The president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, registered at midnight this Thursday his candidacy for re-election for the February 4 electionswith overwhelming popularity for its offensive against gangs, but questioned for its concentration of power and the legality of its application.
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Under heavy security, Bukele, along with his running mate, Vice President Félix Ulloa, went to the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) in western San Salvador, where dozens of supporters chanted “Nayib!” and “re-election!”
His New Ideas (NI) party spread photos on social networks in which he is seen meeting with the magistrates, dressed in a blue sweatshirt.
A 42-year-old millennial, Bukele, skilled with social networks, is the most popular president in Latin America with the support of 90% of Salvadoransaccording to a survey published in July by the NGO Latinobarómetro 2023.
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This overwhelming support lies in his security plan that appeased communities terrorized by gangs, but at the cost, according to humanitarian groups, of rights limited by the emergency regime that has been in force in the country since March 2022.
Its popularity suggests, for now, that it will have no rival. According to a survey by the Francisco Gavidia University, Bukele had 68.4% voting intention in August, far from the 4.3% of the candidate of the right-wing Nationalist Republican Alliance (Arena) and the 2.8% of the leftist Farabundo Martí Front (FMLN).
In a country where re-election was prohibited until Bukele came to power, opponents, lawyers and analysts consider that his candidacy is unconstitutional, enabled by magistrates appointed by a Congress that dominates.
The ‘war against gangs’
His victory in the 2019 elections broke 30 years of bipartisanship on the left and right, when El Salvador was listed as one of the most violent countries in Latin America. After a weekend that recorded 87 murders attributed to the ‘maras’, Bukele imposed the emergency regime under which there have been some 73,000 detainees, and this year he inaugurated a prison for more than 40,000 inmates, considered the largest on the continent.
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Cities and neighborhoods cornered by gangs, who live off extortion, drug sales and hitmen, have been surrounded by thousands of police and military. “The FMLN and Arena only stole. Bukele has made life calmer today, without the bugs (gang members) going around screwing honest people,” said Javier Ramírez, a 54-year-old bus driver.
“The prolonged uncertainty due to insecurity is one of the factors that led (…), without a doubt, to the support it has,” the director of the Institute of Public Opinion of the Jesuit Central American University (UCA) told the AFP agency. Laura Andrade.
Human rights groups criticize that the emergency regime allows collective trials and arrests without a court order. Some 7,000 innocent people should have already been released, according to official data. But Bukele ignores these objections, affirms that El Salvador is “for the first time at peace” and points out that it would have been “impossible” to wage the “war against the gangs” without the legislative power that brought “governance.”
Controversial candidacy
Obtaining a supermajority with allies (67 out of 84) in Congress in 2021 allowed him to dismiss and replace five judges of the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice.
In September of that year, the new Chamber made an interpretation of the articles of the Constitution that prohibit re-election and enabled him to seek a second term.
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“The criteria of popularity or surveys cannot be superimposed over the Constitutional text”said the director of polls at the Francisco Gavidia University, Oscar Picardo.
Not many on the street express their opposition, but Manuel Cubías, a 76-year-old retiree, regrets that “things have changed and they have not asked anyone’s opinion.” For Omar Serrano, vice-rector of the UCA, the candidacy “confirms the loss of the rule of law and that the law and institutions are subject to the will of the president.”
“He has everything to be re-elected: the three powers, the Prosecutor’s Office, all the institutions, the National Police and the Armed Forces. In addition to the majority social support,” he assured. In the face of criticism, sure of his popularity, Bukele has joked that he is “the coolest dictator in the world.”
AFP
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