Elections in El Salvador

Elections in El Salvador are held for government offices at the national and municipal levels. Salvadoran citizens elect the president, vice president, and deputies of the Legislative Assembly at the national level; and mayors and municipal council members at the municipal level. All elected officials are selected in direct elections.

El Salvador has held elections since the 1820s, but elections have faced fraud, clientelism, patronage, and political violence throughout its history. The elections of the early 1900s experienced little political competition. The 20th century military dictatorship halted democratic reforms implemented by President Pío Romero Bosque in the late 1920s, but the dictatorship continued to utilize elections to legitimize its rule. Since the 1980s, El Salvador has held free and fair elections, but political analysts have raised concerns of democratic backsliding during Nayib Bukele's presidency. Constitutional reforms in 2025 eliminated supranational Central American Parliament (PARLACEN) elections, altered presidential term limits and term lengths, and replaced the two-round system for a first-past-the-post system for presidential elections.

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