New Ideas, the political party led by Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, who is known for his support of Bitcoin (BTC), has achieved a significant majority in the country’s legislature.
On February 20, the organization responsible for overseeing El Salvador’s elections announced that the New Ideas party had won 54 out of the 60 seats in the legislature. This victory ensures that Bukele will have the necessary political power to continue implementing his agenda. The election took place on February 4, and even before the official results were released, Bukele declared his triumph on February 5, claiming that the New Ideas party had actually secured 58 seats, not just 54.
Despite Bukele’s assertion of victory in the legislature, opposition groups have called for the election results to be invalidated, alleging voter fraud. Parties such as Vamos, Nuestro Tiempo, and the Nationalist Republican Alliance have reportedly identified 69 “anomalies” in the electoral process. The Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front party has also made similar allegations of fraud and voter manipulation.
Bukele assumed office in June 2019 and quickly became one of the few world leaders to openly support cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. In September 2021, when the New Ideas party still held a supermajority in the government, he urged the Salvadoran government to adopt BTC as legal tender.
Although Bukele has branded himself as the “world’s coolest dictator,” his tenure as the nation’s leader has been marred by reports of human rights violations in his efforts to combat gang violence and homicides in El Salvador. A United Nations report from March 2023 revealed that El Salvador had carried out “mass detentions” since 2022, resulting in the deaths or mistreatment of many individuals in custody.
During Bukele’s time in office, El Salvador’s Supreme Court amended the rules to allow a president to serve two consecutive terms rather than waiting for ten years before seeking re-election. In December 2023, Bukele resigned from office to focus on his campaign, leaving Claudia Rodríguez de Guevara as the acting president until June 2024.
Bukele is scheduled to speak at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, D.C. on February 22. The event will feature prominent members of the far-right faction of the United States’ Republican Party, as well as Argentine President Javier Milei, former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, and former United States President Donald Trump.
Magazine:
A firsthand account of using Bitcoin in El Salvador