Bukele registers his candidacy for the 2024 presidential elections

Nine months after having expressed his desire to remain in power, Nayib Bukele takes another step towards his goal of achieving re-election in El Salvador.

This was confirmed on June 26 by the ruling party Nuevas Ideas (NI) on its Twitter account.

“We inform the Salvadoran people that President Nayib Bukele and Vice President Felix Ulloa are already registered as pre-candidates for President and Vice President of the Republic of El Salvador, in the largest party in the history” of the country, said the official party.

Despite criticism of “unconstitutionality”, since several articles of the Magna Carta indicate that the person who has held the Presidency will not be able to “continue in his functions not one more day”, Bukele is protected by a resolution achieved in his Administration.

This measure modified the old law that disqualified the presidents from continuing in power for two consecutive periods.

The decision was made by judges who were elected in processes designated as “irregular” in the Legislative Assembly, because they dismissed the previous constitutionalist magistrates.

Prior to this change, any president had to wait ten years before running in any re-election bid.

Even Bukele himself was one of the defenders of the idea that a president should not remain in power for consecutive periods.

ANDn 2013, six years before reaching the Executivethe now president defended publicly in a Nicaraguan media that “no president of El Salvador could be re-elected to ensure that no one person remains in power.”

“The Constitution does not allow the same person to be president twice in a row. He can be president 80 times if he wants, but not in a row,” he said. Nayib Bukele in the televised interview, when he was the mayor of Nuevo Cuscatlan.

However, with the Supreme Court resolution in 2021, any head of state in El Salvador can now request a six-month license before the start of the presidential term. An authorization that, in the case of Bukele, would force him to govern only the first six months of his fifth year.

Since September 2021, there have been about ten marches in which Salvadorans have accused the Executive of corruption, human rights violations, repression of freedom, and abuse of power.

A scenario that contrasts with the polls compiled by the AFP agency that show that nine out of ten Salvadorans approve of Bukele’s management, arguing that the political leader has restored security to the streets after declaring “war” on criminal gangs, the last year.

International rejection and local popularity

Nayib Bukele has been on the front pages of the media in several countries due to his controversial decisions and strict measures that he has implemented since he took office in June 2019.

Among the most remembered is the approval of Bitcoin cryptocurrency adoption as legal tender. Also its so-called “war against gangs”, under which the authorities have carried out more than 52,500 arrests of men marked out in a way.

But the United Nations indicates that under this security policy, nearly 6,500 complaints of violations of human rights have been registered.

All of this is framed within an exceptional regime, which, according to various civil organizations, suspends fundamental rights for Salvadorans and which has been renewed since March without opposition from the Legislature, since the party led by Bukele has an absolute majority there.

However, many of those who chose him, defend and justify their much-criticized methods. They assure that they are the means that the country needed to solve several of its internal problems.

Today, after successfully announcing the registration of his candidacy, comments and publications supporting the president’s management are spreading, at a time when many of his followers assure that they will support him in his quest to win a second presidential term. .

With AFP, AP and EFE