“Democracy in El Salvador is on the brink,” Human Rights Watch’s ominous warning

Human Rights Watch (HRW) Director for the Americas José Miguel Vivanco said on Saturday that “democracy in El Salvador is on the brink” after the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice (CSJ) approved the possibility of the presidential re-election of Nayib Bukele.

“El Salvador’s Constitutional Chamber – which Bukele took over in May this year – has just authorized Bukele to stand for election,” Vivanco wrote on Twitter.

He added that in his opinion, it is “the same script used by Daniel Ortega (Nicaragua) and Juan Orlando Hernández (Honduras)” to be re-elected.

“Many of us have warned for over a year about the risks to the rule of law in El Salvador,” he said and regretted that OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro, rejected “these alerts” and tagged those who issued them as “recurring hysterical voices”.

He shared a video with Almagro’s statements from 2020 and added that “now it’s late”.

On Friday evening, the magistrates of the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice, appointed on May 1, reversed a 2014 decision and allowed immediate presidential re-election.

In the resolution, the magistrates order the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) to authorize “a person who exercises the Presidency of the Republic and who has not been president in the period immediately preceding to participate for the second time in the electoral ballot. “.

The court ruling paves the way for President Nayib Bukele could be re-elected in 2024, because with the interpretation given in 2014 to paragraph 1 of article 152 of the Constitution, it was not until 2034.

In the judgment of the magistrates, the interpretation of 2014 is “false” and they underlined that the Constitution allows a citizen to be president for a maximum period of 10 years.

In addition to HWR, several Salvadoran lawyers and US Congressman Albio Sires spoke.

“I am extremely concerned about the interpretation of the constitutional chamber in El Salvador which allows re-election, even if it is prohibited by the Constitution,” Sires wrote on his Twitter account.

For her part, the director for the Americas of Amnesty International (AI), Erika Guevara-Rosas, indicated that he was observing El Salvador to “denounce practices that violate” human rights and warned against the dismantling of institutions.

“Around the world, we face authoritarian governments dismantling institutions to violate human rights. It is shown that El Salvador will not be the exception,” Guevara-Rosas wrote on Twitter.

He added that at Amnesty International “we have our eyes riveted on El Salvador to denounce human rights violations by the government of Nayib Bukele”.

The president, who won the 2019 presidential elections in the first round and with a large advantage, did not say if he would run again, a possibility his officials and pro-government MPs are applauding and cheering on social media.

Source: EFE