Trump ally Bukele secures path to indefinite reelections in El Salvador

El Salvador President Nayib Bukele, an ally of President Trump, scored a Friday win after the country’s lawmakers passed constitutional amendments eradicating term limits. 

The measure was passed in a 57-3 vote just one year after Bukele broke with the law setting term limits by saying he would seek a second term as president. 

The nation’s Supreme Court ruled in 2021 it was his right to run again, foreshadowing the actions by lawmakers.

“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,” said elected official Ana Figueroa, who proposed the bill, according to Reuters. 

“You have the power to decide how long you support your president and all elected officials,” she added. 

The bill backed by Bukele’s New Ideas party also extends presidential terms from five years to six and omits the possibility of run-off elections. It also aligns presidential elections with congressional races, ensuring the two occur in the same year. 

Some decried the move, claiming it would compromise election integrity.

“Democracy in El Salvador has died,” opposing lawmaker Marcela Villatoro of the Nationalist Republican Alliance said, according to NPR.

“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.”

A human rights organization also shared its disapproval for the bill’s passage.

“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-traveled path of autocrats,” said Noah Bullock, executive director of rights group Cristosal, according to Reuters.

Bukele has overseen the Trump administration’s deportation orders by containing immigrants sent from the U.S. in the region’s notorious CECOT prison. 

Bukele backed Trump’s previous decision to keep a wrongfully removed Maryland man behind bars overseas and mocked Democrats who attempted to have him freed, siding with the president’s immigration enforcement policies.  

Now, he has a chance to remain in office indefinitely after the successful passage of five constitutional amendments, making Bukele an available key figure for the Trump administration’s international plans.