El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele is close to completing the first 100 days of his second consecutive term, despite the constitutional ban, which have been marked by accusations against his party, demands for economic improvements and the continuation of the state of emergency.
These are the key points of this period, in which Bukele has not made many public appearances:
Wear and tear reaches his party
According to Eduardo Escobar, director of the organization Citizen Action, one of the issues that has marked the first months of Bukele’s second government has been “the first image crisis in the eyes of the public of the president’s party.”
According to Escobar, this is due to the “use of the legislative budget that has not been made public, there is no information on how it is used, there is no accountability from the party.”
A group of cyber activists has reportedly leaked the database of hundreds of employees of Congress, dominated by the Nuevas Ideas party, triggering a series of criticisms on social media.
In early July, Bukele told a media outlet that each deputy has $14,500 for expenses, but that this would be reduced to $11,000 per month. Currently, Bukele’s party has 57 of the 60 deputies.
Some lawmakers tried to head off the accusations by publishing the names and salaries of their direct collaborators, but this did not stop the wave of criticism.
Exceptional regime and designations
Since Bukele assumed his second term, Congress, at the request of his Cabinet, has continued to systematically approve the exceptional regime, which has resulted in at least 81,900 arrests and 30 extensions.
In this context, humanitarian organizations have said that they have documented at least 6,400 complaints of human rights violations since March 2022, mainly due to arbitrary detentions, short-term disappearances of detainees and torture.
This is in addition to the deaths of more than 300 people in state custody, most of them showing signs of violence, according to the organization Humanitarian Legal Aid.
The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights took up these complaints in a recently released report and recommended ending the limitations on constitutional guarantees of the state of emergency, establishing a comprehensive security policy and providing reparations to victims of human rights violations.
Criticism of the IACHR
In response to the report, the Bukele government’s National Commission on Human Rights and Freedom of Expression questioned the transparency in the preparation of the report and the financing of the IACHR.
He criticized that “both the IACHR and Cristosal, one of the main sources of the report, receive funding from the same entities, such as the Open Society Foundation and the Ford Foundation.”
However, Commissioner José Luis Caballero noted in his concurring opinion, which is included in the report, that “the Commission applied the methodology established in its Regulations” and that this is “consistent” with the agency’s 65 years of work.
Economic factor
Upon assuming his second term, Bukele promised to “heal” the economy and the two main economic measures announced in these 100 days have been the creation of agricultural markets to sell food at a lower price and the transfer of the administration of its two main ports to a Turkish company.
This involves the creation of a joint venture between a state entity and the company Yilport, which would have 80% of the company, in exchange for an investment of more than $1.6 billion dollars.
Despite the measure to alleviate the rise in food prices, which also included the suspension of tariffs, inflation in the country has reached its highest level since last December with 1.78%.
The basic food basket went from costing $256.74 in January to $264.91 in July, an increase of 3.18%.
Trump’s accusations
On July 18, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said in a speech that the reduction in homicides in El Salvador was not due to a security policy, but rather to the alleged sending of gang members to his country.
“In El Salvador, murders are down 70%, why are they down? Now, he would convince you that it’s because they have trained assassins to be wonderful people. They’re down because they are sending their assassins to the United States,” Trump said, without the Salvadoran president responding directly.
Continue reading:
• Nayib Bukele responds to Time: will he run for President of El Salvador again?
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• Nayib Bukele says El Salvador has the best judicial system in the world