Presidential elections were held in El Salvador on 2 February 2014, with a second round held on 9 March since no candidate won an outright majority. The primary candidates were Vice-President Salvador Sánchez Cerén of the FMLN, San Salvador Mayor Norman Quijano of ARENA, and Former President Antonio "Tony" Saca. Saca represented GANA, the National Conciliation Party, and the Christian Democratic Party in the UNIDAD coalition. Incumbent President Mauricio Funes was ineligible to run for a consecutive second term. Sánchez Cerén and Quijano emerged as the contestants in the runoff held on 9 March in which Sánchez Cerén was declared the victor.

From March 2012 to May 2014, the Salvadoran government, the Catholic Church, and the country's two largest criminal gangs, Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) and the 18th Street gang, came to a truce, known in El Salvador simply as the Gang Truce, to lower the country's rate of homicides and extortions in exchange for improved prison conditions and certain visitation privileges. The truce's principal negotiators were Minister of Public Security David Munguía Payés, former deputy Raúl Mijango, and Bishop Fabio Colindres, and the negotiations were overseen by President Mauricio Funes.