On Thursday, October 9, San Salvador Mayor and former presidential candidate Norman Quijano announced that he was resigning from his run for re-election as the right-wing Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA) party candidate to lead El Salvador’s capital city, citing divisions within the party.

“I entered with some division [existing within the party] in 2009, when I won the mayor’s office,” Quijano admitted. His failed 2014 presidential bid was similarly fraught with internal partisan conflict. “ARENA cannot go into another election divided, especially when it’s about defending one of the most emblematic positions in the country; therefore, I call on them to unite around the candidate that they propose” Quijano told the press.

Edwin Zamora will replace Quijano as ARENA's candidate for San Salvador in the 2015 election

Rumors of Quijano’s resignation had surfaced in the wake of recent polls that had given Nayib Bukele, the leftist Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) party’s candidate, a sizeable lead. With the March 1st legislative and mayoral elections nearing, ARENA announced Edwin Zamora on Tuesday, October 14, as Quijano’s replacement, an ARENA legislator, businessman, and heir to a textile fortune.

Traducido por Juan Antonio Julián