During the night of Sunday, July 9, 2023, the Nuevas Ideas (NI) party, a group to which the current president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, belongs, made official the nomination of the president for the next presidential elections that will be held in February 2024.

Despite the fact that the measure has been pointed by different sectors as unconstitutional, questioning the legality of a hypothetical second term for Bukele, the ruling conservative party selected him as its sole candidate through an internal election that was held virtually, and of which the official results were not known.

Karen González, president of the NI Electoral Commission, said in statements to the press:

Nuevas Ideas makes it official that the winner of the presidential candidacy for the Republic of El Salvador is Mr. Nayib Armando Bukele Ortez.

Criticism of the Press

After the results were known, and as a direct response to an article in Spain's El País in which they questioned the constitutional validity of the presidential re-election, Bukele wrote on his Twitter account that “the Salvadoran people will have the last word.”

Dicen los medios de Soros que los salvadoreños no pueden decidir por si mismos.

Pero hoy habló el partido más grande en la historia de nuestro país y el 4 de febrero de 2024 el pueblo salvadoreño tendrá la última palabra.

La DEMOCRACIA se escribe de abajo hacia arriba. https://t.co/L4QBGt0dz0

— Nayib Bukele (@nayibbukele) July 10, 2023

Bukele also recently responded to criticism from AP News that questioned the legitimacy of his war on gangs.

Polls indicate that 9 out of 10 Salvadorans approve of Bukele's management, whose "war" against criminal gangs has aroused worldwide interest, both from those who approve of his management, and from those who denounce human rights violations by his government.

This campaign is carried out thanks to an exceptional regime, whose 15th extension was approved by Congress in mid-June and under this measure nearly 70,000 suspected gang members have been arrested and imprisoned.

Wouldn’t it be obvious that if we had the highest murder rate in the world, it was precisely because we had a lot of criminals on the streets that were supposed to be in jail in the first place? ‍

It seems like basic logic has completely abandoned western civilization. https://t.co/rqsbG5Zbuf

— Nayib Bukele (@nayibbukele) July 10, 2023

Running for a Second Term

Bukele had announced last year his decision to run for a second presidential term after the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice issued a resolution that enables re-election, a ruling that was identified as a political measure that goes against the Constitution of El Salvador.

Taking into account that Salvadoran law requires parties to hold internal elections in order to participate in the next elections, Bukele was announced as the official NI candidate and will be accompanied by his current vice president, Félix Ulloa.

According to DW, various lawyers, including the Faculty of Jurisprudence of the state University of El Salvador, have indicated that Bukele's re-election would violate various articles of the Constitution, such as the one that states that the person who has held the Presidency will not be able to "continue in his duties for one more day."