Salvadoran presidential candidate Norman Quijano demanded a recount of individual votes on Wednesday after preliminary results from Sunday’s elections showed that Quijano lost to former rebel and current Vice President Salvador Sánchez Cerén by fewer than 7,000 votes.
“We are not going to permit fraud of the chavista or Maduro type in Venezuela. This is El Salvador,” said Quijano, responding to the close vote that favored Cerén 50.11 percent to Quijano’s 49.89 percent.
The electoral council has denied Quijano’s request for a vote-by-vote recount, but the Supreme Electoral Tribunal is verifying that polling station records are in line with electronic tallies. Final results are expected to be announced on Friday.
Quijano’s Alianza Republicana Nacionalista (Nationalist Republican Alliance—ARENA) and Cerén’s Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional (Farabundo Marti Liberation Front—FMLN) were the main protagonists of El Salvador’s bloody 1979-92 civil war, and this week’s election results showed how divided the country remains more than two decades later.
Quijano, the former mayor of San Salvador, ran on a law and order platform and campaigned against the country’s high crime rate and notorious street gangs. If the results stand, Cerén, the current vice-president, would become the first former guerilla president of El Salvador.
