By Emily Green
(Reuters) -There was no shortage of warning signs that El Salvador President Nayib Bukele would attempt to stay in power indefinitely, his critics say.
There was the time Bukele stormed the legislative assembly with armed soldiers during his first year in office. Or a year after that, when his allies in the congress removed top Supreme Court judges and the attorney general and replaced them with Bukele loyalists.
Then last year, Bukele ran for a consecutive term as president after the new Supreme Court judges reinterpreted the constitution.
But the final tipping point came on Thursday afternoon, when a little-known legislator from Bukele’s ruling New Ideas party announced a proposal to amend the constitution to allow indefinite presidential reelection.
Bukele allies lined up one by one to sign a petition that would allow the assembly to vote on the legislation immediately, without it first going to committee for analysis or public debate.
A mere three hours passed from the time the legislation was introduced until the moment it became law. Fifty-seven lawmakers voted in favor, with three in opposition.
Ernesto Castro, the assembly president, framed the vote as a win for democracy. “The people will decide how long they want a leader to remain in office,” Castro wrote on X. “With these decisive measures, we are ensuring a stronger, fairer and more efficient democracy.”
Marcela Villatoro, one of the three legislators to vote against the measure, countered late on Thursday: “Democracy has died in El Salvador today.”
The constitutional change also lengthened the presidential term by a year to six, eliminated runoffs, and moved up the next presidential election by two years to 2027, leaving little room for Bukele’s scattered opposition to find a candidate.
DEEPENING CRACKDOWN
Bukele, who swept to power in 2019, is extremely popular in El Salvador because of his strong-arm tactics that have eliminated the country’s once-powerful street gangs. That, combined with his effective crackdown on opponents, virtually guarantees that the 44-year-old will remain in office until at least 2033 — and perhaps many years after that.
Human rights groups accuse Bukele of widespread abuses and corruption, and a flood of rights activists and journalists have fled the country in recent months after two outspoken critics were arrested and jailed.
A spokesperson for Bukele did not respond to requests for comment about the constitutional change, whether he plans to run for re-election, or the opposition’s assertion that democracy was being destroyed.
In the U.S., El Salvador’s constitutional amendment was largely met with silence. Bukele is Trump’s strongest ally in Latin America, a relationship cemented by an agreement reached in March for El Salvador to house 238 Venezuelans deported from the U.S. in a maximum-security prison. In April, Trump called Bukele “one hell of a president.”
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio did not respond to a request for comment on the constitutional change.
“The U.S. government is shielding the Bukele regime with its silence,” said Gina Romero, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Rights to Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and of Association. “Bukele has complete control of the courts, the congress, the media and the narrative. If that’s not autocracy I don’t know what is.”
In El Salvador, the reaction to Thursday’s measure was muted. Democracy is relatively new in the country — it was established during 1992 peace accords that ended a brutal 12-year civil war — and many Salvadorans consider it a failure given the power that gangs amassed during that time.
The news appeared on the front pages of the country’s most popular papers. But there were no protests, and many people were more focused on getting ready for a week-long vacation, with government offices closed next week.
Many of Bukele’s most outspoken critics have fled the country, including an estimated 100 journalists and human rights activists. In July, the country’s leading human rights group suspended operations.
Bertha Maria Deleon, a lawyer and activist who worked for Bukele from 2015 to 2019, said Bukele’s rise to power was fueled by what she saw at the time as a legitimate desire to improve El Salvador. He promised to end corruption after three consecutive presidents were accused of embezzling millions of dollars of public funds.
Deleon broke with Bukele after he occupied the parliament in 2020. She said everything he has done since then has been an effort to consolidate power.
“Ever since that takeover of parliament, he clearly began to execute the dictators’ manual,” she said.
(Reporting by Emily Green; Editing by Christian Plumb and Rosalba O’Brien)
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