New Ideas Political Party. Number One Political Party in El Salvador

By Eddie Galdamez  |  Jul 11th, 2022
New Ideas Political Party
New Ideas Political Party.

The New Ideas political party, or Nuevas Ideas, was founded in 2017 by Salvadoran president Nayib Bukele. The political party was legalized by the Supreme Electoral Court (TSE) in 2018. After the 2021 municipal and legislative elections, New Ideas became the number one political party in El Salvador.

The creation of the political party began when Nayib Bukele was expelled from the communist party, FMLN. Bukele was spelled from the left-wing political party while serving as mayor of San Salvador, the nation’s capital.

New Ideas Party, El Salvador’s number one political force.

Since May 1st, 2021, Nuevas Ideas has had control of two of three branches of government in El Salvador. New Ideas has control of the executive branch under president Bukele. It also has control of the legislative branch with 56 legislators.

Even though president Bukele was elected under the GANA political flag, everyone knows he is the founder of the New Ideas movement. Therefore, Nuevas Ideas’ political party will control the executive and legislative branches for the next three years.

Furthermore, the political party will govern 149 of the 264 municipalities in the country. This includes the three largest municipalities in El Salvador, San Salvador, Santa Ana, and San Miguel.

In its first public elections, Nuevas Ideas won 56 of 84 seats at the Salvadoran congress and over 56% of the municipalities.

New Ideas Political Party
President Nayib Bukele, Nuevas Ideas Political Party founder.

Creation of the Nuevas Ideas.

When Nayib Bukele was expelled from the FMLN on October 10, 2017, he began formulating the plan to create the New Ideas party.

On October 25, 2017, Bukele, through social media networks, announced the framework of the new movement called New Ideas or Nuevas Ideas in Spanish.

Bukele was looking for this new movement to become a political party, allowing him to compete in the 2019 presidential elections under the Nuevas Ideas political party flag.

Obtaining the legal requirements to form the new political party was easy for Nayib Bukele. The biggest obstacle most new political party struggles with is getting 50,000 signatures; each new political party has 90 days to obtain them.

New Ideas broke the record by getting around 200,000 signatures in 3 days. The Nuevas Ideas movement was on its way to becoming a political party.

Fighting against the Salvadoran Supreme Electoral Tribunal TSE.

The biggest obstacle the Nuevas Ideas political movement faced to become a political party was not obtaining signatures. It was the entity in charge of approving the new political party.

The Salvadoran Supreme Electoral Tribunal is the entity in charge of approving new political party’s. This entity is supposed to be unbiased; however, in 2017-2018, the TSE was controlled by the two main political parties in El Salvador, ARENA and the FMLN.

According to many political experts, the TSE did everything in its power to prevent the New Ideas movement from becoming an official party in time to compete in the 2019 presidential elections. Therefore, preventing Bukele from competing in the 2019 presidential elections.

The Nuevas Ideas political party was not officially founded on time to compete in the 2019 presidential elections. So, Nayib Bukele was forced to look for another political party if he wanted to be on the ballot in the 2019 presidential elections.

New Ideas
Newly elected deputies celebrating after receiving credentials.

In the end, Nayib Bukele competed in the 2019 presidential elections under the GANA political flag. Nayib Bukele won the election by defeating both opposition parties combined, the FMLN and ARENA.

Nuevas Ideas Political party.

After the 2021 February elections, the Nuevas Ideas political party is definitely the number one political force in El Salvador. For the next three years, the Bukele political party will control the legislative and executive branches of Government.