Nayib Bukele in San Salvador on October 26th. JOSE CABEZAS (Portal)
El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele has declared his candidacy in next year’s elections, reaffirming his intention to seek re-election to office, despite the Central American country’s constitution explicitly banning consecutive terms. Bukele, in office since 2019, registered the current vice president, Félix Ulloa, as his running mate. Both politicians will represent the Nuevas Ideas party, a formation founded by Bukele from the government that now dominates Congress. The Salvadoran president thus dispels the few remaining doubts as to whether he was prepared to challenge the constitutional text with his re-election intentions.
Bukele submitted his registration application to the Supreme Electoral Court at the stroke of midnight on Thursday, surrounded by hundreds of supporters. “It will be the Salvadoran people who will decide whether they want re-election,” the president said over a loudspeaker. “The Salvadoran people will decide whether they want to continue to be the safest country on the continent or whether we want to go back to being the most unsafe country in the world, as previous governments left us,” he added. Bukele has used his radical anti-gang policies, a strategy questioned by human rights groups, as a banner for his re-election. “Five more, five more!” shouted the president’s supporters, alluding to the years that the president’s term in office lasts. “Re-election, re-election!” they also said.
Bukele’s re-election plans were approved by the Constitutional Chamber, a panel of judges controlled by the president. Although Magna Carta prohibits consecutive terms in Article 152, the judiciary has developed an interpretation of the constitutional text that allows a sitting president to take part in the elections if he leaves office at least six months before the election. Bukele followed it to the letter. If he wins the election, which is very likely given his enormous popularity, he will go down in history as the first president to extend his term since the return of democracy in El Salvador.
Bukele, who has gone to great lengths to ensure that he is not a dictator, has implemented tough policies against the Salvadoran gangs Mara Salvatrucha 13 and Barrio 18 and has managed to keep killings to a minimum. The strategy is based on the state of emergency that has been in effect since March 2022. More than 71,000 people, suspected gang members, were arrested and imprisoned. Thousands of them are innocent and have no connection to criminal organizations, as human rights organizations have documented. The strategy has restored some peace to Salvadorans on the rubble of civil guarantees and freedoms. Bukele is offering his citizens another five years of this policy.
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