On July 31st, 2025, El Salvador’s Legislative Assembly passed a new constitutional amendment 57 to three votes to allow the current president, Nayib Bukele, to run for a third term. The amendment also takes away an old provision that citizens lose their citizenship rights for promoting re-election of the president, ensures the preceding president can run, eliminates run-off elections, and extends the presidential term from five to six years. The reform will take effect in the next presidential election, which is moved up to 2027 to coincide with legislative and municipal elections. The Legislative Assembly approved and ratified the changes on the same day, marking a sharp shift in both the abilities of the Legislative Assembly and the legal precedent surrounding presidential re-election. El Salvador’s courts have considered presidential alternation an important constitutional tenet since 1841, broadly prohibiting presidential re-election for almost two centuries. This constitutional reform has sparked wide criticism and concerns over democratic backsliding from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and NGOs such as Amnesty International.  

Specifically, critics worry that Bukele and his party New Ideas are using executive aggrandizement tactics to change electoral rules and cement their power. According to Bermeo, executive aggrandizement takes place when executives don’t dismantle democracy directly but rather legally weaken checks on their power and change electoral laws. Executive aggrandizement can lead to democratic backsliding for multiple reasons. As Waldner and Lust posit in their article about democracy, democratic backsliding can take place if dominant party systems are able to take hold. The constitutional reform further entrenches the power of Bukele and New Ideas. Furthermore, Dahl simply suggests that one of the institutional guarantees required for a democracy is the “right of political leaders to compete for support”. This right is far weaker in a system where an incumbent can run indefinitely.  

Legislative changes 

The Legislative Assembly, which New Ideas holds a significant majority in, began to lay the groundwork for amending the constitution with such ease in early 2024. On April 29, 2024, the outgoing legislature changed Article 248 of the constitution so that only one legislature needed to approve constitutional amendments. Previously, one legislative body was required to approve an amendment, while a second needed to ratify it. This change streamlined the amendment process and greatly cut down on the time that legislatures in the future would have to take to approve and ratify amendments, such as the term-limit reform. Importantly, this change to the legislative process still prohibited altering the provisions regarding presidential re-election in the constitution.  

Generally, the amendment to Article 248 in 2024 weakened the system of checks and balances in El Salvador while also reducing time available for public debate on proposed amendments. Additionally, it reduced the power of public scrutiny in the amendment process. This change is just one example of how incumbents can make small, mostly legal changes to the legislative process to tilt the field in their favor, among many other strategies. 

Packing the courts 

Incumbents such as Bukele also use stealth authoritarian tactics to cement their power. According to Varol, this is when incumbents use laws to entrench themselves in power when transparent authoritarianism is not an option. Incumbents will often change laws in a way that seems legitimate, such as to protect against electoral fraud. Bukele and the New Ideas controlled Legislative Assembly did this in many ways. Since New Ideas won a majority in the Legislative Assembly in 2021, they have passed several constitution reforms that weaken judicial independence, accountability mechanisms, and human rights. Specifically, in 2021, the Legislative Assembly removed all judges from the Constitutional Chamber and placed new ones without following proper procedures. The Assembly did this because the old Chamber was investigating corruption and alleged negotiations with gangs within Bukele’s administration. Packing courts in favor of an incumbent is a classic example of stealth authoritarianism. 

Bukele and his administration have said that the judicial overhaul was necessary because of the old court making arbitrary decisions, but critics have questioned this excuse, particularly after rulings in Bukele’s favor directly after the court was packed. In 2021, the Constitutional Chamber stated that Bukele had a human right to be able to run again, breaking with longstanding judicial tradition in the country in a way very favorable to Bukele.  

Much like after the judicial overhaul in 2021, Bukele’s administration came armed with excuses in defense of and for the necessity of passing the constitutional reform allowing indefinite presidential election in 2025. Despite widespread criticism over the reform, the administration stated that the Legislative Assembly carried out all established procedures when passing the amendment (even though the established procedures had been severely shortened a year prior in 2024). Additionally, they stated that the reform had specific purposes, including unifying election schedules and stabilizing the electoral system. People would now be able to choose at the polls whether they wanted to continue with the current administration or not. This type of rhetoric is just one example of how incumbents can use stealth authoritarian tactics to further entrench their power.  

