The president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, announced this Thursday that he will be a candidate for the presidency in the elections of 2022, despite the fact that several analysts in the country point out that immediate re-election is prohibited by the Constitution.
“After discussing it with my wife Gabriela and my family , I announce to the Salvadoran people that I have decided that I will be a candidate for the presidency of the Republic,” Bukele said during a speech to commemorate the independence of El Salvador.
Bukele, from 40 years, became in President of El Salvador in 2019.
According to several specialists, the Salvadoran Constitution has at least six articles that prohibit the immediate re-election of the president.
However, in May 2021, with the collaboration of Congress – where Bukele’s party has the majority – the president expelled five judges from the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice, the highest judicial authority in the country.
A few months later, said Chamber, with a majority of judges allied to the president, issued a resolution that authorized immediate reelection.
In that ruling, the magistrates order the Supreme Electoral Tribunal to allow “a person who holds the Presidency of El Salvador and has not been president in the immediately preceding period to participate in the electoral contest for a second time.”
“If register as a candidate, a gross electoral fraud will be consummated”, the Salvadoran constitutionalist José Marinero pointed out through Twitter.
#EnVideo l So this Thursday the @nayibbukele announced that he will seek re-election for the elections of 2024.pic.twitter.com/Qumltr4tjk
– Diario El Mundo (@ElMundoSV) September 16, 2022
“Without checks on political power, the re-election announcement is really a declaration: ‘I am going to stay in power because I want to and because I can ‘”, added the analyst.
Bukele, who was previously mayor of the capital, San Salvador, has been harshly criticized for his positions that many consider radical, although he points out that he enjoys the support of the people based on polls such as that of Cid Gallup, where he registers a 91% of popularity.
However, various governments, including the US, have criticized the measures that Bukele has taken to obtain more power within the country.
The previous year, when intervening in the judicial structure of El Salvador, the White House adviser for Western affairs, Juan González, compared the Salvadoran president with the late Venezuelan leader Hugo Chávez.
“By observing many of Nayib Bukele’s actions, I believe that they are taking that country in a much more authoritarian direction than the one we saw at the beginning of the years of Hugo Chávez, and that is worrying”.
What do the Constitution and the new Supreme Court say
According to Marinero, the constitution of El Salvador has at least six articles where the prohibition of immediate re-election is explicit.
The clearer is the 40, which says: “The presidential period will be five years and will begin and end on June 1, without the person who has held the Presidency being able to continue in office or n more day”.
The experts too cite articles like 248, where amendments that hinder alternation in power are expressly prohibited.
“The articles of this Constitution that refer to the form and system of government, the territory of the Republic and the alternation in the exercise of the Presidency of the Republic”, can be read in this section.
“These regulations are a protection that seeks to prevent presidents from remaining in power for more than one term or this resulting in a dictatorship,” Marinero told the El Salvador newspaper.
However, despite the warning of experts, the five new magistrates located in the constitutional chamber issued in September 2021 an order that allowed immediate reelection.
“Tie the will of the people to a te xto that responded to needs, contexts or circumstances of ago , 16 either 40 years is no longer an interpretation of rights, but an excessive restriction disguised as legal certainty”, the Court stated in its resolution.
This judicial body also allowed, last March, the imposition of a state of emergency that suspended some constitutional rights and resulted in thousands of arrests in response to a increase in gang murders.
“These decisions were also strongly criticized by part of the international community, but it is precisely those decisions that that they have finally allowed us security; It is those decisions that finally allowed us peace, ”said Bukele during his speech this Thursday to explain the reasons behind his new candidacy.
Remember that you can receive notifications from BBC News Mundo. Download the new version of our app and activate it so you don’t miss our best content.
- Do you already know our YouTube channel? Subscribe!