Lawmakers in El Salvador abolished presidential term limits on Thursday, paving the way for President Nayib Bukele, who has aided President Trump’s deportation efforts and whose government has jailed tens of thousands in its crackdown on gangs and civil rights groups, to run for re-election indefinitely.
The change was among several amendments to the country’s constitution approved by the National Assembly, where Mr. Bukele’s party holds a supermajority. Lawmakers also extended a president’s term in office from five years to six, amending five articles with 57 votes in favor and three opposed, the National Assembly said on social media.
Salvadoran lawmakers in Mr. Bukele’s party have described the changes to the Constitution as a way to free voters from the constraints of term limits.
“It will be the people who decide, as many times as they wish, whether to continue supporting the path of transformation that our nation is experiencing,” Ana Figueroa, the lawmaker who proposed the amendments, wrote on social media on Thursday.
She noted that lawmakers and local officials, like mayors, do not have term limits. Mr. Bukele did not immediately comment on the amendments.
Many regional experts, human rights groups and others said they feared that the vote represented only the latest move to consolidate power in the hands of Mr. Bukele, who has used strongman tactics to crack down on violent street gangs that have long ravaged the country.
First elected in 2019, Mr. Bukele won a landslide re-election in 2024, riding his enormous popularity for decimating the gangs. He was able to do so in part by declaring a state of emergency that allowed authorities to carry out mass arrests with no due process. Tens of thousands of people were jailed, and rights groups say many of them had no ties to the gangs.
This year, Mr. Bukele’s government has escalated a crackdown on civil society groups who have been critical of his tactics. Under the state of emergency, which was extended for the 40th time last month, he has gone after dissidents, carrying out arrests that have prompted some civil rights advocartes and journalists to flee.
Under Mr. Bukele, 44, El Salvador has become one of the safest countries in the region, and the president has dismissed accusations that he has embraced authoritarian tactics.
“I don’t care if they call me a dictator,” he said in June. “I would rather be called ‘dictator’ than watch them kill Salvadorans in the streets.”
Mr. Bukele has also positioned himself as President Trump’s closest partner in Latin America, playing a role in Mr. Trump’s deportation plans by imprisoning people expelled from the United States. In exchange, Mr. Bukele’s government has received around $5 million and has sought the return to El Salvador of many top leaders of the MS-13 gang in U.S. custody.
American authorities have found substantial evidence of secret negotiations between Mr. Bukele’s government and MS-13 leaders, and some experts say Mr. Bukele may want to bury that evidence by seeking the gang leaders’ return. He has denied having any pact with the gangs, casting the blame for gang negotiations on his predecessor.
He has, from the start of his political career, styled himself as a clean break from the political parties that had dominated El Salvador since the end of its civil war in the 1990s. He has highlighted his relative youth, embraced social media and created a team to produce highly stylized videos and photos that show fearsome, tattooed gang members behind bars or in poses of submission. And he has variously described himself as the world’s “coolest dictator” and a “philosopher king.”
Mr. Bukele’s current term ends in 2029, but the recent changes would move that up to 2027 to coincide with legislative elections, at which point he could run for a six-year term.
Francesca Regalado is a Times reporter covering breaking news.
Annie Correal reports from the U.S. and Latin America for The Times.
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