Nayib Bukele is sworn in for a second consecutive term in El Salvador

“Yes, I swear,” Bukele responded to the swearing-in made by the leader of the Legislative Assembly, Ernesto Castrowho imposed the presidential sash on him in the facilities of the centenary National Palace.

The event was private, without access to the public, broadcast on the national network and in which only the King of Spain, Felipe VI, was present; the president of Argentina, Javier Milei; other leaders, Bukele’s family and close friends.

Outside, in the Plaza Capitán General Gerardo Barrios, hundreds of people, including special guests from different sectors of the country and internationally, supporters of Bukele and the ruling party, Nuevas Ideas (NI), were waiting for his speech.

Bukele thus becomes the first president of the democratic stage of El Salvador to take office for a second consecutive term.after decades of military dictatorship and a 12-year civil war (1980-1992).

Various political and social actors in El Salvador have stated that they do not recognize the legality or legitimacy of Bukele’s second term because it is contrary to the Magna Carta.

Also participating in the investiture ceremony were the president of Honduras, Xiomara Castro; his counterparts from Costa Rica, Rodrigo Chaves; from Paraguay, Santiago Peña, and from Ecuador, Daniel Noboa, and the Prime Minister of Belize, John Briceño.

In addition, a delegation from the United States Department of Homeland Security was present representing the Government of Joe Biden, led by Alejandro Mayorkas.

Moments before the investiture, The Congress with a large pro-government majority began an extraordinary plenary session in the facilities of the National Theater and then transferred to the National Palace.

Bukele begins a second term with almost absolute power and without opposition, but faced with the challenge of maintaining security in the country and achieving the economic prosperity he promised.

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The former publicist of Palestinian descent undertakes another five-year term after overcoming the opposition and obtaining a historic 85 percent of votes in the February elections, where he also won almost the entire Congress (54 of 60 seats).

Regular on social networks where he laughs at those who call him a “dictator”, Bukele has the rest of the state powers in his favor, including magistrates who allowed him to seek reelection despite being prohibited in the Constitution.

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And he will have even more power because the deputies recently approved a reform that will make it easier for him to make constitutional changes, even, according to analysts, enabling indefinite reelection.

“He advanced with alarming speed in eliminating essential checks and balances for a democracy, which allowed him, among other things, his re-election (…). It is difficult to think that Bukele himself is going to retrace his authoritarian measures,” he told AFP Tamara Taraciuk, from the Inter-American Dialogue analysis center.

In a Latin America plagued by criminal violence, Bukele is the most popular president, according to a regional poll, thanks to his “iron fist” policies against gangs, which several rulers, such as Daniel Noboa (Ecuador) and Xiomara Castro (Honduras), have tried to emulate.

Both attend the investiture, as do President Santiago Peña (Paraguay) and Rodrigo Chaves (Costa Rica), and King Felipe of Spain, among others. But the focus is on the Argentine Javier Milei, with whom Bukele shares his sympathy for former US President Donald Trump, the conservative agenda and the taste for coups de effect.
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Bukele claims to have healed the country from the “cancer” of the gangs, on whom he declared “war” and built a megaprison: Since March 2022, El Salvador has been living under a state of emergency that leaves 80,000 detained without a court order.

Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International denounce deaths, torture and arbitrary detentions. Almost 8,000 have been released, thousands because they are innocent. The cost of security is paid by “the unjustly detained population,” summarizes the coordinator of the Human Rights Commission, Miguel Montenegro.

For Bukele, who came to power in 2019 with 53 percent of the vote, his recent landslide victory shows that Salvadorans want to continue under the emergency regime.