Salvadorian President Nayib Bukele\u2019s New Ideas Party has paved the way for him to potentially retain power in the Central American nation by overhauling the country\u2019s electoral system.<\/p>\n
The new bill extends presidential terms to six years and allows for indefinite presidential re-election.<\/p>\n
The country\u2019s presidential terms were initially five years long and immediate re-election was prohibited. However, in 2021, the country\u2019s Supreme Court \u2014 packed with justices picked by Bukele\u2019s party \u2014 ruled that the president could seek a second term, The Associated Press reported. <\/p>\n
Critics said Bukele’s re-election in 2024 was unconstitutional.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Members of New Ideas and their allies in the Legislative Assembly used their supermajority to pass changes to five articles of the country\u2019s constitution and passed the measure in a 57\u20133 vote on July 31. According to The Associated Press, New Ideas lawmaker Ana Figueroa\u2019s proposal also included a provision to eliminate the second round of elections in which the top two candidates go head-to-head.<\/p>\n
‘This is quite simple, El Salvador: only you will have the power to decide how long you wish to support the work of any public official, including your president,’ Figueroa said, according to Reuters. ‘You have the power to decide how long you support your president and all elected officials.’<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, other lawmakers expressed their frustration with the bill, with one lamenting the death of democracy.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Nationalist Republican Alliance legislator Marcela Villatoro declared to her fellow lawmakers that ‘Democracy in El Salvador has died!’<\/p>\n
‘You don\u2019t realize what indefinite reelection brings: It brings an accumulation of power and weakens democracy … there\u2019s corruption and clientelism because nepotism grows and halts democracy and political participation,’ Villatoro said, according to The Associated Press.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Bukele, who was first elected in 2019, has become somewhat of a polarizing figure as his crackdown on crime has made him popular with voters, while critics worry that he is trying to consolidate power. While Bukele\u2019s tough-on-crime policies have caused homicides to plummet, human rights groups say that innocent people were caught up in mass arrests.<\/p>\n
Human Rights Watch issued a report in July 2024 in which it found that approximately 3,000 children had become victims of the crackdown, which began in 2022. In the report summary, the group tells the story of a 17-year-old girl who was arrested without a warrant and eventually forced to plead guilty to collaborating with the notorious MS-13 gang, something she denied.<\/p>\n
Last year, Bukele told Time magazine that he would not seek a third term, though he could change his tune following the constitutional reforms.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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Salvadorian President Nayib Bukele\u2019s New Ideas Party has paved the way for him to potentially retain power in the Central American nation by overhauling the country\u2019s electoral system. The new bill extends presidential terms to six years and allows for indefinite presidential re-election. The country\u2019s presidential terms were initially five years long and immediate re-election […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1640,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1639","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web3anchor.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1639","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web3anchor.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web3anchor.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web3anchor.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web3anchor.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1639"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/web3anchor.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1639\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web3anchor.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1640"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web3anchor.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web3anchor.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web3anchor.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}