Bukele confirms candidacy for 2024 despite the fact that the Salvadoran Constitution prohibits re-election

Magistrates appointed by the president authorized the new candidacy.

The ruling party Nuevas Ideas confirmed that the president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, will run again in the general elections next year.

The nomination, which was ratified on Sunday night, is surrounded by strong controversy due to its legality, since the Constitution of the South American country expressly prohibits re-election, but the magistrates -whose appointment was facilitated by the ruling party- issued a resolution that enables Bukele to present himself.

“At the end of the day, we inform the Salvadoran people that the president and vice president [Felix Ulloa] are already registered as pre-candidates (…) in the largest party in the history of El Salvador. New Ideas are invincible“, announced the political organization on its social networks when showing the registration requests.

Bukele and Ulloa will participate first in the internal elections that Nuevas Ideas will carry out on July 9 and in which the candidates for deputies of the Central American Parliament and of the Legislative Assembly, and municipal councilors will also be elected.

However, it is expected that in reality they will not have significant internal competition, especially since Bukele – who completed four years in office on June 1 – has a record of popularity at the national level, which facilitates his progress towards the presidential elections. next February 4.

The controversy erupted in September 2021when five magistrates of the Constitutional Chamber issued a surprise resolution that allows re-election, arguing that only “the people” have the power to decide whether or not they want the president to continue in office.

The only requirement they imposed was that Bukele resign from the presidency five months before running again, which implies that he would have to leave office next September, but this is not firm.

Changes

As the magistrates argued, re-election was constitutionally prohibited due to decades-old requirements that do not work in the current context.

“It is an excessive restriction disguised as legal certainty and the actions of representatives who resist the change of the sovereign, who refuse to listen to the will of the people,” they said.

A year later, in September 2022, Bukele confirmed his candidacy. “After talking with my wife Gabriela and my family, I announce to the Salvadoran people that I have decided to run as a candidate to the residence of the Republic,” he said during a national broadcast in which he commemorated the Independence of El Salvador.

The record revealed by his party made official his intentions to become the first president of the Central American country to seek a second consecutive term.

Re-election is expressly prohibited in four articles of the Constitution that establish that those who have held that position for more than six months, consecutive or not, during the immediately preceding period, or within the last six prior months, cannot be candidates for the presidency. at the beginning of the presidential term.

It also sanctions those who promote the alteration of this institutional order.

“Those who sign acts, proclamations or adhesions to promote or support the re-election or continuation of the President of the Republic, or use direct means aimed at that end, lose the rights of citizens,” says article 75 of the Magna Carta.

On the other hand, the text indicates that the only way to protect the democratic system of Government is to guarantee alternation. “The violation of this norm obliges the insurrection”he warns.