The party Nuevas Ideas (NI) made official this Sunday evening the candidacy of the Salvadoran president, Nayib Bukeleto seek re-election in the 2024 election, despite accusations of unconstitutionality he himself has made in the past.

“I am announcing to the country that our President Nayib Bukele has been officially elected as the candidate for the Presidency of the Nuevas Ideas Party to participate in the 2024 elections,” reported NI President Xavi Zablah Bukele, who is the nephew of it’s the president.

Bukele announced his intention to seek re-election in September 2022, one year after a change in the criteria of the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court.

Even before the decision of the constitutionalist judges, elected in a process described as irregular in the Legislative Assembly by an official majority after they dismissed their predecessors, a president had to wait ten years to try to seek the presidency again.

The resolution states that to seek another term, the president must apply for a license “six months before the start of the presidential term.” In other words, Bukele would only rule for the first six months of his fifth year and would have to step down as president in January 2024.

The law obliges parties wishing to participate in the 2024 elections to hold internal elections to determine their candidates.

In the absence of opponents, Bukele was elected NI candidate and the current Vice President of the Republic, Félix Ulloa, will join him in his presidential formula.

Several lawyers, including the Department of Jurisprudence at El Salvador State University, have pointed out that Bukele’s re-election would violate several articles of the constitution, such as the one that states that the person who has held the presidency is incapable of to “not stay another day in his functions”.

The polls show Bukele the winner, whose war against gangs has earned him an approval rating of over 90%, despite the move being criticized by human rights groups.

“In undemocratic societies, the caudillo who offers a bullet always succeeds,” says a Salvadoran journalist

Elections for the president and congressional delegates will take place on February 4, and for municipal councils and Parlacen on March 3, 2024.

Bukele came to power in 2019 with the far-right Gran Alianza por la Unidad Nacional (Gana) party as an electoral vehicle following his NI party’s registration delay.