El Salvador's Congress clears hurdle to speed constitutional reforms

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador — El Salvador's Congress ratified a constitutional reform Wednesday that will make it easier and faster to make constitutional changes in the future, a change critics say will allow President Nayib Bukele and his party to further consolidate power.

Previously, constitutional reforms had to be proposed and approved in one legislature, then ratified in the subsequent Congress following elections.

The second part of that happened Wednesday. The proposed reform was initially approved by the previous legislature last April.

Now, reforms can be swept through with just the vote of three quarters of legislators. Bukele's New Ideas party holds 54 seats and its allies three more in the 60-seat unicameral Congress.

Christian Guevara, who leads New Ideas in the Congress, signaled the new expedited reform mechanism would be used to eliminate the country's contentious public financing of campaigns. Political parties receive money from the government based on the number of votes they obtain in elections, or have to return money that was advanced if their vote totals fall short of expectations.

''This is the excuse to centralize more power,'' opposition lawmaker Cesia Rivas from the Vamos party said of the plan to eliminate public campaign financing.

Eduardo Escobar, director of the civic group Citizen Action, said that with New Ideas' domination the potential changes could go well beyond that. The reform ''opens the possibility that they can reform any aspect of the constitution,'' he said.

The Congress also extended a nearly three-year-old state of emergency that suspends basic rights such as access to a lawyer or the requirement that police explain why they are making an arrest to allow the administration to continue waging its fight against street gangs for another month.

Lawmakers also approved making the acceptance of cryptocurrency by businesses voluntary, a change requested by the International Monetary Fund. At Bukele's urging, El Salvador made bitcoin legal tender alongside the U.S. dollar in 2021.

Bukele has positioned himself as an ally to U.S. President Donald Trump. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is scheduled to visit El Salvador on a swing through Central America next week.