Bukele says he would like to continue “ten more years” governing in El Salvador

San Salvador. – The President of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, said in an interview published this Monday with the Spanish youtuber David Cánovas Martínez, known as ‘The Grefg’, that he would like to continue governing the Central American country for “ten more years”, although he clarified that it is just a wish. “I wouldn’t like to leave right now, but let’s see what God, my family, and the country say, (…) but if it were up to me, I’d stay ten more years,” the president said in the interview recorded at the Presidential House, in the Salvadoran capital San Salvador. Bukele, who does not usually give interviews to Salvadoran media or journalists, clarified: “I am saying (this) as my preference, it does not mean that this has to happen, it may be that it lasts until 2027”, when the current presidential term ends.

The extension of Bukele’s term

The Salvadoran head of state revealed that he had an agreement with his wife, First Lady Gabriela de Bukele, to be in front of the Government until the year 2029, but that an express reform approved and ratified in Congress by the ruling party Nuevas Ideas (NI) would have changed the term. “The agreement I have with my wife, although it is under negotiation, is that we go until 2029, (…) but what I have told her is that if I run for the next election, the term ends in 2033, so I can’t leave,” Bukele indicated. The Legislative Assembly, dominated by NI, approved and ratified, in a single day on July 31 without prior analysis or debate, the reform to articles 75, 80, 133, 152 and 154 with which President Nayib Bukele has a clear path to opt for a third consecutive term. Bukele assumed his second consecutive term on June 1, 2024, despite the fact that the Constitution prohibited it at that time, and that it would conclude in 2029. However, with the reform, the presidential elections were brought forward to 2027 to hold general elections that year and that from that year the presidential term will extend to 6 years. Bukele defended immediate re-election at that time and pointed out that “90% of developed countries allow” indefinite re-election. «90% of developed countries allow the indefinite re-election of their head of government, and nobody bats an eye,» he pointed out on X, and added: «But when a small and poor country like El Salvador tries to do the same, it suddenly becomes the end of democracy».