El Salvador’s Cryptocrazy President Will Run for President for the Second Timeย
Nayib Bukele, El Salvador’s populist president, has said that he wants to run for a second term.
El Salvador’s President, Nayib Bukele, recently announced that he will run for re-election in 2024 to continue in office for another five years. If Bukele is elected, he will be the country’s first president to be democratically elected twice.
Furthermore, if Bukele completes his second term, he will be the country’s second longest-serving president, trailing only the dictator, Brigadier General Maximiliano Hernรกndez Martnez, who ruled the Republic for more than nine yearsโfrom 1935 to 1944.
Notably, despite the constitution’s prohibition, the court’s contentious decision in September 2021 actually paved the way for Bukele’s accession to the throne. The country’s highest court ruled in September 2021 that a president could run for two consecutive terms. The decision drew harsh criticism from around the world. Mostly because of the previous legislative overhaul of the court in favour of Bukele.
President Bukele made the announcement in his speech on September 15th, Independence Day.
The crypto community is interested in this development because of Bukele’s stance on Bitcoin. Notably, the Bukele-led government made Bitcoin legal tender in 2021. The decision was made with the goal of detaching the country’s economy from the US dollar.
To put it in context, before the US invaded El Salvador, the country had its own currency, the “peso.” However, the country’s dollarization process, which began in 1993, was successfully completed in the year 2000.
El Salvador’s Bitcoin experience has been a mixed bag thus far. Despite increasing remittances and lowering remittance fees, the country’s Bitcoin holdings are currently underwater, owing to the recent market correction.