El Salvador's Tribunal Supremo Electoral (TSE, the country's electoral tribunal) held the formal act of convocation on Wednesday, 30 September 2026, for the general elections of 28 February 2027, opening the process officially.
It will be the first vote in which Salvadorans choose, on the same day, a president and vice-president, the 60 deputies of the Asamblea Legislativa (the national parliament) and the country's 44 municipal councils.
The calendar
- 1 October 2026: registration opens for presidential, vice-presidential and legislative candidacies.
- 9 to 19 November 2026: a ten-day window to register municipal councils with the departmental electoral boards (JED).
- 19 November 2026: registration closes for presidential and legislative candidacies, 50 days after it opened.
- 27 October 2026: presidential campaign advertising may begin, four months before the vote.
- 28 February 2027: election day.
Presidential tickets must file their paperwork in person with the TSE's Secretaría General; legislative candidates may register independently or through accredited representatives of parties and coalitions.
What the reform changed
The 2027 vote is the product of the constitutional reform approved on 31 July 2025, which amended articles 75, 80, 133, 152 and 154 of the constitution. That reform extended the presidential term from five to six years, scrapped the second round, allowed consecutive presidential re-election and brought forward to 2027 the presidential election that had been due in 2029, so that it coincides with the legislative and municipal votes.
A further change reordered the diaspora's representation: Salvadorans abroad now have a constituency of their own holding 6 of the 60 seats in the Asamblea, taken from the departments of San Salvador — five — and La Libertad — one. The electoral roll held 6,550,487 voters as of 6 June 2026, of whom 1,098,986 are abroad. The country also withdrew from the Central American Parliament (Parlacen).
The field
President Nayib Bukele won the presidential nomination of his party, Nuevas Ideas, on 13 July 2026 and must register in the window opening on 1 October. With consecutive re-election cleared by the reform, he would be seeking a third term in office, this one of six years.
For the opposition parties, folding three elections into a single ballot and dropping the run-off narrows the room they had under separate calendars: everything is settled in one day and in a single round.
With information from Infobae, El Salvador.com, Diario El Salvador and SWI swissinfo.ch.
