The distance between an authoritarian regime, headed by a charismatic leader but without any respect for human rights and the law as a whole, and a democratic regime would seem abysmal, but in reality, there are symbolic differences.
Nayib Bukele, president of El Salvador, was re-elected last Sunday with broad support at the polls. The final counts indicate that more than 76% of the votes favored him.
But another overwhelming indicator for his movement is the result in Congress: 58 of 60 deputies will be aligned with the Bukele movement, New Ideas.
The traditional parties of El Salvador, ARENA, from the center right, and the FMLN, political legacy of that guerrilla of the 80s, the Farabundo Martí Front, from the left, were overwhelmed by the young president (42) who returned security to neighborhoods, colonies and cities.
He is enormously popular, so much so that he declared himself the winner on Sunday night, before the electoral authorities announced the results.
He has detained more than 64 thousand people in 5 years, and has 6 thousand complaints against him for abuse and violation of human rights: the imprisonment of innocent people.
And Salvadorans, editors and fellow journalists say that the method of detention, given the inability to build tens of thousands of files with evidence and evidentiary investigation of the potential guilt of the detainees, opted to identify suspects through tattoos on their bodies.
There is a widespread tradition among criminal gangs in El Salvador of writing, through tattoos on their bodies, their criminal history. Number of deaths, wars, confrontations, assaults, etc.
In the last three years, the police detained all those with tattoos, and then, in prisons with high levels of repression, confessions and statements were obtained through illegal methods.
The problem of criminal gangs, The Mara Salvatrucha, The 18th, The 22, is an urban phenomenon imported from the United States. Tens of thousands of Salvadorans received political asylum in the 1980s in the American Union; They were the years of internal war in El Salvador. 20 years later, once democracy was achieved, the US government began the mass expulsion of Salvadorans by limiting or suspending their political asylum.
This caused these gangs, born in neighborhoods of Los Angeles, New York and other cities, for territorial control and war between ethnic minorities, to reach El Salvador, where they grew and multiplied with bloody consequences.
Bukele arrested, imprisoned and prosecuted tens of thousands of alleged perpetrators, many of whom (an estimated 6,000) are illegally imprisoned.
Local and international human rights organizations have pointed out the abuses to which the Bukele government turns a deaf ear.
But beyond its spectacular, unconventional and often illicit methods to eliminate violence and crime, its results in other matters are not so flattering.
Poverty has doubled in his five-year period: from 4.5% to 8.5%.
Inflation has reached levels of 16%, when the region’s average has remained below 10%.
Bukele defends himself by stating that it is the entire economy of crime that has been dismantled and that is why it has this effect on the real economy.
But the truth is that there are more poor people in El Salvador, less income, higher inflation and abuse of human rights.
With all those sanbenitos on his back, he triumphed overwhelmingly last Sunday, with a reelection that was also criticized, since he modified the law, changed the ministers, got rid of the Constitutional Court to twist the Constitution and allow reelection.
Many lawyers ombudsmanlocal political analysts, point out that an incipient “charismatic” and right-wing dictatorship is being installed.
We will have to wait to see the result of his second government, once crime, gangs and delinquency have disappeared, he could be able to capture foreign investment, grow employment and salaries to improve living conditions.
It remains to be seen, but the truth is that its model is proving attractive to other Latin American countries, strangled by violence and crime.
The new President Noboa, of Ecuador, has already ordered the construction of the new “Bukele-style” prison and replicate some of his strategies for detention, arrest and imprisonment.
The dangerous and very popular victory in El Salvador.
Hopefully they are not building an authoritarian monster, like Nicaragua’s neighbor.
