SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) — The party of El Salvador President Nayib Bukele proposed constitutional changes in the country’s National Assembly on Thursday that would allow indefinite presidential reelection and extend presidential terms to six years.
Lawmaker Ana Figueroa from the New Ideas party proposed the changes to five articles of the constitution. The proposal also includes eliminating the second round of the election where the two top vote-getters from the first round face off.
New Ideas
and its allies in the National Assembly have a supermajority that could approve the proposal without difficulty under changes already made to the process for making constitutional adjustments.
Bukele overwhelmingly won reelection last year despite a constitutional ban, after Supreme Court justices selected by his party ruled in 2021 that it allowed reelection to a second five-year term.
Figueroa argued Thursday that federal lawmakers and mayors can already seek reelection as many times as they want.
“All of them have had the possibility of reelection through popular vote, the only exception until now has been the presidency,” Figueroa said.
She also proposed that Bukele’s current term, scheduled to end June 1, 2029, instead finish June 1, 2027, to put presidential and congressional elections on the same schedule. It would also allow Bukele to seek reelection to a longer term two years earlier.
Bukele, who once dubbed himself “the world’s coolest dictator,” is highly popular, largely because of his heavy-handed fight against the country’s powerful street gangs.
Voters have been willing to overlook evidence that his administration like others before it had negotiated with the gangs, before seeking a state of emergency that suspended some constitutional rights and allowed authorities to arrest and jail tens of thousands of people.
His success with security and politically has inspired imitators in the region who seek to replicate his style.
