Salvador: Experts warn Supreme Court decision to allow re-election of Nayib Bukele violates Constitution

The decision of the Supreme Court of Justice of El Salvador to validate the presidential re-election generates concern this Saturday in different sectors, which question it because they believe that it does not respect the Constitution and opens the door to insurrection.

“With what happened yesterday, a good part of the stone articles of the Constitution have been violated ”, told AFP the director of the Foundation for Studies for the Application of Law (Fespad), Saúl Baños. ., referring to the judgment of the Constitutional Chamber of the Court.

Baños cited that one of the articles of the Constitution which violated is number 88, which states that “the alternation in the exercise of the presidency of the republic is essential for the maintenance of the established form of government and the political system. The violation of this norm forces the insurrection ”.

On Friday evening, the court gave the green light to President Nayib Bukele to stand for re-election if he deemed it appropriate. The president has yet to comment on the resolution.

The court decision, addressed to the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE), allows “a person who exercises the presidency of the Republic and who has not been president in the immediately preceding period to participate for the second time in the electoral ballot”.

Constitutional Chamber magistrates who reinterpreted the Constitution were appointed in May, after the ruling Legislature dismissed its five magistrates. Attorney General Raúl Melara was also removed from his post at the time.

Previous judges of the Constitutional Chamber have argued that Article 152 prohibited the re-election of anyone who “has held the presidency of the republic for more than six consecutive months or not, during the immediately preceding period, or during the six months preceding the start of the presidential mandate ”. Thus, before, a president had to wait two periods to represent himself.

The parliamentary group of the ex-guerrilla left of the FMLN also affirmed on Twitter that the judicial resolution “clearly violates the Constitution” for which it condemned and rejected it “vigorously”.

The first institution to vote on the decision was the TSE, which in a statement said it “will comply” with the court’s resolution.

Because the decisions of the Court are “final and binding”, the TSE stresses that it “will comply with the provisions” which establish the “registration option” of the president for “a second term, if he so wishes. and if a political party nominates him for the said post ”.

Bukele, 40, enjoys a high level of popularity that enabled him to take the presidency in 2019, bringing the final blow to the entrenched two-party system of the right-left in El Salvador for three decades. Called by some as close to the commune, but criticized by the opposition for stigmatized authoritarian undertones, Bukele’s popularity has increased due to his handling of the covid-19 pandemic with the construction of a modern hospital and a plan accelerated vaccination, analysts said.

Since last May, his New Ideas party has dominated Congress, allowing it to govern without obstacles.

Bukele’s five-year term ends on May 31, 2024 and thanks to this decision, he could compete in the same year’s elections to seek re-election.

“The Constitutional Chamber of El Salvador – which Bukele took over in May this year – has just allowed Bukele to stand for re-election,” Human Rights Watch director of the Americas division José Miguel Vivanco reacted on Twitter.

“Democracy in El Salvador is on the brink” for having followed “the same script (to interpret the Constitution) that Daniel Ortega (in Nicaragua) and Juan Orlando Hernández (in Honduras) used,” Vivanco warned.

“We are now in a darker era, we must see what will be the actions that this administration will take in the commemorative act of September 15,” warned Laura Andrade, director of the Institute of Public Opinion of the University. Jesuit of Central America. (UCA).

By September 15, as El Salvador and other Central American countries celebrate their 200 years of independence, Vice President Félix Ulloa will hand Bukele a constitutional reform bill that also extends the presidential term by five. at six years old.

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