Bukele Cuts 30% of Assembly Seats and 83% of Mayors Months Before Elections

Friday, June 2, 2023

Eight months before the elections, President Nayib Bukele announced last night that the 262 Salvadoran municipalities will be cut to 44 and the 84-seat legislature to 60. In his prime-time speech marking four years in power, he also announced the seizure of ex-president Alfredo Cristiani’s assets on unknown charges.

Nelson Rauda Zablah

Election season has officially begun in El Salvador. The day after the announcement of the first opposition presidential ticket, Bukele did away with 70 percent of publicly-elected positions locally and nationally.

In a solemn address to the Legislative Assembly to commemorate his fourth year in office, he announced bills to reduce the number of municipalities to 44, meaning the elimination of 218 mayoral races. He also announced the reduction of 24 seats in the Legislative Assembly to 60, which was how things were in 1991.

The changes are to be implemented with eight months left before voting and with political parties' internal elections underway.

Bukele has argued efficiency. “We won’t have 262 mayors and municipal councils, nor their managers, positions of trust, assistants or assistants to the assistants,” the president said.

More:
https://elfaro.net/en/202306/el_salvador/26874/bukele-cuts-30-of-assembly-seats-and-83-of-mayors-months-before-elections