Crime crackdown 

In the 2024 presidential election, Bukele won 85% of the votes, getting re-elected and maintaining his control of the Legislative Assembly and judicial system. Part of the reason Bukele is so popular among his citizens is because of his heavy crackdown on criminal gangs. According to author and professor María Esperanza, people tend to support Bukele’s harsh agenda because of his populist appeals, which Esperanza states, “… [generate] enthusiasm and mobilization… when doing normal politics is running into many difficulties because this is a time of great uncertainty and polarization”. Bukele often uses populist rhetoric to advocate harsh crackdowns on crime as well as changes like the indefinite term-limits reform.  

Ideas about the constraints that should exist on the current president are heavily influenced by public opinion on the current president. Additionally, people view current events and the actions of a president through a very partisan lens. Citizens are typically willing to overlook elites taking antidemocratic actions if the elites are protecting the interests of the citizens, according to Bessen. Because Bukele’s crackdown on organized crime has caused a decrease in murder rates, many Salvadorans are more supportive of Bukele’s actions than they might be in other contexts. People are generally more willing to vote for him again because he has framed himself as being solely able to protect Salvadorans from gang violence, in turn lending support to him instating indefinite term limits.  

Pushback—or lack thereof 

Many prominent rights groups and commissions have spoken out against the Bukele administrations’ actions. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has stated that the amendment violates the rule of law because of its contents and the way it was passed. The EU, Amnesty International, and many opposition lawmakers have also spoken out, calling for a stop to Bukele’s consolidation of power and democratic backsliding.   

Notably, however, the US has supported Bukele’s actions. The Trump administration has even been deporting Venezuelans and Salvadorans living in the US to Salvadoran prisons, despite widespread abuse allegations in the prison system. The Organization of American States is also declining to act against El Salvador, despite their mandate to do so. Because of these two very prominent enforcement powers failing to act against Bukele’s actions, it is unclear how far Bukele will be permitted to engage in executive aggrandizement to consolidate the power of his executive branch. As opposition lawmaker Marcela Villatoro dramatically stated, “democracy has died in El Salvador”. If Bukele’s actions continue to go unchecked, democratic backsliding may very well continue taking place in El Salvador.  

References 

Al Jazeera. (2025, August 1). El Salvador approves indefinite presidential re-election. Al Jazeera. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/8/1/el-salvador-approves-indefinite-presidential-re-election 

Amnesty International. (2025, August 5). El Salvador: Constitutional reforms without guarantees of public participation or consultation put human rights at risk. Amnesty International. https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2025/08/el-salvador-reformas-a-la-constitucion-sin-garantias-de-participacion-ni-deliberacion-publica-ponen-en-riesgo-los-derechos-humanos/ 

Bermeo, Nancy. (2016). On Democratic Backsliding. Journal of Democracy, 27(1). https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/article/607612/pdf 

Bessen, Brett R. (2024). Populist Discourse and Public Support for Executive Aggrandizement in Latin America. Comparative Political Studies, 57(13). https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00104140231223738 

Dahl, R. A. (1971). Polyarchy: Participation and Opposition. Yale University Press. 

Estrada, J. G. (2025, September 2). El Salvador’s Democracy Is Dying. Human Rights Watch. Retrieved November 20, 2025, from https://www.hrw.org/news/2025/09/02/el-salvadors-democracy-is-dying 

Graham, C. (2025, July 31). El Salvador scraps term limits, paving way for Bukele to seek re-election. BBC. Retrieved November 20, 2025, from https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/czd04q87zryo 

Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (2025, August 8). El Salvador: IACHR warns of possible impacts on the rule of law in light of indefinite presidential re-election. Organization of American States. Retrieved November 20, 2025, from https://www.oas.org/fr/CIDH/jsForm/?File=/en/iachr/media_center/PReleases/2025/156.asp&utm_content=country-slv 

Maldonado, C. S. (2024, March 7). The populist threat: How Bukele and Milei undermine democratic progress in Latin America. El País. https://english.elpais.com/international/2024-03-07/the-populist-threat-how-bukele-and-milei-undermine-democratic-progress-in-latin-america.html 

Olmedo, D. (2025, August 26). From Term Limits to No Limits: El Salvador’s Constitutional Reform on Presidential Re-election. ConstitutionNet. Retrieved November 20, 2025, from https://constitutionnet.org/news/voices/term-limits-no-limits-el-salvadors-constitutional-reform-presidential-re-election 

Varol, O. (2024). Stealth Authoritarianism. Iowa Law Review, 100(4), 1673-1742. https://ilr.law.uiowa.edu/print/volume-100-issue-4/stealth-authoritarianism 

Waldner, D., & Lust, E. (2018). Unwelcome Change: Coming to Terms with Democratic Backsliding. Annual Reviews, 21, 93-113. https://www.annualreviews.org/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-polisci-050517-114628