Salvadoran democracy has been mortally wounded since President Nayib Bukele announced Thursday night that he will stand again in the 2024 elections, allowing him to remain in power until 2029. Although the constitution clearly prohibits re-election, Bukele, 41, was only required to “discuss the issue with his wife” to make a decision that shatters the country’s current legal structure, which was announced on the national network during Independence Day celebrations .
The news was celebrated by guests in the President’s House as if it were a goal in the last minute of a football game: their ministers stood, waved their arms, gave a thumbs-up and smiled at the cameras with shouts of “re-election”. , re-election “.
Accompanied by his wife and in front of a painting of Monsignor Arnulfo Romero, the holy martyr who was assassinated by the military in 1980, the millennial president’s announcement of making Bitcoin the official currency was the culmination of a long list of maneuvers aimed at to fool him into power. . On the one hand, to tear down the legal framework, and on the other hand, to increase its popularity among Salvadorans, which today exceeds 80% according to various polls, the highest on the continent.
It wasn’t easy for him at first: the Salvadoran constitution, passed in 1983 and modified in 1992 after the civil war, is intended to prevent dictatorships and the rise of caciques. For this reason, it prohibits immediate re-election in three different articles. Article 154 states that “the term of office of the President shall be five years, without the possibility of the person exercising the presidency continuing one day”. Article 248 prohibits changes in “alternation in the exercise of the Presidency of the Republic” and Article 88 clarifies that “the principle of alternation is essential for the maintenance of the form of government (…) and the violation of this rule requires the insurrection”.
None of that has stopped Bukele, who since taking power in 2019 has blasted whatever counterbalances have held him from his goal. Buoyed by the February 2021 overwhelming victory that put him in total control of the Assembly, he replaced the Attorney General in May of that year, although his term was still in effect, forcing judges in the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court to force their own resignations accept, which they signed under duress from police officers who were sent to the door of their homes. When he filled the Justice Department with like-minded puppets, they approved his re-election in September, arguing that preventing him would deprive the populace of their rights. “Binding the will of the people to a text that suited the needs, context or circumstances of 20, 30 or 40 years ago is no longer a legal interpretation but an excessive restriction disguised as legality,” the new court said.
To garner popular support, Nayib Bukele, dubbed “the coolest president in the world,” announced a relentless war on violent gangs after the pact his government had made with the gangs was broken. In March he declared a state of emergency, allowing him to rule with special powers while he thinks it over, as MPs from his party repeatedly approve, without any debate, any extension he requests.
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In his announcement on Thursday, Bukele insisted that only with him will true freedom come to the country by ending the gangs thanks to a powerful strategy that has jailed more than 80,000 people in a few months. many of them for the mere fact of having tattoos or giving a cop a bad look on the street. As a result, today El Salvador, with almost 6.5 million inhabitants, is the country in the world with the most prisoners per 100,000 inhabitants. “We have determined our own destiny and have not followed international dictates,” said the President in his speech on Thursday. “El Salvador is now making its own decisions. That has become clear to everyone.”
“Why can’t we copy countries where things are going well?” he said after reading the 39 developed countries whose constitutions allow for re-election. “Re-elections are forbidden in third world countries. What a coincidence,” said Bukele, “people should have the right to reject or approve the course they have taken. Why rule out the road when it works?” he insisted. A court of MPs, ministers and authorities applauded each verdict.
The bar on re-election is part of the constitution of most Latin American countries and is particularly important in a region that has suffered from decades of military dictatorship. In El Salvador, it is a mandate that first appeared in 1841 and was incorporated into the current one in 1983. In the wake of the Bukele tsunami, almost no one is left. The press is beaten day after day; Many judges, prosecutors and human rights organizations are in exile, and the political opposition has no names or candidates to confront them. The international community, mainly the United States, the only country able to persuade the President to reconsider, was severely beaten during his announcement as part of an alleged conspiracy to destroy Salvadoran sovereignty. Last year, the United States condemned Bukele’s maneuvers, and the acting US ambassador compared him to Hugo Chávez.
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