SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) — The occasion of El Salvador President Nayib Bukele permitted constitutional modifications within the nation’s Nationwide Meeting on Thursday that may enable indefinite presidential reelection and prolong presidential phrases to 6 years.
Lawmaker Ana Figueroa from the New Concepts occasion had proposed the modifications to 5 articles of the structure. The proposal additionally included eliminating the second spherical of the election the place the 2 high vote-getters from the primary spherical face off.
New Concepts and its allies within the Nationwide Meeting rapidly permitted the proposals with the supermajority they maintain. The vote handed with 57 in favor and three opposed.
Bukele overwhelmingly received reelection final yr regardless of a constitutional ban, after Supreme Courtroom justices chosen by his occasion dominated in 2021 that it allowed reelection to a second five-year time period.
Figueroa argued Thursday that federal lawmakers and mayors can already search reelection as many instances as they need.
“All of them have had the possibility of reelection through popular vote, the only exception until now has been the presidency,” Figueroa mentioned.
She additionally proposed that Bukele’s present time period, scheduled to finish June 1, 2029, as a substitute end June 1, 2027, to place presidential and congressional elections on the identical schedule. It will additionally enable Bukele to hunt reelection to a long term two years earlier.
Marcela Villatoro of the Nationalist Republican Alliance (Enviornment), one in all three votes towards the proposals, advised her fellow lawmakers that “Democracy in El Salvador has died!”
“You don’t realize what indefinite reelection brings: It brings an accumulation of power and weakens democracy … there’s corruption and clientelism because nepotism grows and halts democracy and political participation,” she mentioned.
Suecy Callejas, the meeting’s vp, mentioned that “power has returned to the only place that it truly belongs … to the Salvadoran people.”
Bukele didn’t instantly remark.
Bukele, who as soon as dubbed himself “the world’s coolest dictator,” is very in style, largely due to his heavy-handed battle towards the nation’s highly effective road gangs.
Voters have been keen to miss proof that his administration like others earlier than it had negotiated with the gangs, earlier than looking for a state of emergency that suspended some constitutional rights and allowed authorities to arrest and jail tens of 1000’s of individuals.
His success with safety and politics has impressed imitators within the area who search to duplicate his model.
