By: Staff Writer
June 30, 2026
El Salvador President Nayib Bukele is officially running for a third term in the Central American country after having registered.
Bukele, who first took office in 2019, is serving a second term after legal changes cleared the way for his re-election. In December, he said he was open to remaining in office for another decade.
The registration was confirmed by New Ideas party President Xavi Zablah Bukele, who announced on X that the party’s National Electoral Commission had formally received Bukele’s application. Bukele will once again run alongside Vice President Félix Ulloa.
According to local newspapers El Mundo and La Prensa Gráfica, documents released by Zablah show that both Bukele and Ulloa submitted signed registration requests as part of the party’s internal process to select candidates for the 2027 election.
The filing follows a constitutional reform approved by El Salvador’s Legislative Assembly in July 2025 that allows Bukele to seek another presidential term in 2027.
Bukele, who has been labelled as the world’s “coolest dictator,” has been riding a wave of populism after he has radically changed the country from being one of the world’s most dangerous, to one of the world’s safest, in just under 10 years.
Bukele’s transformation has come at a price of being labelled as an authoritarian and someone who is not keen on human rights.
While El Salvador’s government promotes its countries’ beaches, volcanoes, and safe streets in gentrified neighbourhoods, thousands of Salvadoran families are denouncing arbitrary detentions and seeking justice for relatives imprisoned under President Nayib Bukele’s extended state of emergency.
The contrast is stark: the country welcomes tourists with open arms while ruthlessly imprisoning its own people, drawing widespread international criticism for human rights abuses.
May 18 marked one year since the arbitrary arrest of attorney Ruth López, head of the anti-corruption unit at the organization Cristosal, in a clear attempt to silence voices critical of the regime. She remains in prison despite the government’s earlier statement that her “provisional arrest” would last six months.
Ruth López’s arrest took place in the context of the passage of the Foreign Agents Law — approved without debate in the Legislative Assembly — just two days after her arrest. The law imposes a 30 percent tax on foreign economic aid and creates numerous obstacles to the official registration of civil society organizations.
Lopez is far from the only human rights defender who’s been targeted.