22 Facts About Ernesto Castro

Ernesto Alfredo Castro Aldana was born on 26 May 1971 and is a Salvadoran politician and businessman who currently serves as the president of the Legislative Assembly of El Salvador.

Ernesto Alfredo Castro Aldana was born on 26 May 1971.

Ernesto Castro has degrees in Business Administration and Marketing Studies.

From 2012 to 2015, Ernesto Castro was Bukele's secretary and private advisor while he served as mayor of Nuevo Cuscatlan from 2012 to 2015.

From 2015 to 2018, Ernesto Castro continued to serve as Bukele's secretary and private advisor while he was serving as mayor of San Salvador.

Ernesto Castro was a founding member of Nuevas Ideas, a political party established by Bukele in 2017.

Ernesto Castro continued to serve as Bukele's private secretary after Bukele assumed the presidency on 1 June 2019.

Ernesto Castro resigned as Bukele's secretary and private advisor in 2020 to seek public office in the 2021 legislative election.

On 20 July 2020, Ernesto Castro was elected as a candidate for deputy of the Legislative Assembly as a member of Nuevas Ideas.

Ernesto Castro assumed office on 1 May 2021, and 64 out of the 84 deputies of the Legislative Assembly voted to elect Ernesto Castro as the president of the Legislative Assembly.

That same day, Ernesto Castro voted with the Nuevas Ideas-led Legislative Assembly to remove Attorney General Raul Melara and five Supreme Court justices from the constitutional court.

Ernesto Castro left office on 10 March 2023 and was succeeded by his vice president pro-tempore, Alfredo Pacheco of the Dominican Republic.

In February 2023, Ernesto Castro confirmed that Nuevas Ideas was not only evaluating a proposal to reduce the number of municipalities from 262 to 50, but that the party was evaluating a proposal to reduce the number of seats on the Legislative Assembly from 84 to 64.

Ultimately, in June 2023, Ernesto Castro voted with the Nuevas Ideas-led Legislative Assembly to reduce the number of municipalities from 262 to 44 and the number of seats on the Legislative Assembly from 84 to 60.

On 20 February 2023, Ernesto Castro announced that he was running for re-election to the Legislative Assembly in the 2024 general election.

Ernesto Castro stated that most deputies from Nuevas Ideas would be seeking re-election.

On 9 July 2023, Ernesto Castro secured one of Nuevas Ideas' 16 nominations for the legislative seats of San Salvador.

In December 2022, Ernesto Castro stated that Nuevas Ideas aimed to win 70 seats in the Legislative Assembly, but after the reduction of legislative seats and municipalities, Ernesto Castro stated that the party now aimed to win all 60 seats in the Legislative Assembly and all 44 municipalities.

Ernesto Castro's projections were criticized by opposition politicians who described them as being "undemocratic" and an attempt to "concentrate power".

On 1 May 2024, Ernesto Castro was re-elected as the president of the Legislative Assembly.

In March 2023, Ernesto Castro wrote on Twitter that "there is not even the slightest possibility" that the Nuevas Ideas-led Legislative Assembly would vote in favor of legalizing abortion.

In September 2024, Infobae published audio recordings made by Alejandro Muyshondt, the national security advisor of El Salvador from 2019 to 2023, which supposedly depicted an agreement between him and Ernesto Castro to engage in espionage against four Salvadoran newspapers: El Diario de Hoy, El Faro, La Prensa Grafica, and Revista Factum.