EL SALVADOR REMOVES PRESIDENTIAL TERM LIMITS ALLOWING BUKELE TO RULE INDEFINITELY AND ISRAELI MINISTER BEN GVIR LEADS SETTLER PRAYER MARCH ON AL-AQSA MOSQUE DESPITE HISTORICAL BAN

July 31-August 6, 2025 | Issue 29 - Extremism Team

Martina Elena Nitti, Christian Collins, Jacob Robison, Giovanni Lamberti

Jennifer Loy, Chief Editor

Flag of El Salvador^[1]

Date: August 1, 2025

Location: El Salvador

Parties involved:  El Salvador; President of El Salvador Nayib Bukele; El Salvador’s congress; Bukele administration; El Salvadoran legislative branch; potential presidential incumbents and political competitors; El Salvadoran political personalities;  El Salvadoran citizens; independent media in El Salvador

The event: El Salvador's congress approved a constitutional reform that removes presidential term quantity limits, allowing incumbents to run any number of times and lengthening the presidential term from five to six years.^[2] 

Analysis & Implications:

• The constitutional reform will likely weaken El Salvador’s democratic system by centralizing power and fueling corruption. The reform will likely eliminate meaningful political competition against Bukele by allowing for indefinite influence over essential positions, such as the legislative branch, likely encouraging concentration of power in one’s hands. Power centralization will likely fuel corruption among political personalities and undermine the government’s institutional credibility, likely increasing risks of state violence and political repression, such as abusive policing and the criminalization of political dissent. The lack of power checks on Bukele’s conduct will likely erode the democratic system through weakened institutional accountability and citizens’ participation, likely supporting Bukele’s shift to autocratic behavior that will likely cause restrictions in public information and aggressive opposition targeting.  

• The constitutional reform will very likely restrict press freedoms in El Salvador, weakening democratic accountability. With this newfound control, Bukele will likely use targeted laws and government pressure to limit independent media and suppress critical reporting, likely reducing the public’s access to unbiased information and disincentivising dissent. This press control will very likely reduce transparency around Bukele’s policies and actions, likely allowing his administration to limit public scrutiny while reinforcing its hold on power in El Salvador. This diminished press freedom will likely allow policies to pass without public input, likely increasing the risk of human rights abuses and weakening international confidence in El Salvador’s democratic stability.

Date: August 3, 2025

Location: Jerusalem, Israel

Parties involved: Israel; Israel Minister of National Security and far-right politician Itamar Ben-Gvir; Israeli military; Israeli settlers; Jewish population; secular population; Israeli people; Muslim worshippers; Palestinian people; Palestinian Islamist terrorist group Hamas        

The event: Violating a longstanding ban on Jewish prayer, Ben Gvir guided hundreds of Israeli settlers to Al-Aqsa Mosque, where they chanted prayers and disrupted worshippers.^[3]                

Analysis & Implications:

• Hamas will likely exploit anger over religious violations associated with this event to bolster their recruitment efforts and galvanize their base. The group will likely push to recruit aggrieved Muslims in Israel by framing themselves as supporters of religious freedoms and promoting avenues for retaliatory action. Hamas will likely frame this religious harassment by Israeli settlers as legitimizing the Palestinian plight and will likely argue the event as a moral justification for retaliation and a continuation of the conflict. This new wave of recruitment and motivation will likely extend the conflict by provoking intensified Israeli military operations aimed at neutralizing the heightened militant activity, likely creating a cycle of violence, recruitment, and remilitarization.

• The increasing occurrence of religious-nationalist activity is likely to deepen internal polarization within Israeli society. Secular Israelis will very likely perceive it as state-sanctioned provocations that threaten social cohesion. This perceived shift in state priorities will likely amplify fears that ideological motives are shaping national policy among secular Israelis, likely eroding trust in government legitimacy. The normalization of state backed religious provocations will likely lead secular groups to perceive themselves as politically marginalized, very likely fuelling civic disengagement and resistance to national cohesion in the long run. This lack of ideological unity and weakened public trust will very likely have a negative impact on national crisis response, reducing societal resilience to external threats.

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[1] El Salvador, by CIA World Factbook, licensed under Public Domain

[2] El Salvador scraps term limits, paving way for Bukele to rule indefinitely, BBC, August 2025, https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/czd04q87zryo 

[3] Israel's Ben Gvir, under heavy guard, leads settler raid on Al-Aqsa Mosque, Middle East Eye, August 2025, https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-ben-gvir-leads-settler-raid-al-aqsa-mosque