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        {"code":"27182","sect":"Opinion","sect_slug":"opinion","hits":"1020","link":"https:\/\/elfaro.net\/en\/202312\/opinion\/27182","link_edit":"","name":"Fraud upon Fraud: Bukele Is Not on Presidential Leave","slug":"fraud-upon-fraud-bukele-is-not-on-presidential-leave","info":"Despite saying he stepped down, Nayib Bukele is still the president of El Salvador. Presidential Designee Claudia Juana Rodr\u00edguez has been his subordinate financial officer in his businesses, municipal administrations, and the current presidency. She has been, and still is, his accomplice.","mtag":"Politics","noun":{"html":"El Faro Editorial Board","data":{"el-faro-editorial-board":{"sort":"","slug":"el-faro-editorial-board","path":"el_faro_editorial_board","name":"El Faro Editorial Board"}}},"view":"1020","pict":{"cms-image-000039876-jpg":{"feat":"1","sort":"39876","name":"cms-image-000039876.JPG","link":"https:\/\/elfaro.net\/images\/cms-image-000039876.JPG","path":"https:\/\/elfaro.net\/images\/cms-image-000039876.JPG","back":"","slug":"cms-image-000039876-jpg","text":"&lt;p&gt;Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele in his third state-of-the-nation address on June 1, 2022, alongside Legislative Assembly President Ernesto Castro. Photo V\u00edctor Pe\u00f1a&lt;\/p&gt;","capt":"\u003Cp\u003ESalvadoran President Nayib Bukele in his third state-of-the-nation address on June 1, 2022, alongside Legislative Assembly President Ernesto Castro. Photo V\u00edctor Pe\u00f1a\u003C\/p\u003E"}},"pict_main__sort":39876,"date":{"live":"2023\/12\/13"},"data_post_dateLive_YY":"2023","data_post_dateLive_MM":"12","data_post_dateLive_DD":"13","text":"\u003Cp id=\"docs-internal-guid-036a5982-7fff-f4ed-cc7b-8c6bddafe59b\" dir=\"ltr\"\u003E\u003Cem\u003E\u003Ca href=\"\/es\/202312\/columnas\/27176\/fraude-al-fraude-bukele-sigue-siendo-presidente\"\u003ELeer en espa\u00f1ol\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cbr\/\u003E\u003Cbr\/\u003E\u003Cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003EThe deed is done. The leave of absence from the presidency that the Legislative Assembly \u003Ca href=\"\/en\/202311\/el_salvador\/27168\/inner-circle-financial-officer-will-be-interim-president-while-bukele-campaigns-for-reelection\"\u003Egranted to Nayib Bukele\u003C\/a\u003E on November 30 has consummated the constitutional fraud designed for him to seek reelection.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cbr\/\u003E\u003Cbr\/\u003E\u003Cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003EAnd in the process, they committed a second fraud. After violating \u003Ca href=\"\/en\/202209\/el_salvador\/26381\/Bukele-Announces-He-Will-Seek-Reelection-in-2024-despite-Constitutional-Ban.htm\"\u003Ethe array of articles of the Salvadoran Constitution\u003C\/a\u003E that prohibit running for immediate presidential reelection, they tried to use one of them to justify themselves: article 152, which bars candidates who \u201cfilled the Presidency for more than six months, consecutive or not, during the period immediately prior to or within the last six months prior to the beginning of the presidential period.\u201d This, the presumed basis for their argument, they also betrayed.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cbr\/\u003E\u003Cbr\/\u003E\u003Cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003EBukele did not renounce the presidency; he asked for leave. So he continues in the position despite temporary permission to take absence from his responsibilities. That is why he maintains presidential immunity, security detail, and other prerogatives as head of state: because he is still president.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cbr\/\u003E\u003Cbr\/\u003E\u003Cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003EWhen asked about the legislative procedure to grant leave to the president, pro-Bukele legislator Guillermo Gallegos said that such a protocol does not exist, and that one must be created, because since the Constitution came into force in 1983 no president requested leave in order to campaign for reelection. As strange as it might sound, Gallegos is right. No such procedure exists.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cbr\/\u003E\u003Cbr\/\u003E\u003Cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003EIt does not exist because reelection is prohibited literally, clearly, and repeatedly in our Constitution. So in granting leave to Nayib Bukele to seek reelection, the Legislative Assembly has contradicted and re-contradicted the Salvadoran Constitution. In article 131, it orders the legislature to \u201cobligatorily disavow the President of the Republic or his substitute if, when his constitutional term has ended, he continues in the exercise of his post\u201d. It also clearly states that the presidency is to last only five years.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cbr\/\u003E\u003Cbr\/\u003E\u003Cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003EThe president\u2019s lackeys in the legislature, led by Assembly President Ernesto Castro, violated the Constitution and approved Bukele\u2019s violation of it yet again, dismissing their own legal duty. Bukele\u2019s circle must be rotten if Guillermo Gallegos, long-time suspect of corruption, emerges as the voice of reason. He was the one who clarified, too, for those in the legislative chamber who did not read the text granting leave, that Bukele \u201c\u003Ca href=\"https:\/\/diario.elmundo.sv\/politica\/discusion-juridica-sobre-el-requisito-de-juramentacion-de-la-designada-presidencial\"\u003Eis not renouncing the presidency\u003C\/a\u003E\u201d.