Bukele registers his candidacy for the presidency of El Salvador and makes official his plans to be re-elected

Nayib Bukele in San Salvador on October 26. JOSE CABEZAS (REUTERS)

El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele has registered his candidacy to run in next year's elections and confirmed his intentions to run for re-election, despite the fact that a consecutive term is expressly prohibited by the Central American country's constitution. Bukele, in office since 2019, has registered the current vice president, Félix Ulloa, as his running mate. Both politicians will represent the New Ideas party, a party created by Bukele from the government and which now dominates Congress. The Salvadoran president thus clears up the few doubts that remained about whether he was willing to challenge the constitutional text with his reelection intentions.

Bukele submitted his application for registration to the Supreme Electoral Tribunal at the stroke of midnight on Thursday, surrounded by hundreds of supporters. "It will be the Salvadoran people who decide if they want there to be re-election," the president said using a loudspeaker. "The Salvadoran people will decide if they want to continue being the safest country on the continent or if we want to return to being the most insecure country in the world, as previous governments left it," he added. Bukele has used his radical anti-gang policy, a strategy questioned by human rights organizations, as a rallying cry for re-election. "Five more, five more!" chanted the president's supporters, referring to the years of the presidential term. "Re-election, re-election!" they also said.

Bukele's re-election plans were endorsed by the Constitutional Chamber, a body controlled by the president with judges in his own right. Although Article 152 of the Constitution prohibits consecutive terms, the Judiciary has developed an interpretation of the constitutional text that allows a sitting president to participate in elections if he or she leaves office at least six months before the election. Bukele has followed him to the letter. If he wins the election, which is highly likely given his enormous popularity, he will go down in history as the first president to extend his term since the return of democracy to El Salvador.

Bukele, who has been careful to ensure that he is not a dictator, has implemented a heavy-handed policy against the Salvadoran gangs, the Mara Salvatrucha 13 and Barrio 18, and has managed to reduce homicides to a minimum. The strategy is based on a state of emergency in force since March 2022. More than 71,000 people, suspected of being gang members, have been arrested and imprisoned. Thousands of them are innocent and have no connection to criminal organizations, human rights organizations have documented. The strategy has restored some peace to Salvadorans from the ashes of civil rights and freedoms. Bukele is offering his citizens another five years of that policy.

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