 because the Bukele administration routinely withholds information from the public and controls the release of data on critical issues, including detention statistics and the country’s investment in digital currency.

Despite a vibrant media space and constitutional protections, journalists have reported that they self-censor because of the harassment and violence that has followed critical coverage of corruption and public policy. Access to the internet is not restricted, and online outlets are vital sources of independent reporting. However, most Salvadorans rely on social media and privately owned television and radio networks for news, and ownership in the broadcast sector is highly concentrated. Disinformation campaigns are widespread and fomented by key government officials, including through allied online media outlets.

A January 2022 report published by multiple human rights and research groups found that at least 35 Salvadoran journalists had been targeted with Pegasus spyware in 2020 and 2021, allegedly by the Salvadoran government, although the researchers could not definitively prove this. In 2021 and 2022, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) called on El Salvador to implement measures to protect of dozens of journalists in the country, many of whom had owned devices that were compromised by Pegasus surveillance.

That August, the Association of Journalists of El Salvador (APES) reported that nine Salvadoran journalists were living in exile due to government harassment.

Religious freedom is widely respected by state and nonstate actors. For several years, people in some communities have been unable to access their churches due to territorial disputes between gangs. Some religious leaders working with former gang members face harassment by gangs and police and the threat of violence. However, the mass arrests of people suspected of gang affiliation that began in March 2022 improved perceptions of security, and more individuals have attended religious services safely.

Academic freedom is largely respected, and the educational system is generally free from extensive political indoctrination. However, there is increasing self-censorship in the academic community when it comes to criticizing the government, its policies, or the governing party, amid concern over public or even legal backlash.

While private discussion and personal expression are generally free, the prevalence of gangs has led many Salvadorans to curtail their speech about criminal activity and other sensitive topics for years. The Bukele government uses illegal surveillance mechanisms as part of the crackdown on gangs that began in March 2022, and authorities have used surveillance powers to arrest private individuals who critique government figures or policy, discouraging open discussion of government policy. In 2023, two doctors’ critical online comments about overcrowding in hospitals led to their suspension from a state-run hospital; 47 of their colleagues who protested were later suspended themselves. In December, an arrest warrant was issued against the prominent intellectual and government critic Rubén Zamora, a former FMLN politician. The warrant was issued because in 1993 he signed—as required by his role as vice president of the Legislative Assembly—the legislative decree issuing a postwar amnesty law, a measure he had voted against.

Freedom of assembly is generally upheld, and public protests and gatherings are permitted. However, the Bukele government has surveilled activists who organize such events, pushing some citizens to refrain from participating due to fear of potential repercussions. The 2022 state of emergency suspends the right to free assembly. In practice demonstrations do take place, notably among the families of individuals swept up in mass arrests targeting gangs. Protests in major locations are frequently monitored by riot police.

NGOs have historically operated freely and played an important role in society and policymaking. However, they have largely been excluded from engagement with policymakers under the Bukele government and are frequently attacked by the president and other officials over critical stances toward government policy.

In 2021, the Legislative Assembly set up a special commission to investigate NGOs, police and prosecutors raided the offices of seven NGOs on charges of embezzlement. In 2021 the government also proposed a law requiring individuals and organizations to register as foreign agents if their activities “respond to the interests of, or are directly or indirectly funded by, a foreigner” and pay a 40 percent tax on foreign payments. Ruling-party legislators and government officials explicitly linked the law to funding given to investigative journalism that is critical of the government and recent protest marches. In the face of massive pressure, not least by the diplomatic corps and foreign donors, the government delayed voting on the law.

The government targeted several nongovernmental human rights organizations using Pegasus spyware in 2020 and 2021, according to a January 2022 report. Under the state of emergency that began in March 2022, authorities have cracked down on programs that support the rehabilitation and reintegration of formerly incarcerated individuals.

Labor unions have long faced obstacles in a legal environment that favors business interests, including by giving only light penalties to employers who interfere with strikes. The law prohibits strikes in sectors deemed essential, a designation which is vaguely defined. The government has used the state of emergency in effect since March 2022 to threaten and arrest labor activists, especially those who work in state institutions.

Judicial independence has long been under pressure, and the judicial system is hampered by corruption. Elected officials do not always observe judicial rulings and powerful individuals can evade justice by exerting pressure on the judiciary.

In the first session of the new legislature in May 2021, the government-aligned legislators removed all members of the CSJ’s Constitutional Chamber, as well as the prosecutor general. That August, President Bukele announced a “purge” of the judiciary, and days later the legislature passed measures to dismiss judges and prosecutors over 60 years old or who had more than 30 years of service, impacting one in three judges and numerous prosecutors.

The government unconstitutionally instituted a state of emergency in March 2022 and extended it on multiple occasions. The CSJ has failed to rule on the legality of the ongoing state of emergency, resolve more than 1,300 habeas corpus petitions, or address thousands of human rights violations linked to the more than 70,000 arrests that authorities have carried out under the state of emergency. Criminal courts have broadly failed to act independently and defiant judges have been removed.

