With victory more than assured in the elections that were held this Sunday, Nayib Bukele has defended his management in the face of criticism from abroad: “This is the first time that there is democracy in the country.” The president of El Salvador, about to revalidate his Government for another five years, has encouraged Salvadorans to vote for him en masse to continue with the state of emergency with which 70,000 people have been detained in two years and the main gangs in the country, which have been practically dismantled.
Bukele, in a press conference held at the Sheraton Presidencial hotel in San Salvador, has been very sensitive to those who accept criticism from human rights organizations or accusations that the country is sliding towards authoritarianism. “There is no dictatorship, people are voting in democracy. The people say: I am not oppressed, I am happy,” he insisted on several occasions. Before, he assured that he is not going to reform the Salvadoran Constitution to include indefinite reelection, despite the fact that now he has used a dubious interpretation of the Magna Carta to run for a second consecutive presidential term.
Wearing a white cap and a short-sleeved Ralph Lauren polo shirt, he defended his management of security, the issue that has made him tremendously popular in El Salvador and guarantees his re-election without any discussion. “El Salvador had cancer with metastases. 85% of the territory was dominated by gangs. We did surgery, chemo, radiotherapy and we are going to come out healthy, without the gang cancer. We resolved what was killing us. “What is coming now for El Salvador is a period of prosperity,” he said.
He insisted that Salvadorans have to endorse a majority of their party in the Legislative Assembly at the polls to prolong the emergency regime. When he came to power, he began to govern “the most dangerous country in the world and now it is the safest in the Western Hemisphere.” He assured that soon the small Central American country will have data similar to that of Canada.
He was very critical of the international media, which he considers “envoys of George Soros.” He accused The New York Times, to EL PAÍS and Univisión for not telling the reality of the nation it governs. When asked by this newspaper if he shared the words of his vice president, who days before had said to Times that the Government was dismantling democracy, replacing it with “something new,” Bukele said, visibly upset, that he would have to listen to the recording of that interview to be sure because he distrusts the New York newspaper. “We are not replacing democracy because El Salvador never had democracy. This is the first time in history that El Salvador has democracy. And I don't say it, the people say it. The definition of democracy, the real one, not the one invented by the elites, is demos and kratos, the power of the people. It doesn't say the elite or the NGO or the newspaper The Country. He says the power of the people, demos and kratos. The people, demos, who have the power, kratos, [dice] We want a regime of exception. “We want the president's security policy.”
He defended having applied his own solutions, not those that have been used in other countries. “We listened to the recipes from abroad, when we were bleeding to death and 50 years of suffering came. Now is our time to move forward,” said Bukele, of whom there is no doubt that he will once again be president of El Salvador. Salvadorans have overwhelmingly decided that he will continue in office for another five years after minimizing violence, the country's great historical concern. El Salvador remains in the hands of Bukele.
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