Nayib Bukele’s strategy to extend his mandate in El Salvador: draft for the new Constitution is ready

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Salvadoran vice-president Félix Ulloa said that the document will soon be presented to foreign diplomatic legations and NGOs, before emphasizing that a total of 215 amendments have been made to the Magna Carta of the Central American country ruled by Nayib Bukele.

“You can no longer turn back to debate, as if we were in November last year,” he said in a radio interview before stressing that “the discussion and debate is and will be held in the Legislative Assembly,” as reported by Salvadoran newspaper La Prensa Gráfica.

Among the proposed changes are that presidential mandates will be increased from 5 to 6 years, without the option of immediate reelection, but after a term in between, instead of the two currently contemplated.

Likewise, Ulloa pointed out that the new Magna Carta includes the concept of a recall referendum which could be called after 3 years in office should “the president or vice-president be failing miserably” in leading the country.

On the other hand, the draft contemplates the elimination of the Supreme Court’s Constitutional Chamber, to be replaced by a Constitutional Court in which “administrative and jurisdictional tasks are separated”.

Thus, two new chambers will be added to the Supreme Court, the Electoral Chamber, in charge of the “jurisdictional” part of the current TSE, and the Social Chamber for “family, labor and environmental issues.”

In addition, the terms of office of the Attorney General, the Prosecutor General and other second level elected officials will be increased from 3 to 6 years, which Ulloa justified with the need for them to “comply with the result of an election or the expression of the people in an election, because it is the Assembly who elects them”.

Ulloa also pointed out that the new text includes the right to air, water, food and death with dignity and, while not directly regulating the right to abortion, the proposal regulates the mother’s rights in order to decriminalize it to a certain extent.

“Today the law criminalizes any type of abortion, even if the mother is in clear danger of death, no doctor can perform an abortion because it is against the law. Today, the mother’s right does not matter,” he said.

The vice-president also explained that same-sex marriages will not be regulated, but the Constitution states that “all human beings living in El Salvador have the right to have a family” and that the family “is formed by marriage or any other legal bond.”

In other matters, the new Magna Carta contemplates the possibility of using “non-concrete, non-physical currencies in monetary policy,” after the Salvadoran Parliament in June passed legalization of bitcoin use, becoming legal tender in the Central American country together with the dollar.

Finally, the draft established by the government states that the approval of the constitutional reforms by the current Legislative Assembly and their ratification by the succeeding one will not be required, instead this last step will be replaced by a referendum.

Source: Infobae