This month El Salvador marked a year since its government adopted Bitcoin as a legal tender. While many try to evaluate some intermediate results of this step, El Salvador’s president might get ready for re-election despite the constitution’s limits.
According to El Salvador’s constitution, the president of the country is limited to a single five-year term. Nayib Bukele announced his intention to run for the president's chair again during an Independence Day live streaming event on Sept. 15.
Developed countries have re-election, and thanks to the new configuration of the democratic institution of our country, now El Salvador will too. Nayib Bukele, El Salvador’s President
In his Twitter, however, the president argues with the “mainstream journalists” and urges his subscribers to watch his original speech.
If you’re being misinformed by the mainstream media and some “journalists” about what’s happening in El Salvador, you should watch yesterday’s FULL MESSAGE and why I chose our INDEPENDENCE DAY to announce an expected candidacy for re-election. https://t.co/FKue3NypO6
— Nayib Bukele (@nayibbukele) September 17, 2022
We did watch his full speech for you and are ready to brief you about it. According to the President’s words, El Salvador has never been so free and independent in all its history, from being a Spanish colony and continuing to be dictated by foreign countries’ and their orders. He highlights that the country’s current sovereignty is the result of rejecting international advice and following their own recipe. Bukele says that the path they have chosen is working and they shouldn’t stray from it, that is why he made the decision to run as a Presidential candidate in 2024. Crucially he points out that other countries (supposedly as well as the “mainstream journalists“ he mentions in his twitter) might not like this, but it’s not up to them to decide what Salvadoran people should do.
Anyway, his approval rating, as per the latest CID Gallup poll, has hit 85%, so he is in a strong position.
All this comes against the background of Fitch downgrading El Salvador’s rating to ‘CC’ from ‘CCC’. Fitch explains their action by El Salvador’s precarious external position and weak liquidity position despite the president’s recent intention to buy back government debt in amount of $800M. Fitch is suspicious about this buyback and “assumes they will roll over the short-term debt with the banks”.
Let’s wish Salvadorans luck in their struggle for sovereignty and independence and observe how the first country to accept Bitcoin as a legal tender will develop in the future.
