El Salvador Changes Constitution, Ending Term Limits for Nayib Bukele

New York Times

2 days ago

El Salvador's National Assembly on Thursday approved sweeping changes to the nation's Constitution, paving the way for President Nayib Bukele, who is in his second term in office, to run for re-election indefinitely.
The legislature, in which Mr. Bukele's party holds a supermajority, voted to end presidential term limits and extend a president's term in office from five years to six, according to the National Assembly's X account.
Mr. Bukele was first elected in 2019 and successfully ran in 2024 for a second term, even though legal scholars said at the time that El Salvador's Constitution barred a president from serving consecutive terms. After Mr. Bukele's legislative allies installed new judges on the Supreme Court, the court reinterpreted the Constitution and cleared the way for the president to run again.
The 44-year-old president has consolidated power while in office, leading his Nuevas Ideas party to its supermajority in the legislature and cracking down on gangs through mass arrests. Killings and extortion by gangs have gone down dramatically under Mr. Bukele, but civil liberties have also deteriorated, Salvadoran human rights defenders say.
In June, Mr. Bukele said he would rather be called a dictator than let criminals operate with impunity. He has also positioned himself as President Trump's closest ally in Latin America, playing a role in Mr. Trump's deportation plans by imprisoning immigrants expelled from the United States, in exchange for the return to El Salvador of members of the MS-13 gang who had been in U.S. custody.
The amendments to five articles of the Constitution quickly passed on Thursday, with 57 votes in favor and three opposed, the National Assembly said on X.
The changes will ensure that presidential elections coincide with legislative and municipal elections, Ana Figueroa, the Nuevas Ideas lawmaker who proposed the amendments, wrote on social media after the vote. She also noted that legislators and local officials, like mayors, do not have term limits.
Mr. Bukele's current term ends in 2029, but Ms. Figueroa said that it should end in 2027 to coincide with legislative elections, at which point he could run for a six-year term.