Constitutional Reform in El Salvador: The Country’s transformation amid a new political landscape

Abstract

The 2021 and 2024 legislative elections in El Salvador granted a single political party a qualified majority in the Legislative Assembly, an unprecedented development that has accelerated a restructuring of the state through constitutional reforms, including amendments to the unalterable provisions of the current 1983 Constitution. This article reviews El Salvador’s constitutional history—14 Constitutions since 1824, most of which were preceded by coups d’état—and analyzes the major reforms to the 1983 Constitution over its more than 40 years in force, with an emphasis on the most recent ones. Given the possibility of new reforms or even a constitutional re-founding, the article discusses the reform mechanisms that could endow the process with validity and popular legitimacy.