Q24N (EFE) The president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, is close to completing the first 100 days of his second consecutive term, despite the constitutional prohibition, which have been marked by accusations against his party, demands for economic improvements and the continuation of the state of exception.
These are the keys to this period, in which Bukele has not had major public appearances either:
1. The 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 before public opinion of the president’s party.”
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This is due, according to Escobar, 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 is believed to have leaked the database of hundreds of employees of Congress, dominated by the Nuevas Ideas (NI) party, which triggered a series of criticisms on social networks.
At the beginning of July, Bukele told a media outlet that each deputy has 14,500 dollars for expenses, but that this would be reduced to 11,000 dollars a month. Currently, Bukele’s party has 57 deputies out of 60.
Some legislators tried to stop the accusations by publishing names and salaries of their direct collaborators, without stopping the wave of criticism.
2. Exceptional regime and accusations
Since Bukele assumed his second term, Congress, at the request of his Government Cabinet, continued to systematically approve the exceptional regime, which amounts to at least 81,900 arrests and reached 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.
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Added to this is the death of more than 300 people in state custody, most of them with signs of violence, according to the organization Socorro Jurídico Humanitario (SJH).
The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) took up these complaints in a recently released report and recommended ending the limitations on constitutional guarantees of the emergency regime, establishing a comprehensive security policy, and providing reparations to victims of human rights violations.
3. Criticism of the IACHR
In response to the aforementioned report, the National Commission on Human Rights and Freedom of Expression of the Bukele Government 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.”
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However, Commissioner José Luis Caballero pointed out in his concurring vote, which is in the report, that “the Commission applied the methodology established by its Regulations” and that this is “consistent” with the 65 years of work of the organization.
3. 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 (about 1.457 billion euros).
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%.
For its part, the basic food basket went from costing 256.74 dollars in January to 264.91 in July, 3.18% more.
4. Trump’s accusations
On July 18, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump stated in a speech that the reduction in homicides in El Salvador was not due to a security policy, but rather due to the alleged sending of gang members to his country.
“In El Salvador, murders have dropped by 70%, why have they dropped? Now, he would convince you that it is because they have trained assassins to be wonderful people. They have dropped because they are sending their assassins to the United States,” said Trump, without the Salvadoran president responding directly.
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