This is a weekly thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or IR history. I usually start off with coverage of some current events from a mix of countries I follow personally and countries I think the forum lives in or might be interested in. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
El Salvador
A few weeks ago @Dean wrote a detailed writeup of how Nayib Bukele plans to technically qualify for another term in office. The long story short is that the constitution doesn’t explicitly ban candidates from having multiple terms, it just bans them from succeeding themselves, so he’s going to step down, be replaced temporarily by a puppet, then run again. Poof, voila, it’s all under the law.
Congress has now formally granted Bukele a six month leave of absence. Not exactly exhausting himself in proving critics wrong that his replacement will be a puppet, the new President is literally just his secretary. Congratulations to Claudia Juana Rodríguez de Guevara, the first woman President of El Salvador.
It kinda raises the question: what’s the point of all this? Why go through the motions of a very low effort, transparent, by-the-letter-of-the-law power grab? With a reliable supermajority of senators voting for this, would they really draw the line at just amending the constitution to let him hold another term? All the cool autocrats have done it.
Because Claudia Juana Rodríguez de Guevara heard from Dmitry Medvedev that fake president comes with a great health plan? I bet fake presidents get platinum plans with zero deductible on like five dollar a month premiums.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link