She was Nayib Bukele’s private secretary and as of this Friday, December 1, she is the first woman to occupy the presidency of El Salvador.
Claudia Juana Rodríguez de Guevara will hold office until May 31, 2024, while Bukele, the current president, focuses on the electoral campaign ahead of the Ferbero 2024 presidential elections.
The appointment of Rodríguez de Guevara comes after the Salvadoran Congress, with a large pro-government majority, gave Bukele and his vice president, Félix Ulloa, a six-month license.
In this way, and despite the accusations of critics, who argue that immediate presidential re-election is unconstitutional – because it is prohibited by six articles of the Magna Carta – Bukele overcame legal obstacles to compete for a second term.
And the election of Rodríguez de Guevara as interim president was approved with 67 votes in favor and 11 against, of the 84 deputies that make up the Legislative Assembly.
Appointed to the presidency
According to the Salvadoran Constitution, in the absence of the president and vice president, the Executive branch will be in charge of appointing whoever occupies the presidency.
It was thought that Bukele would present two people for the position, as established by the Constitution, but he only proposed Rodríguez de Guevara.
The graduate in business administration, who also has a degree in accounting technique from the Corporation of Accountants of El Salvador, He has belonged to Bukele’s close circle of collaborators for several years.
Rodríguez’s resume, which is published on the Transparency Portal of the government of El Salvador, shows that she has been a trusted official of Bukele since he was mayor of Nuevo Cuscatlán between 2012 and 2015, working as a financial manager and then municipal treasurer of the Mayor’s Office of San Salvador, which Bukele also led from 2015 to 2018.
Before she was appointed private secretary by Bukele in March 2022 – replacing Ernesto Castro, the current president of Congress -, Rodríguez de Guevara served as financial manager of the presidency.
Rodríguez is also president of the board of directors of the National Directorate of Municipal Works (DOM), which was created in 2021 by the government to manage the fund for the development of local projects throughout the country.
Both the creation of the DOM and the appointment of Rodríguez were highly questioned at the time.
The development fund was previously managed by each of the 262 mayors of El Salvador, but the government decided to centralize it under the administration of the DOM.
According to the law creating the DOM, approved by Congress, its board of directors would be made up of a president, appointed by the president of the republic, and three directors, also appointed by the president of the republic.
Thus, the appointment of Rodríguez de Guevara as president of the board of directors of the DOM meant placing the person who was serving as financial manager of the presidential house in the most important position of this organization.
Although the laws of El Salvador do not establish that there was any incompatibility between both positions, those who questioned the appointment expressed doubts about what Rodríguez’s selection process had been like for the DOM position or what his experience was in municipal development work.
“There is the issue of suitability for public positions, what are the qualifications that this person has and that the government has taken into account to put him in this place?”, declared then Héctor Silva, councilor of the mayor of San Salvador for the opposition party Nuestro Tiempo.
“Because it seems that in this government loyalty to a political project is the only necessary qualification, when in reality what the job demands are other things,” he added.
Rodríguez de Guevara’s resume also says that she was financial director of the advertising company Obermet, linked to Nayib Bukele’s family.
Nayib Bukele was president of the company in 2011 and in 2013 his brother Karim took over.
Controversial leave and appointment
Although he has been furloughed from his position, Bukele suggested that he will not completely abandon his presidential duties.
In the draft decree that he sent to the Legislative Assembly to request the six-month leave, it is established that said leave does not mean that he will leave the prerogatives of the position.
“The license is due to the intention to carry out a separation of the organic functions or duties that the president and vice president have, without leaving the prerogatives that they have in their positions,” the document says.
“That is, the license at no time generates a break in the bond between the official and the body he or she represents,” he adds.
Many are questioning both the president and vice president’s leave requests and the appointment of someone as close to his circle as Rodríguez de Guevara.
“You cannot give a license for something that is illegal, you cannot give a license to violate the Constitution,” declared deputy Claudia Ortiz, of the opposition Vamos party.
Representative Johnny Wright, from Nuestro Tiempo, said: “Today, power in El Salvador does not adapt or submit to the rules. The rules adapt to power, to submit us.”
And about the appointment of Rodríguez de Guevara, San Salvador mayoral councilor Héctor Silva, wrote in X:
“Current state of democracy in El Salvador: the office of the President of the Republic will be occupied by a person for whom no one has ever voted.”
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