2023-07-09 18:02:50
The current president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, will formalize his presidential candidacy for the 2024 elections this Sunday. He will do so in the internal elections held by his party, the pro-government Nuevas Ideas (NI).
And it is that in the internal voting of the NI party, in which the candidates for parliament and mayoralties will also be defined, there is only the pre-candidacy of the current Salvadoran president, so the officialization of Bukele is inevitable and is rather a legal procedure. to seek his re-election.
The law obliges the parties that intend to participate in the 2024 elections to hold internal elections to define their candidates. For this reason, the conservative force Nuevas Ideas (NI) opened its voting process at 07:00 local, which will be carried out completely virtually until 17:00 local.
“It’s time to vote,” the party wrote on its Twitter account. “We will perform
the most democratic and transparent process,” he said on his Facebook page.
In the absence of opponents, Bukele will be the NI candidate, and the current Vice President of the Republic, Félix Ulloa, will accompany him in his presidential formula.
(Also read: Nayib Bukele registers his candidacy to seek re-election in El Salvador)
The Salvadoran president has an approval rating above 90 percent, according to polls.
Bukele, 41, announced in September 2022 his decision to seek re-election after the Supreme Court of Justice issued a resolution enabling presidential re-election.
But the ruling sparked controversy over whether the measure is legal, since the Salvadoran Constitution states that “anyone who has held the Presidency of the Republic for more than six months, consecutive or not, during the immediately preceding period, cannot run for president.” , or within the last six months prior to the start of the presidential term”.
But the new decision of the judges of the Court, chosen in a process indicated to be irregular in the Legislative Assembly after dismissing their predecessors, established that to seek a new mandate, the president must request a license “six months before the start of the presidential term “.
In other words, Bukele would only govern the first six months of his fifth year and should step down from the Presidency in January 2024.
Thus, the Nuevas Ideas party announced on June 26 that Nayib Bukele had registered as a candidate and his officialization as a candidate will come once the results of this Sunday are known.
“The government and the president have everything set for re-election, not only because of popular support, but because they have control of the majority of the institutions,” says the vice-rector of the Central American University (UCA), Omar Serrano.
(Also: Fight against gangs and high popularity: this has been Bukele’s 4 years in power)
The polls show Bukele as the winner of the presidential elections, for whom his war against the gangs has earned him an approval rate of more than 90% of the population.
To combat gangs, an emergency regime has been in force for more than 14 months that allows the police and the army to make arrests without a warrant. The measure was approved by Congress at the request of Bukele, in response to an escalation of gang violence that claimed the lives of 87 people in 2022.
Supporters of Nayib Bukele in the Congress of El Salvador.
So far nearly 69,000 suspected gang members have been detained, of whom some 5,000 have been released, according to the government. But both human rights organizations and the Catholic Church have criticized the methods used by the Central American president to contain criminal groups.
In the internal elections this Sunday, the NI will also choose the candidates who will compete in the legislative and municipal elections, in addition to the candidates for deputies for the Central American Parliament (Parlacen).
(You can read: At least 160 people have died in El Salvador during a state of emergency: report)
Other minority political parties that plan to run in next year’s general elections have announced that they will hold their internal elections next week.
The elections of the president and the deputies of Congress will be held on February 4, while those of municipal councils and Parlacen will be held
on March 3, 2024.
Recently, at the impulse of the Bukele government, Congress made reforms to laws to reduce the seats in Congress from 84 to 60 and reduced the municipalities in the 14 departments of the country from 262 to 44. Both measures will enter into force in May next year.
*With AFP and EFE
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