SAN SALVADOR – With 66 votes out of 84, the Congress of El Salvador approved during the early hours of June 7 to reduce the number of legislators from 84 to 60, a change that occurs eight months before the presidential and legislative elections.
The reform to the Electoral Code was given “with a waiver of processing”, that is, immediately and without discussion in a legislative commission, and included eliminating the “residue system” with which legislators from minority parties managed to enter Congress in the elections. of 2021.
Until yesterday, the electoral system gave room to minority political options that with a closed formula would not have had participation in Congress. With the new reform, legislators can only be elected by “quotients”, that is, by majority vote only. In the opinion of the president of the Salvadoran Congress, Ernesto Castro, “democracy cannot be represented by people with less support.”
“Thanks to this pluralism we have given a voice to people who do not agree with this way of governing,” reacted the deputy Claudia Ortiz, of the Vamos party, about the eliminated waste system.
While representative René Portillo Cuadra, from the right-wing ARENA party, opined that it was already necessary to reform the Salvadoran electoral system, since “there are departments that are underrepresented (in Congress) and others that are overrepresented.” However, he said that the reform should have been approved with a prior discussion and not with a waiver of paperwork, that is, immediately and without discussion.
Generalized criticism among legislators from traditional parties such as ARENA and FMLN who consider that the change is due to an electoral strategy to eliminate from Congress all dissident legislators with the current form of government.
Officials defend the measure
According to legislators from the Nuevas Ideas party, with a majority in Congress, it is not true that the reform responds to a need to fully control the first State body in the next elections, but rather seeks to reduce public spending.
“For 30 years they did nothing, they only filled their pockets with the people’s money. (…) We need legislators who have an opinion and support initiatives in favor of citizens,” said the vice president of Congress and deputy for New Ideas, Suecy streets, during the plenary.
Similarly, representative Rebeca Santos, from the same party, added that Congress will save “a lot of money by not having residues that have been subsisting for decades”; this without disclosing an approximate amount of spending on 24 seats that will disappear in the next elections.
El Salvador is preparing to hold presidential and legislative elections in February 2024. Bukele, who has been President of El Salvador since June 2019, has already announced that he will be re-elected in the next term despite the fact that the country’s Constitution prohibits continuous re-election.
Today, with the reduction in the number of legislators, Congress approved removing the legislators who entered by residue from the legislative map. A request made by Bukele, on June 1 during his four-year government speech.
Reduction of municipalities will be discussed
The proposal that seeks to reduce the 262 municipalities to 44 will be sent to a legislative commission for study, reported the president of Congress.
Castro announced that the ministers of the Interior, Finance, and the president of the National Registry of Natural Persons will be summoned to give details about the execution.
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