Nayib Bukele is no longer the president of El Salvador. The Legislative Assembly approved this Thursday, with 67 votes in favor and 12 against, granting him a six-month permit so that he can run for re-election in the elections of February 4, 2024. This license, which came into force this December and which will be extended until May 31, 2024, is also extended to the vice president, Félix Ulloa, who aspires to revalidate his position. In this way, the deadlines established by the Supreme Electoral Tribunal were met, after giving the go-ahead on November 3 for Bukele to run for a second term in El Salvador, despite six articles of the Constitution prohibiting it since 1841. The electoral body agreed on the presidential formula of the Nuevas Ideas party, headed by Bukele and his vice president, after “verifying that they meet the legal requirements.”
The president had requested permission from the Legislative Assembly based on the historic resolution of the Constitutional Chamber issued on September 3, 2021, which gave the green light for “a person who exercises the Presidency of the Republic and has not been president in the immediately preceding period participate in the electoral contest for a second time”. It so happens that the Legislative Assembly, under the control of Nuevas Ideas, which is the party that Bukele created, dismissed on May 1, 2021 the then president of the Constitutional Chamber and the Supreme Court of Justice, as well as to four regular magistrates and five substitutes. He then appointed a new Chamber with like-minded judges, which reinterpreted the Constitution and opened the door for re-election if only the president resigned six months before the end of his term.
This decision contradicts several articles of the Magna Carta, including article 154, which sets the duration of the presidential term at five years “without the person who has exercised the Presidency being able to continue in his or her functions not one more day.” Another article that prevents a second term is article 152, which establishes that “those who have held the Presidency for more than six months, consecutive or not, during the immediately preceding period or within the last six months cannot be candidates of the Republic.” prior to the beginning of the presidential term”.
Despite this, the Legislative Assembly, with a large pro-government majority from the Nuevas Ideas party, has strictly followed Bukele’s agenda to repeat a second term and, in addition to granting him the license, this Thursday also approved and ratified whoever was private secretary. of Bukele, Claudia Juana Rodríguez de Guevara, as presidential appointee, so that she will lead El Salvador from this Friday to June 1, 2024. The new president until now served as president of the Board of Directors of the National Directorate of Municipal Works and also She has accompanied the former president as treasurer in the Mayor’s Offices of Nuevo Cuscatlán and San Salvador and as financial manager in the Presidency of the Republic.
For its part, the decree that grants the license to Bukele specifies that “at no time does it generate a break in the bond between the official and the body he represents.” Therefore, “all protection guarantees” will be maintained, so that he will continue to have “the security service, the provision and use of the presidential battalion, as well as having transportation, security and use of residence personnel.”
However, it specifies that, from now on, Bukele “will not be able to exercise the decision-making function, such as the political and administrative leadership of the state apparatus; monopoly on the use of state force; participation in the process of law formation and “others that are the responsibility of the presidential appointee.”
If he wins the February elections, he will become the first president to face two consecutive terms in the democratic history of El Salvador, something that only happened in this country with the dictator Maximiliano Hernández, who was re-elected for the period 1939-1944. , although a few months later he resigned after the non-violent insurrection promoted by university students and known as ‘Sit-down strike’.
Bukele’s last act before leaving the Presidency was to announce the construction of the new National Stadium, with the support of the Government of China and which, as he highlighted, will be “the most modern in Latin America and the largest in Central America” ??with a capacity of 52,000 people. “We know that much needs to be done because our dreams for El Salvador are much bigger, but we always have to remember where we come from, where we are and where we are going,” stressed Bukele, who has the majority support of the population, thank you to its ‘war against gangs’, which has resulted in the arrest of 70,000 people through the Exception Regime and the Territorial Control Plan with which it aims to put an end to these criminal groups.
