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Gizmodo
01-08-2025
- Politics
- Gizmodo
El Salvador's Crypto President Could Stay in Power for Decades After Changes to Constitution
El Salvador's Legislative Assembly approved changes to the country's constitution on Thursday that will extend presidential terms from five years to six and abolish term limits. That means President Nayib Bukele, a far-right crypto enthusiast who's allied with President Donald Trump, could potentially stay in power for the rest of his natural life. First elected in 2019 on a promise to crack down on gangs, Bukele was supposed to be prohibited from running for re-election in 2024. But the country's Supreme Court of Justice ruled in 2021 that one of the articles in El Salvador's constitution allows a president to run for re-election once. Bukele's New Ideas Party removed magistrates in the Supreme Court who had opposed the president, clearing the path for Bukele to rule the country with an iron fist and make any constitutional changes necessary to remain in power indefinitely. Bukele was re-elected in 2024 under those extremely dubious circumstances, and his term was scheduled to end on June 1, 2029. But lawmaker Ana Figueroa from the New Ideas Party has suggested moving up Bukele's re-election to June 1, 2027, to put it more in line with congressional elections, according to the Associated Press. With the new changes and Bukele's popularity, it would presumably allow the president to consolidate even more power now that he could be re-elected again and again, both without term limits and for a longer term each time. The vote to strip term limits for the president and extend the length of each term passed by 57 to 3. And one of the three dissenters, Marcela Villatoro of the Nationalist Republican Alliance, warned that democracy would be weakened with the changes, according to the AP. 'You don't realize what indefinite reelection brings: It brings an accumulation of power and weakens democracy … there's corruption and clientelism because nepotism grows and halts democracy and political participation,' Villatoro is quoted as saying in an English language translation. Bukele, a fan of Elon Musk and frequent user of X, hasn't tweeted about the changes yet. But guys like Musk and Trump are no doubt excited that their buddy in Central America is going to get even more power. Trump met with Bukele in the White House back in April when the U.S. president was shipping migrants to the U.S. to El Salvador's torture prison. The men sent there, some of whom have been released into Venezuela, have told horror stories about being beaten, given dirty water, and sexually assaulted. Bukele rode into office and remains popular because he promised to crack down on gangs. But recent reporting from the country's El Faro news outlet claims Bukele's government signed a secret pact in 2019 with gang leaders to dial back violence in the country. Part of the deal, according to the news outlet, was providing financial incentives. Bukele has taken credit for reducing violence by insisting it's all part of his brutally violent crackdown. Bukele has invested his country's money heavily in crypto, holding nearly $550 million of its foreign exchange reserves in bitcoin, according to Reuters, which amounts to about 15%. And while that may seem like a fine thing to do when bitcoin is soaring, it's extremely risky for any government when the price of crypto is so volatile. Bukele's government made reassurances to the International Monetary Fund that it would scale back its crypto project in exchange for a $1.4 billion bailout from the IMF. But as the Council on Foreign Relations pointed out in May, the country is still buying bitcoin. As CoinTelegraph reported in June, El Salvador has added at least 240 BTC since Dec. 19, 2024, right after the agreement with the IMF was announced. That's more than $27 million at the current bitcoin price, which is hovering around $114,500, near the record high of about $123,000. It's not clear what the IMF may do since El Salvador violated its agreement, but whatever happens, the government needs to hope the price doesn't plummet.
