El Salvador President Nayib Bukele, an ally of President Trump, scored a Friday win after the nation’s lawmakers passed constitutional amendments eradicating time period limits.
The measure was handed in a 57-3 vote only one yr after Bukele broke with the legislation setting time period limits by saying he would search a second time period as president.
The nation’s Supreme Court docket dominated in 2021 it was his proper to run once more, foreshadowing the actions by lawmakers.
“That is fairly easy, El Salvador: solely you’ll have the facility to resolve how lengthy you want to help the work of any public official, together with your president,” mentioned elected official Ana Figueroa, who proposed the invoice, according to Reuters.
“You may have the facility to resolve how lengthy you help your president and all elected officers,” she added.
The invoice backed by Bukele’s New Concepts get together additionally extends presidential phrases from 5 years to 6 and omits the opportunity of run-off elections. It additionally aligns presidential elections with congressional races, guaranteeing the 2 happen in the identical yr.
Some decried the transfer, claiming it will compromise election integrity.
“Democracy in El Salvador has died,” opposing lawmaker Marcela Villatoro of the Nationalist Republican Alliance mentioned, according to NPR.
“You do not notice what indefinite reelection brings: It brings an accumulation of energy and weakens democracy … there’s corruption and clientelism as a result of nepotism grows and halts democracy and political participation.”
A human rights group additionally shared its disapproval for the invoice’s passage.
“The day earlier than trip, with out debate, with out informing the general public, in a single legislative vote, they modified the political system to permit the president to perpetuate himself in energy indefinitely and we proceed to comply with the well-traveled path of autocrats,” mentioned Noah Bullock, government director of rights group Cristosal, in accordance with Reuters.
Bukele has overseen the Trump administration’s deportation orders by containing immigrants despatched from the U.S. within the area’s infamous CECOT jail.
Bukele backed Trump’s previous decision to keep a wrongfully eliminated Maryland man behind bars abroad and mocked Democrats who tried to have him freed, siding with the president’s immigration enforcement insurance policies.
Now, he has an opportunity to stay in workplace indefinitely after the profitable passage of 5 constitutional amendments, making Bukele an accessible key determine for the Trump administration’s worldwide plans.