President Nayib Bukele responded to criticism from Carolina Jiménez Sandoval, president of the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), defending El Salvador’s constitutional reforms and arguing that the country is being judged under a different standard than other democracies with comparable political systems.
In a series of public statements, Bukele challenged the argument that parliamentary democracies are inherently more democratic than presidential systems. He noted that in countries such as the United Kingdom, Germany, Spain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Luxembourg, Austria, Switzerland, and Japan, the head of government can remain in office without fixed term limits under their respective constitutional frameworks.
The president argued that these political systems are rarely questioned internationally, while El Salvador receives criticism for constitutional changes approved through its democratic institutions. Bukele maintained that the country’s constitutional reforms were enacted following elections in which Salvadorans granted a legislative supermajority through the ballot box, emphasizing that the process took place under the framework established by the Constitution and democratic institutions.
Bukele also stressed that El Salvador’s recent elections were observed by thousands of international representatives and stated that no multilateral organization or foreign government formally declared the electoral process to be neither free nor transparent. According to the president, every sovereign nation has the right to determine its own constitutional model, just as many countries have amended their constitutions throughout history according to their own legal and political traditions.
Responding directly to WOLA’s comparison of El Salvador with other Latin American countries that allow indefinite reelection, Bukele argued that applying different standards to similar constitutional arrangements in other democracies reflects what he described as a double standard toward El Salvador. He concluded that the country’s political decisions should ultimately be evaluated by the will of its citizens and by the results achieved for the Salvadoran people.