Bukele continues to follow autocrat’s playbook in El Salvador
In his latest attempt to expand his political power, El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele has succeeded in abolishing presidential term limits in the country. Since first assuming office in 2019 and after his re-election last year (despite a constitutional prohibition), Bukele has emerged as a role model for right-wing autocratic leaders. The latest changes look set to further entrench his authority in El Salvador and further inspire other leaders with autocratic leanings to emulate him.
On 31 July El Salvador’s legislature approved a constitutional reform package that, among other things, abolished term limits and introduced indefinite presidential re-election. The initiative was tabled by the Bukele administration and received the full backing of his ruling Nuevas Ideas (NI) party, which holds 54 seats in the 60-seat unicameral assembly. The changes appear designed to allow President Bukele to perpetuate himself in power after consolidating his capture of the Salvadorean state.
Bukele’s detractors and the political opposition denounced the changes as another attempt to dismantle democratic checks and balances and establish himself as a perpetual dictator. Opposition deputy Claudia Ortiz (Vamos) noted that “we have seen this story many times in many different countries”, alluding to the long history of populist political leaders that cling on to power and turn into autocrats. Yet in the face of Bukele’s control of the legislature, the judiciary, and his still substantial public support, there appears to be little that the opposition or civil society groups can do to stop it.
Moving the goalposts again
The reform package also increases presidential terms from five to six years, eliminates second-round voting, and crucially brings forward the next presidential elections by two years to 2027. NI deputies insist that the changes seek to further empower the Salvadorean electorate, reduce electoral costs by holding less frequent elections, and deliver increased political and legal stability for the country. However, critics argue that these changes are clearly designed to benefit Bukele and allow him to continue to exploit the high level of public support he retains, as well as the opposition’s failure to unite against him.
Similar tactics have been repeatedly used in Venezuela by the ruling Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela (PSUV), which has been in power since 1999, although elections have been questioned for over a decade amid claims of fraud and questionable conditions that prevent the possibility of a democratic alternation of power. Indeed, comparisons to the systematic weakening of democracy in Venezuela under the PSUV have been made by Bukele’s critics.
Venezuela comparisons
“They are following the same path as Venezuela. It starts with a leader that uses his popularity to concentrate power, and it ends in a dictatorship”, Human Rights Watch’s director for the Americas, Juanita Goebertus, remarked following the approval of the constitutional reform package by El Salvador’s legislative assembly.
Ignored by the international community
El Salvador’s democratic backsliding under Bukele has been denounced by local as well as international rights groups such as Cristosal and Human Rights Watch (HRW). Yet HRW has said that more needs to be done by the international community to address these “abuses” while Cristosal has noted that under President Donald Trump, the US is increasingly turning a blind eye to Bukele’s abuse of authority due to the political affinity between the two.
Cristosal’s director, Noah Bullock, has highlighted as a clear example of this, the omission of any mention of human rights violations in Salvadorean prisons under Bukele in the 2024 annual human rights reports released by the US Department of State (DoS) on 12 August. While the DoS report says that “there were no credible reports of significative human rights abuses” in El Salvador last year, Bullock was cited by Spanish news agency EFE as saying, in a 16 August report, that Cristosal has presented testimonial, documental, and forensic proof of the systematic torture of inmates in Salvadorean prisons, which he said have caused the deaths of at least 400 people.
Bullock went on to accuse the Trump administration of ignoring these human rights violations because of the agreement it has reached with the Bukele government over the detention of deportees and certain criminals from the US in El Salvador’s 40,000-capacity mega prison Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo (Cecot). According to Bullock, the agreement has resulted in the arbitrary detention and deportation of hundreds of migrants from the US to Salvadorean prisons, where upon their release some have denounced that they were tortured. Notably, instead of questioning the constitutional changes in El Salvador, the DoS defended the legislative assembly’s actions.
US backs legislative assembly
“El Salvador’s legislative assembly was democratically elected to advance the interests and policies of their constituents. Their decision to make constitutional changes is their own. It is up to them to decide how their country should be governed. We reject the comparison of El Salvador’s democratically based and constitutionally sound legislative process with illegitimate dictatorial regimes elsewhere in our region”, read a statement by the US Department of State issued on 6 August in response to the approval of the constitutional reform package.
Bullock’s serious accusations come after Cristosal announced on 17 July that it was suspending operations in El Salvador after 25 years due to the escalating threats the organisation has received from the Bukele administration. A Cristosal statement said that the threats have raised serious concerns about the organisation’s ability to safely operate in the country without fear of its members being arbitrarily detained [SSR-25-06]. Cristosal said it will continue to operate from Guatemala and Honduras. But its departure from El Salvador is likely to make its work more difficult and could lead to more human rights violations in El Salvador going unreported. The Bukele administration is thus likely to face less international scrutiny, which appears to be one of its objectives.
The constitutional changes increase the risks of Bukele becoming a lifetime president and El Salvador slipping further into autocracy. While this may provide short-term political stability, Latin American history shows that in the long-term such regimes become increasingly authoritarian, politically and socially unstable, unpredictable international actors, and a potentially significant threat to regional and global security. That Bukele has been able to so blatantly sidestep democratic checks without anyone in El Salvador capable of stopping him and the international community mostly ignoring his undemocratic actions will likely inspire other regional leaders with autocratic tendencies to follow a similar blueprint to establish themselves as de facto dictators via pseudo-democratic means.
Avoiding scrutiny
The constitutional reforms approved by the NI-controlled legislative assembly also eliminated constitutional provisions requiring El Salvador to send representatives to the Central American Parliament (Parlacen). The regional parliamentary body was created in 1991 in the wake of the civil wars that afflicted El Salvador, Guatemala, and Nicaragua, to promote regional integration, the common pursuit of democracy, political pluralism, and peace in Central America.
Bukele and NI argue that Parlacen has become ineffectual and a safe haven for corrupt politicians in the region, who have used the immunity that comes with a Parlacen seat to avoid prosecution. They justify the withdrawal from Parlacen not only as a cost-saving exercise, but also as a commitment to combatting corruption.
Yet this is only the second time that a government has sought to abandon Parlacen following a failed attempt in 2011 by the government of Panama’s disgraced former president, Ricardo Martinelli (2009-2014). Interestingly, the Martinelli government’s attempt to leave Parlacen failed after Panama’s constitutional court ruled that legislation drafted to that effect was unconstitutional. The apparent political affinity between El Salvador’s supreme court judges and Bukele may lead to this not being the case this time.