Leviathan, uplifted by ballots, unconstrained by law

 

President Bukele, not just the last - or, now and again, one of the relatively recent - of colourful characters emerging as if for a party at the modest Sanchez residence (not the lavish one with the winking fish, whether the people of... not-Panama congregate to cherish the end of its strongman benefactor) but a force, as the . This much was clear after a resounding re-election which was nothing if not that, backed by a Lukashenko-like (starting to become a term in my household, I must admit) tally, which in all probability is also just that, and not Lukashenko-like in its conception, or the (not only Belarusian) tendency for early balloting long resting in those jars (but needless, should be questioned without the call of fascism... please) and deplorable in its acuity and margin leaving no . This was a blowout, pure and simple, and a denigration not just of those candidates put out to best this unlikely (?) two-time runner, not merely of those parties bearing the brunt of history, of blood and heavens within and above those who have governed this small, but not insignificant, nation across the decades of, and following, a difficult civil strife better addressed by another term (or terms, frequently used like lashes regarding the Ukrainian case) and bitterness eventually shared and co-habited in the interdependence of a new constitutional order. It was, as has been said before, well before the first ballot had been cast, the date set, the consideration of a candidate already within the presidential palace allowed (!) to pursue this second course in spite of the one-term limit imposed by so many American constitutions, including that of the short-lived (if it lived) Confederate States, and the relaxation demanded by others more liberally, including that of Chile (shaping the fates not just of would-be tyrants, with Eduardo Frei's non-candidacy in 1970 certainly affecting its course well beyond his, natural or otherwise, death) and Brazil (where Lula's ability to run in 2010 and beyond may have steered the big green country clear of o Bolsonarismo, but unlikely a lifelong constitutional term) since Roman times, when re-election was the supreme effort and crown - bar for the now-archaic censorship.