Bukele circumvents the Constitution to seek his second term this Sunday without apparent rival

The incontestable push of the "coolest dictator" puts the parties that dominated Salvadoran politics after the civil war on the brink of disappearance

MADRID, 4 Feb. (EUROPA PRESS) -

Salvadorans are holding presidential and legislative elections this Sunday in an event that seems like a mere procedure for Nayib Bukele, who does not seem to be affected by the fact that he has used a judiciary that he controls to be able to reinterpret the Constitution and run for re-election. .

Bukele has all the ballots to be elected in the first round. According to the latest polls, the president would have 80 percent of the votes, well above the 50.01 necessary to avoid a second round. His five opponents alone wouldn't even reach 15 percent together.

Although there are six articles of the Constitution that prohibit immediate reelection, a reinterpretation made by the judges of the Supreme Court of Justice who remained after a purge that led to the departure of five of them in May 2021, served to the electoral authorities to approve his candidacy, in which Félix Ulloa also repeats as vice president.

The magistrates established that it was enough that the president could be re-elected if he did not technically hold the position, for this he had to request a license from an Assembly that controls a license during the six months prior to the formal start of the next term, which does not start until June 1 of 2024.

Aware that it will be almost impossible to prevent Bukele from being elected this Sunday, the opposition hopes to at least challenge him for the majority in Congress and stop the control he has of the State - thanks to which he managed to present this new candidacy - and thus prevent can prepare a possible third term.

Bukele will be re-elected president of El Salvador with an overwhelming majority, if the polls hold true. Two years ago, when the first criticism began about his ways of governing, he responded with irony and defined himself as the "coolest dictator in the world", a title that he held especially on social networks, a fundamental tool to understand his meteoric popularity.

Although several international Human Rights organizations have questioned his methods to fight violence in his country, it is thanks to them that he will win the elections this Sunday. Their plans have reached such an extent that many are already asking that they be extrapolated to a region where violence and organized crime have been endemic for decades.

According to figures provided by the Salvadoran Government, homicides have been drastically reduced - according to them, it is the country in America with the fewest murders only behind Canada - and at least 74,000 people have been arrested for suspicion of links to the gangs, with which Bukele himself negotiated in 2019 when he became President.

However, in March 2022, when the Mara Salvatrucha murdered more than 80 people in just 24 hours, Bukele imposed a state of exception that is still in force and that suspends some constitutional rights, such as the right to expression, assembly and organization, which which has further weakened a weak opposition that could see the populist New Ideas become a hegemonic party.

The opposition candidates closed their electoral campaigns last Saturday. Among them are former deputy Manuel Flores, of the leftist Martí Front for National Liberation (FMLN), and the United States-based businessman Joel Sánchez, of the conservative Nationalist Republican Alliance (Arena), who together would achieve a nominal 6 percent of the votes.

Both formations completely dominated the country's political life after the civil war (1980-1992), until Bukele emerged in 2019, who has also benefited from the ineffectiveness of an opposition in question after decades of security, economic and mistrust crises. for the numerous cases of corruption.

The decline of Arena and the FMLN, which are accused of an alleged lack of commitment to renew themselves internally, became more evident in the municipal and legislative elections of 2021, in which Bukele's party debuted in the Assembly, occupying 56 seats. of the 84 seats at that time.

Bukele's reach is such that Nuevas Ideas is expected to devour those who were his allies in this legislature --Gran Alianza por la Unidad (GANA), the National Concertation Party (PCN) and the Christian Democrats of the PDC--, for whom These elections, according to the polls, will mean his departure from Parliament.

In addition to the president, the slightly more than 6 million Salvadorans with the right to vote are also called to elect the composition of the National Assembly, which in these elections will have 60 instead of 80 seats, after an electoral reform that further limits the scope of the opposition's response.