Riding the wave of popularity that he has gained for his fight against gangs, Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele surprised by announcing that he will seek re-election despite the fact that the constitution prohibits him.
Bukele made the announcement on Thursday night during the celebration of a new anniversary of the Independence of the Central American country one year after the magistrates of the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court -appointed by his allies in Congress- authorized him to register as a candidate in the 2024 elections.
Bukele – who assumed power on June 1, 2019 and maintains a high level of popularity that has not dropped below 80% – has already received the support of some sectors to seek re-election, while others maintain that the constitution prohibits re-election and assure that the country is on the way to becoming another Nicaragua.
Unconstitutional
Constitutionalist lawyers have said that the reelection violates at least four articles of the Magna Carta, including one that limits the presidential term to five years and establishes that the person who serves as president will not continue in office for even one more day. “This constitutional breakdown was predictable. El Salvador has been on the road to being a dictatorship for a long time and many, due to ideological bias, cowardice, geopolitical interests or obsession with immigration, did not want to raise their voices in time or help prevent it,” Juan Pappier, of the Human Rights Watch Division, said on Twitter. of the Americas.
Deputy Dina Argueta, from the leftist Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), said that the announcement “does not surprise us because it is something that they have been working on, they needed to make it official. However, we must establish that our constitution does not allow re-election at any time.”
But the vice president and lawyer Félix Ulloa assured that “of course it is not unconstitutional. If one of the things that has worried me all my life has been to respect the democratic and constitutional State of law.
He explained that Bukele, in his capacity as president, is in no way disqualified from standing as a candidate in the next elections because the prohibition is based on two facts: that he has held the presidency in the immediately preceding term, that is, in the period of Salvador Sánchez Cerén (2014-2019) and that he exercise the presidency for six months in the immediate next period, that is, that he be exercising the presidency six months before June 1.
The levels of acceptance of Bukele increased with the fight against the gangs and according to recent opinion polls, 95% of the population is in favor of the security measures.
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Article.
Article 152 of the constitution says that “one who has held the presidency of El Salvador for more than six months, consecutive or not, during the immediately preceding period or within the last six months prior to the start of the election, cannot be a candidate for president.” presidential period”
