The President of El Salvador, Nayib Bukelehe said in an interview published this Monday with the Spanish ‘youtuber’ David Canovas Martinez, known as “Le Grefg”, who would like to continue governing this Central American country for “ten more years”, although he clarified that this was only a wish … .
“I wouldn’t want to leave now, but let’s see what God, my family and the country say, (…) but if it were up to me, I would continue for ten more years,” the president said in the interview recorded at the Presidential House, in the Salvadoran capital, San Salvador.
Bukele, who is not used to giving interviews to Salvadoran media or journalists, clarified: “I say (this) as I like, it does not mean that it has to happen, it could last until 2027”, when the current presidential term ends.
The Salvadoran head of state revealed that he had an agreement with his wife, the first lady Gabriela de Bukeleto be before the government until 2029, but that an express reform approved and ratified in Congress by the ruling party New Ideas (NI) would have modified the deadline.
“The agreement I have with my wife, although it is being negotiated, is that we will go until 2029, (…) but what I told her is that if I run in the other election, the period ends in 2033, so I cannot leave,” Bukele said.
The Legislative Assembly, dominated by NI, approved and ratified, in a single day of July 31 without analysis or prior debate, the reform of articles 75, 80, 133, 152 and 154 with which the president Nayib Bukele He has the freedom to opt for a third consecutive term.
Bukele assumed his second consecutive term on June 1, 2024, despite the fact that at that time the Constitution prohibited itand that it would end in 2029. However, with the reform, the presidential elections were brought forward to 2027 to hold general elections that year and that from that year the presidential term would be extended to 6 years.
Bukele then defended immediate re-election and stressed that “90% of developed countries allow” indefinite re-election.
“Ninety percent of developed countries allow their heads of government to be re-elected indefinitely, and no one bats an eyelid,” he noted in X, adding: “But when a small, poor country like El Salvador tries to do the same, it suddenly becomes the end of democracy.”
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