Caribbean & Central America - March 2025

On 12 February El Salvador’s 60-member unicameral legislature, which is controlled by President Nayib Bukele’s Nuevas Ideas (NI), approved a change removing Art. 210 of the constitution which recognises state campaign funding for political parties. This has drawn criticism from civil society groups amid concerns that it jeopardises the independence of political parties. It is among the first amendments to the constitution approved since the previous month when congress gave final approval to a reform eliminating the requirement that constitutional changes must be approved by two successive legislatures [WR-24-17].

The change removing Art. 210 approved on 12 February leaves political parties entirely dependent on private finance. Previously, public funding, known as ‘deuda política’ (political debt), was determined by the number of votes the party won in the previous elections. The decision to remove this was slammed by rights activists such as Eduardo Escobar, the executive director of local NGO Acción Ciudadana (AC), who said that Art. 210 created “a certain independence” which would be jeopardised if parties are entirely reliant on private finance.

A 12 February AC statement warns that the change will affect political pluralism, describing it as a further measure aimed at “consolidating and maintaining a hegemonic or dominant party system”. This is a reference to the control exerted by Bukele’s NI which won 54 seats in the downsized legislature in 2024, having strengthened its presence since winning an unprecedented two-thirds legislative majority in the previous 2021 vote. That election dealt a major blow to the left-wing Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional (FMLN) and right-wing Alianza Republicana Nacionalista (Arena), whose longstanding political duopoly was ended by Bukele’s 2019 election win.

The amendment eliminating public finance for political parties comes amid more general concerns regarding the transparency of campaign finance. On 13 December 2024, AC published a report which assessed the financial transparency of nine political parties for 2023. The AC report found that four of the parties had a low level of financial transparency: NI; FMLN, which now has no legislative seats; Gran Alianza por la Unidad Nacional (Gana), also with no seats); and Nuestro Tiempo (NT – no seats). The parties with higher levels of financial transparency according to AC were: Arena (two seats); Democracia Salvadoreña (DS – no seats); Partido de Concertación Nacional (PCN – two seats); Partido Demócrata Cristiano (PDC – one); and Vamos (one).

Lack of transparency

According to the Acción Ciudadana (AC) report, Bukele’s NI party did not provide AC with financial information on its expenses or income in 2023, nor did it make this information publicly available. The report also highlights that since its establishment in 2018, NI has not provided any information on its expenses. AC warns that a lack of transparency can conceal illegal funding and misuse of public funds.

Constitutional changes

The changes removing Art. 210 were among the first following the legislature’s ratification on 29 January of amendments to El Salvador’s 1983 constitution which annul the requirement that constitutional changes must be approved by two successive legislatures. Prior to the changes, approved constitutional changes required approval by a simple majority in one legislature and ratification by a two-thirds majority in the next. With the changes, constitutional reforms can now be passed with just the vote of three-quarters of legislators.

These changes to the process of amending the constitution have drawn alarm from rights groups such as international NGO Amnesty International (AI). On 7 February AI warned that “by removing the requirement for constitutional amendments to be approved by two separate legislative assemblies, the ruling party guarantees a fast-track path to constitutional change without due deliberation processes or public participation”. It adds that “in a context where the independence of the judiciary and the right to a fair trial have been systematically eroded, this measure could pave the way for the implementation of reforms that further undermine… human rights.”