El Salvador’s crypto president can hold power for decades after changing the constitution
El Salvador’s legislative parliament on Thursday approved changes to the country’s constitution, which will be extended from five years to six years and lifted term limits. This means that far-right crypto enthusiast Nayib Bukele, who is aligned with President Donald Trump, may be in power for the rest of his life.
Bukele was first elected in 2019, pledging to crack down on gangs and was banned from running for re-election in 2024. But the country’s Supreme Court ruled in 2021 that an article in the El Salvador Constitution allowed the president to allow a president to run for a re-election. Buckley’s New Ideas Party canceled the District Judge against the President in the Supreme Court, clearing the way for Buckle to rule the country with an iron fist, and making any necessary constitutional changes to rule indefinitely.
In extremely suspicious circumstances, Buckley was re-elected in 2024, with his term scheduled to end on June 1, 2029. With new changes and Buckley’s popularity, it is speculated that the president can consolidate greater power as he can be re-elected again and again, whether without semester restrictions, and every long-term.
Deprive the president of the term limit and extend the length of each term by 57 to 3. and one of three dissidents, Marcela Villatoro of the Nationalist Republican coalition, warned that democracy would undermine democracy due to changes.
“You don’t realize what indefinite reelection brings: it brings the accumulation of power and weakens democracy… corruption and clientism exists because of the growth of forestism and prevents democratic and political participation,” Villitro was cited in English language translation.
Bukele is a fan of Elon Musk and a frequent user of X, but has not posted any tweets about the changes. But there is no doubt that people like Musk and Trump will gain more power in Central America. Trump met with Buckley at the White House in April when the U.S. president transported his immigrants to a torture prison in El Salvador. The people there, some of whom were released to Venezuela, told horror stories about being beaten, being filthy water and being sexually assaulted.
Buckley rode the office and stayed popular as he promised to fight the gang. But the latest report from the country’s El Faro news media said Bukele’s government signed a secret agreement in 2019 that with gang leaders calling on the country’s violence. According to the news media, part of the deal is to provide economic incentives. Bukele insists that it is part of his brutal violent repression to reduce violence.
According to Reuters, Buckley has invested heavily in his country’s funds in cryptocurrencies, holding nearly $550 million in foreign exchange reserves in Bitcoin. While this may seem like a good thing when Bitcoin soars, any government is extremely risky when the price of cryptocurrencies fluctuates so much. The Buckley administration assured the International Monetary Fund that it will expand its crypto projects in exchange for the IMF’s $1.4 billion bailout. But, as the Foreign Relations Commission pointed out in May, the country is still buying Bitcoin.
As Cointelegraph reported in June, El Salvador has added at least 240 BTC after reaching an agreement with the IMF since December 19, 2024. The current price of Bitcoin is over $27 million, hovering around $114,500 and nearly $123,000. It is not clear what the IMF might do because El Salvador violated its protocol, but whatever happens, the government needs to hope that prices will not drop.
