El Salvador Perspectives

Measures the Legislative Assembly passed for Nayib Bukele On January 29, El Salvador's Legislative Assembly gave the second vote to adopt  a constitutional amendment to allow the Constitution to be amended in the future by a single supermajority vote by the legislature.  Up until now, amendments had to be approved by two successive legislatures with a national election in between. That requirement gave the public the chance to vote out of office legislators who supported an amendment before they had a chance to give it final approval in the next term.  Since Bukele's Nuevas Ideas party today possesses such a supermajority in the congress, he can now amend the Constitution anytime he wants by submitting it to a single vote in his rubber stamp legislature. For example, those pesky provisions that limit how long a president can serve in office, can be eliminated with a quick vote and no debate. The constitutional amendment passed with no prior announcement that it would be o...

Recent polling by Francisco Gavidia University in San Salvador released this week offers insights into two areas -- how Salvadorans view religious faith and how they view Nayib Bukele's recent decision to promote gold mining in El Salvador. Salvadorans continue to be religious by nature and believers in the Christian god: 17.39% of those polled considered themselves "very religious" 78.12% consider themselves believers 2.86% agnostic 1.63% atheist However the make-up of church affiliation continues to evolve, as the Roman Catholic church continues to lose adherents: 47.02% declared belonging to protestant/evangelical churches 36.82% to the Catholic church 12.98% do not belong to any denomination 1.55% are in a non-Christian religion.  Review the full poll results to see a wide variety of polling questions about how religious faith influences beliefs about knowledge, science and morality.  The poll did not, however, test Salvadorans' acceptance of the regular asserti...

Recent year-end polling by the Public Opinion Institute at the University of Central America reveals that the economy is now viewed by the overwhelming majority of Salvadorans as the principal problem confronting their country.  The poll was conducted from December 5-17, 2024 involving more than 1200 persons from every department in the country. According to the poll results released by IUDOP,  76% of Salvadorans now believe the economy is the biggest problem the government must tackle, up from 70% a year ago, and 63% at the end of 2022.   As is true in many places, Salvadorans are focused on inflation, with 54% believing prices have gone up "mucho." How much do you perceive that the cost of living  has increased in El Salvador? In contrast to years before 2020, when crime and insecurity was seen by persons polled as the leading crisis or a major problem in the country, today less than 2% of Salvadorans believe that crime is the principal challenge facing the c...