Lawyers agree that the president is using works to make government propaganda
The electoral law forbids officials from opening works a month before elections so as not to influence the voter’s intent at the last minute, but President Nayib Bukele has tried to get around that ban with last week’s trip to the bypass of La Libertad was created and In the announcement of the delivery of computers to schools on Sunday evening, lawyers consulted by El Diario de Hoy converge.
“It is mouse mistakes that it is not an inauguration because no ribbon is cut: it is an insult to the intelligence service,” said former magistrate Rodolfo González of the route and the subsequent approval of the new highway in La Libertad that the president made last week. . pass.
While González said he can’t be specific about electoral law, he did recall that when he was a magistrate of the Constitutional Chamber, they declared a decree by former President Mauricio Funes unconstitutional that allowed officials to run some sort of campaign for the then-presidential candidate of the FMLN, Salvador Sánchez Cerén, to be the winner of the 2014 election.
The government began supplying computers to second and third grade high school students. Photo: Jonatan Funes
For González, Bukele’s intention is to deliver these works so close to the election that his position to convert is predominant.
READ ALSO: TSE opens sanctions process and bans Bukele from advertising works prior to elections
“The president cannot take away the image he belongs to a political party. You can qualify that this behavior is in line with Article 218 of the constitution, taking advantage of the position to participate in party politics, ”he appreciated.
In the same vein, the constitutional lawyer Enrique Anaya thinks.
“To be sure, the opening of a street and the announcement of the delivery of the computers are tools of government propaganda in my opinion. This is an open violation of Article 178 of the Electoral Code, ”said the lawyer.
The aforementioned article states that “during the thirty days prior to the date of the elections, neither the government of the republic, nor the municipal councils and other autonomous entities, in private or state media, shall hire, inaugurate works of national infrastructure or any other nature which they have performed, which they carry out or which they intend to perform in accordance with the provision or auxiliary services to which the State is obliged ”.
In the opinion of Eduardo Escobar, an electoral expert attorney, this article talks about two conditions, the inauguration of works and their publication, and in this sense he believes that both conditions are violated with the permission of the bypass.
MAYBE YOU’RE INTERESTED: TSE Cancels New Ideas Spot That Hinted at Election Fraud
“There is the publication in which there is no state payment, I call the media, they arrive and publish the inauguration. Ultimately, the same effect is generated: a work of the state is released in an election-prohibited period so as not to generate undue influence on the voters. In the bypass, the violation is configured from our point of view, ”said the director of Citizen Action.