El Salvador ends term limits, letting Bukele seek reelection indefinitely

Boston Globe

3 days ago

'It will be the people who decide, as many times as they wish, whether to continue supporting the path of transformation that our nation is experiencing,' Ana Figueroa, the lawmaker who proposed the amendments, wrote on social media Thursday.
She noted that lawmakers and local officials, like mayors, do not have term limits. Bukele did not immediately comment on the amendments.
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Many regional experts, human rights groups, and others said they feared the vote represented only the latest move to consolidate power in the hands of Bukele, who has used strongman tactics to crack down on violent street gangs that have long ravaged the country.
First elected in 2019, Bukele won a landslide reelection in 2024, riding his enormous popularity for decimating the gangs. He was able to do so in part by declaring a state of emergency that allowed authorities to carry out mass arrests with no due process. Tens of thousands of people were jailed, and rights groups say many of them had no ties to the gangs.
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This year, Bukele's government has escalated a crackdown on civil society groups who have been critical of his tactics. Under the state of emergency, which was extended for the 40th time last month, he has gone after dissidents, carrying out arrests that have prompted some civil rights advocates and journalists to flee.
Under Bukele, 44, El Salvador has become one of the safest countries in the region, and the president has dismissed accusations that he has embraced authoritarian tactics.
'I don't care if they call me a dictator,' he said in June. 'I would rather be called 'dictator' than watch them kill Salvadorans in the streets.'
Bukele has also positioned himself as Trump's closest partner in Latin America, playing a role in Trump's deportation plans by imprisoning people expelled from the United States. In exchange, Bukele's government has received around $5 million and has sought the return to El Salvador of many top leaders of the MS-13 gang in US custody.
US authorities have found substantial evidence of secret negotiations between Bukele's government and MS-13 leaders, and some experts say Bukele may want to bury that evidence by seeking the gang leaders' return. He has denied having any pact with the gangs, casting the blame for gang negotiations on his predecessor.
He has, from the start of his political career, styled himself as a clean break from the political parties that had dominated El Salvador since the end of its civil war in the 1990s. He has highlighted his relative youth, embraced social media, and created a team to produce highly stylized photos and videos that show fearsome, tattooed gang members behind bars or in poses of submission. And he has variously described himself as the world's 'coolest dictator' and a 'philosopher king.'
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Bukele's current term ends in 2029, but the recent changes would move that up to 2027 to coincide with legislative elections, at which point he could run for a six-year term.
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