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cbr\/\u003E\u003Cbr\/\u003E\u003Cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003EThe person appointed by the legislature \u2014without following any of the constitutional requirements to be nominated as a presidential designee\u2014 to carry out administrative tasks of the Executive, \u003Ca href=\"\/en\/202311\/el_salvador\/27168\/inner-circle-financial-officer-will-be-interim-president-while-bukele-campaigns-for-reelection\"\u003EClaudia Juana Rodr\u00edguez\u003C\/a\u003E, is not the interim president, but rather a designee who will handle some tasks in Bukele\u2019s \u2014and Vice President F\u00e9lix Ulloa\u2019s\u2014 formal absence.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cbr\/\u003E\u003Cbr\/\u003E\u003Cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003EAgain, not even the leave of absence is real. He just appeared to delegate some of his tasks, probably as special deference to his vice president, who spent a year and a half touring the world to claim that there is \u201c\u003Ca href=\"https:\/\/www.elsalvador.com\/noticias\/nacional\/felix-ulloa-justifica-reeleccion-bukele-articulos-escondidos\/1004886\/2022\/\"\u003Ea hidden article of the Constitution\u003C\/a\u003E\u201d (sic) permitting reelection. That, too, is a lie.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cbr\/\u003E\u003Cbr\/\u003E\u003Cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003EThat is why Bukele named his assistant, loyal to the point of complicity, who has managed his money whenever he needs to hide income. He did not even bother to send a slate of candidates for presidential designee, as the Constitution also establishes.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cbr\/\u003E\u003Cbr\/\u003E\u003Cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003EUntil the end of November, Rodr\u00edguez, former Financial Secretary of Bukele\u2019s party Nuevas Ideas, was the head of the Directorate of Municipal Works, an institution created in 2021 by the administration to centralize municipal funds without the need to account for their use.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cbr\/\u003E\u003Cbr\/\u003E\u003Cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003EThis week, online news outlet Gato Encerrado published an investigation showing that Rodr\u00edguez received from the San Salvador Mayor\u2019s Office \u003Ca href=\"https:\/\/gatoencerrado.news\/2023\/12\/06\/presidenta-interina-de-el-salvador-recibio-1-2-millones-sin-justificacion-de-la-alcaldia-de-bukele\/\"\u003Emore than a million dollars\u003C\/a\u003E secretly and without legal explanation, when it was governed by Bukele.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cbr\/\u003E\u003Cbr\/\u003E\u003Cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003EThis has all been a charade, a mockery of the Constitution, the laws of the Republic, the separation of power, and judicial independence by the Bukele brothers. A brazen step in their accumulation of power and illicit enrichment, with the complicity of Ulloa, their legal advisors, cabinet, party legislators, illegally instated Supreme Court, and illegally instated Attorney General.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cbr\/\u003E\u003Cbr\/\u003E\u003Cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003EAt this moment it does not matter how many articles of the Constitution Bukele has violated on the road to reelection, or what shameless expressions of cynicism Castro and Ulloa utter to justify the unconstitutional. It does not matter because the Bukele family controls all the judicial system, from the top prosecutor\u2019s office to the lower court judges to the Supreme Court magistrates. Therefore, there is no way to apply the law and punish their affront against our rule of law nor their scandalous pillaging of public coffers. El Salvador is submitted to the will of a crime group.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cbr\/\u003E\u003Cbr\/\u003E\u003Cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003EThis means that all Salvadoran citizens now depend not on a body of laws, but on the whims of a family governing and in position to decide who will receive state contracts, what information should be made public, who can be a judge and who cannot, who goes to prison and who does not, who has rights or not.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cbr\/\u003E\u003Cbr\/\u003E\u003Cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003ENayib Bukele is still president, and his brothers are still making the decisions together with him. Public officials and legislators merely execute. Presidential Designee Claudia Juana Rodr\u00edguez has always been their subordinate financial officer, whether in businesses, municipal administrations, or the current presidency. She has been Bukele\u2019s accomplice.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cbr\/\u003E\u003Cbr\/\u003E\u003Cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003EThe accumulation of power grants impunity. And impunity allows laws and constitutions to be broken without consequence. The man who plans to be reelected as head of state in El Salvador recently said on a national broadcast that he does not want to be \u003Ca href=\"\/en\/202311\/el_salvador\/27168\/inner-circle-financial-officer-will-be-interim-president-while-bukele-campaigns-for-reelection\"\u003Eremembered as a president surrounded by thieves\u003C\/a\u003E. Then he asked Attorney General Rodolfo Delgado to investigate officials in his government.\u00a0\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cbr\/\u003E\u003Cbr\/\u003E\u003Cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003EBut Delgado responds to him alone and will only take action against those Bukele considers disposable. If he were independent, the Attorney General\u2019s Office would have dozens of open investigations into sitting officials, not the least of them being Nayib Bukele himself and his new presidential designee.\u003C\/p\u003E"}

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