El Salvador President Nayib Bukele got a landslide win in the recent election, which extends the Bitcoin (BTC) advocate’s term to another five years. The announcement from the incumbent president came on Sunday prior to the electorate officials’ tally.
El Salvador President Nayib Bukele Statement
“According to our numbers, we have won the presidential election with more than 85% of the votes and a minimum of 58 of 60 deputies in the Assembly,” declared Bukele in a post on X. His announcement pre-empted the proclamation of the nation’s electoral officials, but CID Gallup’s exit poll reinforced the sitting president’s figures, even widening his captured voters to 87%.
Bukele has been a heavy favorite from the get-go against his rivals Manuel Flores and Joel Sanchez. This came following a controversial ruling by El Salvador’s Supreme Court of Justice that allowed the incumbent president to run for a second consecutive term, which undermined the prohibition established by the country’s constitution.
Notwithstanding the circumstances tarnishing the nature of his reelection, his win should signal another bullish narrative for Bitcoin going forward.
Nayib Bukele and Bitcoin
Bukele’s pronouncement to make Bitcoin as El Salvador’s legal tender alongside the US dollar in September 2021 is considered to be one of the key catalysts that led to the cryptocurrency’s all-time high in November of that same year. The move etched the Central American country in history as the first nation to officially adopt BTC as an official currency.
Although Bukele’s policy on Bitcoin adoption has been chided by the opposition, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the US Senate, he remained steadfast in anchoring his programs on the digital asset. The administration claimed to have made a profit of $3.6 million in favor of the government from its BTC investment last December, but Bukele has earlier expressed that they’re not selling their haul, making it an unrealized gain.
Bukele’s statement somewhat coincides with the estimate of Forbes last December. According to the publication, El Salvador owns 2,762 Bitcoin at an average price of $42,433.42, which translates to over $117.2 million. At its peak of $44K during that month, it would have made over $4 million.
With this morning’s (7:00 AM UTC) prices hovering around $42,700, the numbers trimmed the gains to $700K. Nevertheless, Bukele is expected to remain resolute in maintaining his country’s BTC supply.
It’s a true display of diamond hands as the countdown to the halving nears.
Another policy of Bukele that has been heavily criticized is his aggressive crackdown against gangs in El Salvador. His opponents called jailing 1% of the nation’s population as unsustainable. However, the country’s Minister of Tourism showed that it actually resulted in the growth of the tourism sector.
Based on the August 2023 data, tourism in El Salvador was 25% more than the figures of the same month in 2019. Likewise, analytics firm Statista forecasted further developments in the country’s travel and tourism industries by 19% between 2024 to 2028.
El Salvador also recently launched the Freedom Visa in an attempt to lure Bitcoin millionaires with its special citizenship perks.