Massive support and various criticisms: Nayib Bukele celebrates four years of government in El Salvador and wants re-election

President Nayib Bukele meets this Thursday four years in power In The Saviour with great popularity for its “war” against gangs, the terrible Salvadoran maras. But criticism of the validity of democratic values ​​is intensifying. And reports of arbitrary arrests and disappearances are pouring in.

Salvadorans love it. Nine out of ten approve of Bukele’s management, which has brought safety back to the streets. But his crusade against gangs has raised alarms among human rights defenders, and some analysts warn that he appears to govern without the scrutiny of other state powers.

“The issue of reducing the functioning of the bands can be described as a remarkable achievement (…), for reducing the number of crimes committed“explains Carlos Carcach, a researcher in the area of ​​public policy at the Higher School of Economics and Business.

“The main result is the issue of security, the dismantling of gangs,” agrees Carlos Acevedo, former president of the Central Reserve Bank.

“Truly has created a new climate where we begin to see a revitalization of the productive fabric of micro-enterprises”, he says.

14 months of exception regime

Bands maintained control of 80% of the territory of the country, according to the government, and were financed with massive extortion, hitmen and drug trafficking.

To combat them, it has been in place for 14 months a regime of exception which allows the police and military to make arrests without court order.

The measure was passed by Congress at Bukele’s request, in response to an escalation in gang violence that has claimed the lives of 87 people.

The authorities they liberated the neighborhoods and the repossession of thousands of homes usurped by gang members. Homicides decreased in 2022 a a quarter part of the 2019 figure, according to official data.

Threatened by gangs, Cristina Arévalo, 71, had to close her small shop on the outskirts of San Salvador a few years ago, but now she intends to reopen it.

“With the security that exists, I will reopen soon, because they will no longer extort me,” he says.

Until now nearly 69,000 suspected gang members were arrestedof which about 5,000 have been released, according to the government.

The largest prison in America

To lock up the gang members, Bukele built a mega-prison for 40,000 prisoners, “America’s Largest” Prison.with a severe confinement regime.

The NGO Cristosal said so until April 153 detainees died “in state custody”.

41-year-old publicist who uses social networks, Bukele he faces almost non-existent opposition from the “shock” of 2019, when he defeated the candidates of the traditional parties of the right and left.

With the support of Congress, where owns the vast majorityin 2021 he dismissed the five judges of the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court, the highest judicial authority in the country.

Also fired the attorney general and a third of the 690 magistrates (those aged over 60 or with 30 years of service). The United States, the United Nations and the OAS have therefore called on El Salvador to respect the separation of powers.

re-election

Also, Bukele got the Supreme Court will allow him to seek re-election in 2024although the Constitution forbids it, generating a debate on the legitimacy of the measure.

“The government and the president did it everything served for re-electionnot just because of popular support, but because it’s in control of most institutions,” Central American University (UCA) vice-chancellor Omar Serrano told AFP.

“It was a government that shook the country”, but that “He has accomplished many things, which undermined the incipient democratic advances that have been made,” he adds.

The disappearance of the rule of law

For Carcach, the cost of containing the bands has been “the implementation of a regime of exception which implies the disappearance of the rule of law and of the reign of the constitution”.

The Jesuit priest and UCA professor Rodolfo Cardenal says that the country is experiencing “the denial of constitutional law and human rights”.

You can’t “solve a crime by committing a series of violations,” he says.

Salvadorans approve

Salvadorans approve the methods of Bukele because “the country has a dictatorial mentality and authoritarian for a long time, and because he thinks this is the solution, but it’s not sustainable in the long run,” warns Cardenal.

Another controversial measure by Bukele was the adoption of bitcoin as legal tender.

In September 2021, El Salvador was the first country to adopt bitcoinalong with the dollarwhich has been around since 2001. But the price of the cryptocurrency has plummeted and It has had little acceptance in the country.

Bitcoin adoption” was the measure more unpopular and had less social support,” says Serrano, head of public opinion studies at UCA.

AFP extension

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