Miami Herald
01-08-2025
- Politics
- Miami Herald
El Salvador abolishes presidential term limits, extends term length
Aug. 1 (UPI) -- El Salvadoran lawmakers voted to abolish presidential term limits as part of constitutional reforms that could allow the country's populist president, Nayib Bukele, to remain in power indefinitely. Under the reformed electoral system, the previous five-year term is increased to six years and a restriction limiting presidents to a single term is removed, allowing El Salvador's executive to run for office an unlimited number of times. Members of Bukele's New Ideas Party in the Legislative Assembly voted through the reform on Thursday, 18 months after Bukele won a second term in a landslide victory, despite a constitutional prohibition on consecutive terms. The Supreme Court, packed with pro-Bukele justices, waived the ban on grounds that it infringed Bukele's human rights. Opposition politicians and human rights organizations condemned the move, saying it removed one of the last remaining checks on power and brought the country a step closer to becoming a one-party state. "Today, democracy has died in El Salvador," said opposition Republican National Alliance MP Marcela Villatoro. Human Rights Watch said it was a power grab by Bukele aimed at ushering in a dictatorship. "He's very clearly following the path of leaders who use their popularity to concentrate power to undermine the rule of law and eventually to establish a dictatorship," said HRW Americas deputy director Juan Pappier. Cristosal, El Salvador's leading human rights organization, which fled the country for Guatemala two weeks ago citing threats and intimidation against its staff, criticized the lack of process and the way the change was rushed through. "The day before vacation, without debate, without informing the public, in a single legislative vote, they changed the political system to allow the president to perpetuate himself in power indefinitely and we continue to follow the well-travelled path of autocrats," said Cristosal executive Noah Bullock. Bukele's popularity mainly stems from a crime crackdown, targeting gangs in particular, that has seen El Salvador transformed from one of the most violent nations in the world to one of the safest in the region. However, he is a divisive figure among Salvadorans. His policies, including the use of emergency powers to detain as many as 75,000 people without due process, have drawn fire from human rights groups such as Amnesty International, which has said El Salvador was engaged in a "gradual replacement of gang violence with state violence." The United States got pulled into questions around El Salvador after Maryland resident Kilmar Abrego Garcia, an undocumented Salvadoran migrant, was detained in one of Bukele's notorious 'mega prisons' after being wrongly deported to El Salvador in violation of a 2019 court order that said he could not be deported there. He was among a group of 261 inmates imprisoned in one of the huge penal facilities after being deported by the Trump administration, who it said were either members of the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang or the Salvadoran-dominated MS-13. Abrego Garcia, who was accused of being a member of the MS-13, was returned to the United States in June at the request of the Justice Department to face federal migrant smuggling charges in Tennessee. Copyright 2025 UPI News Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
Fox News
01-08-2025
- Politics
- Fox News
Trump ally Bukele's party amends El Salvador constitution to allow indefinite presidential re-election
Salvadorian President Nayib Bukele's New Ideas Party has paved the way for him to potentially retain power in the Central American nation by overhauling the country's electoral system. The new bill extends presidential terms to six years and allows for indefinite presidential re-election. The country's presidential terms were initially five years long and immediate re-election was prohibited. However, in 2021, the country's Supreme Court — packed with justices picked by Bukele's party — ruled that the president could seek a second term, The Associated Press reported. Critics said Bukele's re-election in 2024 was unconstitutional. Members of New Ideas and their allies in the Legislative Assembly used their supermajority to pass changes to five articles of the country's constitution and passed the measure in a 57–3 vote on July 31. According to The Associated Press, New Ideas lawmaker Ana Figueroa's proposal also included a provision to eliminate the second round of elections in which the top two candidates go head-to-head. "This is quite simple, El Salvador: only you will have the power to decide how long you wish to support the work of any public official, including your president," Figueroa said, according to Reuters. "You have the power to decide how long you support your president and all elected officials." Meanwhile, other lawmakers expressed their frustration with the bill, with one lamenting the death of democracy. Nationalist Republican Alliance legislator Marcela Villatoro declared to her fellow lawmakers that "Democracy in El Salvador has died!" "You don't realize what indefinite reelection brings: It brings an accumulation of power and weakens democracy ... there's corruption and clientelism because nepotism grows and halts democracy and political participation," Villatoro said, according to The Associated Press. Bukele, who was first elected in 2019, has become somewhat of a polarizing figure as his crackdown on crime has made him popular with voters, while critics worry that he is trying to consolidate power. While Bukele's tough-on-crime policies have caused homicides to plummet, human rights groups say that innocent people were caught up in mass arrests. Human Rights Watch issued a report in July 2024 in which it found that approximately 3,000 children had become victims of the crackdown, which began in 2022. In the report summary, the group tells the story of a 17-year-old girl who was arrested without a warrant and eventually forced to plead guilty to collaborating with the notorious MS-13 gang, something she denied. Last year, Bukele told Time magazine that he would not seek a third term, though he could change his tune following the constitutional reforms.
