2024-02-05 08:16:00
Barcelona As expected, Nayib Bukele has once again prevailed in the elections in El Salvador. While waiting for the official results, the president of the country has already declared himself the winner with 85% of the votes, according to the data he himself has released. The latest official data published by the Supreme Electoral Court indicated that, with 31% of the preliminary scrutiny carried out, Bukele’s party, Nuevas Ideas, was with 1,295,888 votes, well ahead of the Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberation National (FMLN), with 110,244 votes. Once this preliminary scrutiny has been completed, another final one will be carried out.
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Since coming to power in 2019, Bukele’s government has focused on its particular war on gangs. In fact, since March 2022, the country has been living in a regime of exception that has been extended monthly and that involves cuts in the freedoms of the population. The army and the police have become the mainstays of Bukele’s policies and, in particular, his security policy has resulted in 75,000 arrests. Through their Territorial Control Plan, the military and the army have come to besiege entire cities in search of gang members while different national and international organizations report that human rights are being repeatedly violated.
An unconstitutional reelection
Bukele has managed to revalidate the presidency even though the country’s constitution does not allow it. Article 154 establishes that the duration of the presidential term is five years, “without the person who has exercised the presidency being able to continue functions for even one more day”. In addition, article 152 reaffirms the idea: “Whoever has held the presidency for more than six months, consecutive or not, during the previous period or during the six months before the beginning of the period cannot be a candidate of the Republic presidential”.
But in 2021 the president of the republic already began to point towards a possible re-election and the Constitutional Chamber of the country issued a resolution opening the door for him to repeat the position. In 2023 he finally made it happen: on November 30 he left the presidency and the Legislative Assembly granted him a license that allowed him to run for new elections within 6 months. That same month, the Supreme Electoral Court of the country gave the go-ahead to the list that he himself headed. In this way, all the state bodies agreed to be presented again.
During tonight’s celebration, Bukele directly addressed the Spanish press: “”We will not be their lackeys”, he assured. He also asked that while they respect the “hereditary monarchy”, the Spanish must being under an “obligation to respect” them. “The only thing we ask of them is respect, nothing more,” he said.
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