Bukele to temporarily leave the office of president December 1

On November 6, El Salvador's Supreme Electoral Tribunal issued a ruling on the candidacy of Nayib Bukele to be re-elected as president of El Salvador.  The TSE ruled that it was bound by a determination of the Constitutional Chamber, which declared in September 2021 that the Constitution did not prohibit re-election of a president for a second term. However, the TSE ruled that in order to run for president again, Bukele and his vice president Felix Ulloa, will need to take leaves from their positions for the final six months of their terms in office which end next June 1.  In other words, on December 1, someone else will be the acting president of El Salvador for a six month period.

This bizarre situation, where the president steps aside temporarily so he can run again, is created solely by the tortured logic which the Constitutional Chamber used to find that Bukele could be re-elected.  This was the Constitutional Chamber of Bukele allies illegally installed after Nuevas Ideas gained a super majority in the legislature.  The Chamber needed to find a way around the language in Article 152 of the Salvadoran Constitution which clearly seems to state that the current president cannot run for a successive term:

Article 152

[The following] shall not be candidates for the President of the Republic:

1st.—He who has filled the Presidency of the Republic for more than six months, consecutive or not, during the period immediately prior to or within the last six months prior to the beginning of the presidential period.

The Chamber created the path to let Bukele run again by declaring that the phrase "the period immediately prior to"  means the presidential term preceding the current one.  In other words, Salvador Sanchez Ceren, the president prior to Bukele, cannot run in 2024, according to this logic.   

This interpretation still leaves the final clause of Article 152 to be dealt with:

 "or within the last six months prior to the beginning of the presidential period."  

The TSE found this clause means the six months prior to the start of the next presidential term on June 1, 2024, which the TSE said could be fulfilled by taking a six month leave of absence from the job of president.  The TSE claimed this has the important effect of preventing the president from using public resources to aid his own re-election.   (As if the all the rest of the Nuevas Ideas-controlled government will suddenly stop acting to re-elect its populist leader).

There has been no word from Bukele or his government regarding who will be the acting president.

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Provisions of the Constitution of El Salvador which prohibit the re-election of the country's president.

Article 88

The principle that a President cannot succeed himself (alternabilidad) is indispensable for the maintenance of the established form of government and political system. Violation of this norm makes insurrection an obligation.

 Article 131

[Responsibilities of Legislative Assembly]

16th.—To obligatorily disavow the President of the Republic or his substitute if, when his constitutional term has ended, he continues in the exercise of his post. In this case, if no person has been legally summoned for the exercise of the Presidency, a Provisional President shall be designated.

Article 152

[The following] shall not be candidates for the President of the Republic:

1st.—He who has filled the Presidency of the Republic for more than six months, consecutive or not, during the period immediately prior to or within the last six months prior to the beginning of the presidential period.

Article 154

The presidential period shall be of five years, and shall begin and end on the first of June, without the person who exercised the Presidency being able to continue in his functions one day more.

Article 248

Under no circumstances, may the articles of this Constitution, which refer to the form and system of government, to the territory of the Republic, and to the principle that a President cannot succeed himself (alternabilidad), be amended.

 

In addition, the Constitution explicitly states that legislative deputies and municipal officials may be re-elected while never containing a similar statement about the president.