Bukele’s party enables indefinite presidential re-election in El Salvador

Salvadorian President Nayib Bukele’s New Ideas Party has paved the way for him to potentially retain power in the Central American nation by overhauling the country’s electoral system.

The new bill extends presidential terms to six years and allows for indefinite presidential re-election.

The country’s presidential terms were initially five years long and immediate re-election was prohibited. However, in 2021, the country’s Supreme Court — packed with justices picked by Bukele’s party — ruled that the president could seek a second term, The Associated Press reported. 

Critics said Bukele’s re-election in 2024 was unconstitutional.

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Members of New Ideas and their allies in the Legislative Assembly used their supermajority to pass changes to five articles of the country’s constitution and passed the measure in a 57–3 vote on July 31. According to The Associated Press, New Ideas lawmaker Ana Figueroa’s proposal also included a provision to eliminate the second round of elections in which the top two candidates go head-to-head.

“This is quite simple, El Salvador: only you will have the power to decide how long you wish to support the work of any public official, including your president,” Figueroa said, according to Reuters. “You have the power to decide how long you support your president and all elected officials.”

Meanwhile, other lawmakers expressed their frustration with the bill, with one lamenting the death of democracy.

President Donald Trump, right, shakes hands with Salvadorian President Nayib Bukele during a meeting in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C., on Monday, April 14, 2025. (Al Drago for The Washington Post via Getty Images)

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Nationalist Republican Alliance legislator Marcela Villatoro declared to her fellow lawmakers that “Democracy in El Salvador has died!”

“You don’t realize what indefinite reelection brings: It brings an accumulation of power and weakens democracy … there’s corruption and clientelism because nepotism grows and halts democracy and political participation,”…