The Bukele administration continues to resist calls to cooperate in the ongoing El Mozote trial, in which 17 high-ranking military officers stand accused of massacring nearly 1,000 people in the northeastern town of El Mozote in 1981.

Since the end of the civil war in 1992, due process rights have been constitutionally guaranteed but systematically violated. Human rights advocates report that police routinely carry out arbitrary arrests and fabricate and plant evidence, and defendants have long been provided inadequate access to effective legal counsel.

These long-standing challenges escalated sharply in March 2022, when the government instituted an indefinite state of emergency, which has led to the arbitrary arrest of over 70,000 people suspected of gang links. Authorities continue to suspend constitutional guarantees of freedom of assembly and association, impinge on the rights of people accused of crimes, and violate citizens’ right to privacy by allowing law enforcement to access and surveil their communications without a court order. Criminal courts have placed virtually all detainees in indefinite detention, and nearly all remain incarcerated without a conviction at the end of 2023.

Furthermore, in March 2022 the government increased the maximum sentence for being a gang leader to 45 years and for being a gang member to 30 years. The criminal procedural code was also amended to mandate pretrial detention for those charged with gang membership, homicide, and extortion, and to remove the limit on the duration of pretrial detention in these cases, effectively allowing unlimited incarceration without a conviction. The same changes apply to minors.

Crime and violence, which have long been linked to gangs, remain issues of public concern. However, homicides have declined sharply since mid-2019 due to alleged secret agreements and negotiations between the Bukele government and the country’s gangs, which the president denies. Agreements reportedly broke down in March 2022, after which the government immediately implemented a state of emergency that has kept rates of crimes, including homicide and extortion, at historically low levels.

Under the state of emergency, the number of incarcerated individuals has increased from 39,000 to 105,000, leading to acute overcrowding in prisons and insufficient resources to guarantee basic rights. People who are imprisoned are not allowed family visits and have limited access to lawyers.

Civilians in El Salvador are vulnerable to forced disappearances and displacement. The University Observatory of Human Rights (OUDH) reported that between January 2020 and June 2022, there were 4,060 forced disappearances, while police figures for that period claim 692 people disappeared. Relatives of the disappeared often fear reprisals for discussing their cases publicly. While gangs caused more than 90 percent of registered forced displacements in recent years, in 2023 more than 75 percent were attributed to the police and military.

Men and women are granted equal rights under the law, but women are often subject to discrimination. Indigenous people disproportionately face poverty, unemployment, and labor discrimination. Certain other populations, particularly internally displaced persons and LGBT+ people, also have inadequate access to the justice system. Discrimination based on sexual orientation is prevalent, and LGBT+ people are often the targets of hate crimes and violence, including by state security agents.

Freedom of movement within El Salvador has long been complicated by gang activity. People living in the turf of one gang may suffer threats or violence when entering the turf of another gang, making it dangerous to travel, work, and attend school, especially for young men. Internal displacement due to gang-related crime and violence is commonplace. However, the degree of gang territorial control dropped sharply after the government implemented a state of emergency in March 2022. Conversely, certain population groups—and especially young men—limit their movements due to fear of police harassment or arbitrary arrest.

The rights to property and to start and run a business enjoy legal and regulatory protections. Since the mid-2000s, many businesses and citizens have been subject to extortion, chiefly by gangs. However, the state of emergency in effect since March 2022 vastly reduced the prevalence of extortion and gangs’ broader impact on the operating environment of businesses.

Political favoritism, cronyism, and bribes affect the awarding of state contracts.

Score Change: The score improved from 2 to 3 because law enforcement activity associated with the ongoing state of emergency has significantly reduced the prevalence of extortion by organized crime groups and improved the operating environment for private businesses.

Men and women have equal legal rights on matters such as marriage and divorce, and there are few formal restrictions on such decisions. However, same-sex couples can neither marry nor adopt. Abortion is punishable by imprisonment, including in cases where the pregnant person’s life is at risk. Some women have been jailed despite credible claims that their pregnancies ended due to miscarriage.

The prevalence of adolescent pregnancy is a serious problem, accounting for approximately a third of all pregnancies, and many are the result of sexual assault. Female students with children often leave school, sometimes under pressure from their principals. Gender-based violence, including domestic violence, sexual violence, and femicide, is also common. El Salvador has one of Latin America’s highest femicide rates.

El Salvador remains a source, transit, and destination country for the trafficking of women, children, and LGBT+ people. There are instances of forced labor in the construction and informal sectors. According to the 2023 edition of the US State Department’s Trafficking in Persons Report, the government investigated, prosecuted, and convicted fewer traffickers in the reporting period. Legislation from 2019 granted temporary residency rights to trafficking survivors, although none received “residency benefits” during the reporting period. The government did hire more people for antitrafficking units, but services for survivors remain insufficient.

Children are vulnerable to economic exploitation, and child labor is a serious problem. Children perform dangerous jobs in agriculture and are recruited by gangs and other criminal elements to carry out illegal activities.