BARRIO (AP) – El Salvador President Nayib Bukele says he wants to cut the number of municipalities in the country from 262 to 44 to reduce the tax burden.
The proposal would require the approval of the country’s Legislative Assembly, in which Bukele’s party and its allies hold a majority. The president also proposed reducing the number of lawmakers in that body from 84 to 60.
“How is it possible that in a territory of 8,100 square miles (21,000 square kilometers) we have 262 municipalities?” Bukele said in a speech Thursday marking his fourth year in office. The president’s New Ideas party controls the majority of the current municipalities.
The president said the names of municipalities would not be lost because they would be converted into districts by the same name.
The conservative National Republican Alliance (Arena) party said it saw clear electoral motivation behind the move just one year before Bukele plans to seek re-election despite a widespread interpretation of the constitution that forbids consecutive re-election.
In 2021, the Supreme Court’s Constitutional Chamber, recently overhauled by Bukele’s party, told electoral authorities to allow re-election. Constitutional scholars considered the court’s decision unconstitutional. Bukele announced his intention to seek re-election last September.
“The president changes the country’s political distribution with electoral ends,” the party’s congressional delegation said via Twitter.
Bukele’s supporters shouted “re-election, re-election, re-election” during the president’s speech.
