SAN SALVADOR: Polls opened on Sunday in El Salvador’s presidential elec­tions amid heavy security as voters look for change in a country beset by gang violence and widespread poverty.

Nayib Bukele, the 37-year-old former mayor of San Salvador, is the frontrunner in a race that could upend the nearly 30-year grip of the country’s two largest parties on Salvadoran politics.

Gang-violence and insecurity was high on voters’ minds. El Salvador is among the world’s most violent countries with a murder rate of 51 per 100,000 citizens. “It’s honestly scary to go out alone in the street, you never know what can happen you,” first-time voter Gabriela Solorzano said at a polling station in the north of the capital, her brother holding her hand. “So I think whoever wins this election should care about us young people, give us more security as there is so much violence,” said Solorzano, 19.

Some 23,000 police officers and 15,000 soldiers have been deployed to protect the sixth presidential election since democracy was restored in the country in 1992 after 12 years of bloody civil war between state security forces and leftist guerrillas.

Should Bukele, who represents the conservative Grand Alliance for National Unity (GANA) party, win it would put to an end three decades of domination by the right-wing Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA) and leftist Far­abundo Marti Front for Nat­ional Liberation (FMLN). His main challenge is expected to come from 42-year-old supermarket magnate Carlos Calleja, representing ARENA.

If he does win, though, he will have to form an alliance with the right, which dominates congress. He has promised to increase investment in education and fight corruption but his main task will be to implement new programmes to confront insecurity.

The Central American country has been battered by gang violence, which authorities say was the source of most of the 3,340 murders reported last year. Gangs are said to have 70,000 members, 17,000 of whom are behind bars.

“The new president must offer daring security solutions,” said Carlos Carcach, an analyst and professor at the Higher School of Economy and Business in El Salvador.

Published in Dawn, February 4th , 2019