Nayib Bukele appeared before hundreds of military and police officers in late February to thank them for their support of the controversial security strategy and his war on gangs. As is his habit, the President organized an impressive staging to convey a message in which he not only described himself as an “instrument of God” but also attacked the El Salvador political class in front of heavily armed officials whom he described as corrupt designated. and made up of murderers, and congratulated himself on bringing down the crime rate in the Central American country. “They bring peace to the Salvadorans,” he told the military.
The allusion to the armed forces has raised alarms in Bukele-critical sectors because, as they say, it evokes the most difficult moments of the militarization of security in the country and is an example of the radical transformation of the president: the young politician who presented himself A modern leader capable of confronting the problems of Salvadorans, he has become an autocrat who despises the law and human rights but enjoys great support from the people of his country. “All the polls confirm it. 95% of the Salvadoran population supports our work,” Bukele told the military.
Bukele won the sympathy of Salvadorans in a country fed up with violence, corruption, the political class, and scandalous poverty and inequality. For the majority of Salvadorans, the decades-long government of the conservative ARENA and the left-wing FMLN after the return of democracy in 1992 did not mean any real change in the country, on the contrary, both organizations are seen as responsible for the problems of violence and poverty that plague Salvadorans. Dissatisfaction with politics is so great that the Latinobarómetro 2018 showed that only 28% of the population consider democracy important, but the most striking thing is that more than 50% affirmed that they don’t care, in a democracy or in a dictatorship to live . Bukele – a skilled communications strategist – knew how to take advantage of this political exhaustion and negligence to launch his candidacy and gain the favor of the electorate: in 2019 he won the election with more than 50% of the vote.
From that moment it became a “tsunami” that did not cease to arouse sympathy for his speech. Bukele, who lacked a clear ideology, mainly targeted young people who were most disappointed by the lack of opportunities. He sold himself as the millennial president, the coolest president in the world, a modern, efficient man who runs a country like a CEO, capable of making things right. And this image caught on not only in El Salvador, but also in the rest of Central America, a region affected by authoritarianism.
Arrival of inmates from the MS-13 and 18 gangs at the new “Centro de Confinamiento de Terroristas” (CECOT) prison in Tecoluca, southeast of San Salvador. EL SALVADOR PRESIDENCY (AFP)
“It is undeniable that there is widespread disenchantment with party politics in the country, because people feel that traditional politicians have failed to transform the country,” says analyst César Artiga. “That partly explains the emergence of a character who takes advantage of that disillusionment and a very strong cultural component of anger because people are angry, there’s a lot of hatred and confrontation that was fueled by Bukele. It’s now positioning itself as a brand, it’s presenting itself as something innovative, that’s a break,” he adds. But less than a year after taking office, the image of the modern and cool president began to crumble, at least internationally. In February 2020, the president broke into the parliament of the small Central American country, surrounded by police and military officers, sat down in the speaker’s chair and ordered the start of a session, protected, he said, by divine right. In this way, Bukele intended to resolve the internal crisis provoked by the MPs’ refusal to approve a series of loans that would allow him to advance his security strategy.
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The event — labeled a “self-coup” by the opposition — did not even raise alarm in El Salvador or reduce Salvadoran support for their president. On the contrary, Bukele’s popularity remained high and in March 2021 Hurricane Bukele devastated the general election and gave him control of Parliament. Since then he has used his power to undermine Salvadoran institutions: he ordered the dismissal of the Attorney General and the judges of the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court by some loyalists and he managed to declare a state of emergency that lasted 10 months that it enabled him to take to the streets with the military and unleash an almost personal war against the so-called maras, where, according to human rights organizations, he violated due process and committed human rights abuses.
How did this transformation of a president who wanted to break with the vices of the past come about? “Most people were surprised, but the people involved in citizen monitoring already saw it coming,” says analyst Artiga, who is also the coordinator of the National Promotion Team for the Escazú Accord, a treaty that obliges states to protect defender of the environment. “These inconsistencies in his speech are not new. As we watched his performance as mayor of San Salvador, we recognized this tendency to despise institutions of control and democratic values. That was already part of his behavior as a civil servant,” explains Artiga, referring to Bukele’s tenure as mayor of the capital, a position that catapulted him to the forefront of Salvadorian politics.
The first gang members were moved to the largest prison in America, which was equipped with high-tech surveillance PRESS SECRETARY OF THE PRESS (via Portal)
Bukele, who governs with his brothers as advisers, has his sights set on re-election. Although the constitution prohibits a president from serving two consecutive terms, the young politician didn’t even have to use his parliamentary majority to enact a constitutional reform that could cost him a lot of time. The loyal judges of the Constitutional Chamber have already issued a special interpretation of the law, confirming that if Bukele resigns six months in advance, there is nothing to prevent re-election. Despite his excesses, Bukele promotes high approval ratings and total control of the institutions in a project with an increasingly authoritarian tendency.
“The scenario looks more complex,” says Artiga. “I see no legal obstacles or obstacles preventing him from being re-elected,” he adds. This analyst sees a bleak short-term future for El Salvador, as if it were a Kafkaesque monster against whom the battle is lost before it even begins. “Once the re-election is complete, repression against critical positions and organized civil society will increase,” predicts Artiga. “The state of emergency will be the new normal because it allows people to be controlled,” he says. Artiga concludes El Salvador will face difficult years from the man who posed as the coolest president in the world and became an autocrat who relies on the military and proclaims himself an “instrument of God.”
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