El Salvador's Bukele: Dove or Dictator?

Feb 18

Feb 18 El Salvador's Bukele: Dove or Dictator?

Armed soldiers storming parliament and monitoring parliamentary proceedings hardly conjures images of a stable and secure country – yet this is exactly what the president of El Salvador Nayib Bukele claims is necessary in order to make the state safe for its citizens. In an attempt to secure a $109 million loan necessary to fun the third phase of his so-called Territorial Control Plan, armed soldiers and police were drafted into the country’s legislative assembly during an unprecedented weekend session called to pass the laws required for additional funding. This represented the first
time that armed police and soldiers have entered the chamber and stood guard since the country’s civil war in 1992. These extreme lengths have been welcomed by Bukele’s supporters who believe he is standing up for the country against an obstinate legislature. Meanwhile others, including some outside observers, see this as a dangerous step in a slide towards dictatorship. A crisis point has been reached and the path that follows will largely depend on whether President Bukele’s motivations are genuine, or a mask for something much more sinister.

El Salvador is a nation embroiled in conflict and has one of the highest murder rates found worldwide. Thus, since his election in 2019 Bukele has made it his public priority to reduce it and has predominantly done so through his Territorial Control Plan, which aims to better equip the police and armed forces. In fact, the average daily killings in the country have fallen from 9.2 in May 2019 (just before Bukele took office) to 3.8 in January 2020, something which the government claims is a direct resultant of the policies introduced by Bukele. Nevertheless, the country’s lawmakers have thus far refused to sign off on the most recent round of funding for his flagship domestic policy leading to the recent stand-off between the executive and legislative branches of government.
Bukele, who became the first president of El Salvador from neither of the nation’s main parties: the right-wing Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA) and the leftist Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), has accused the legislative of thwarting him without justification and to political ends. This rhetoric fits in neatly with the perspective he advanced during the election
campaign less than a year ago where he positioned himself as the anti-establishment candidate. He was well known for promising to combat corruption using slogans such as “There's enough money when nobody steals" and "Return what was stolen" referring to missing funds during the previous presidencies of Francisco Flores and Antonio Saca.

Nonetheless, the legislative branch appears somewhat distrusting of President Bukele’s motives and have thus far failed to ratify any agreement due to concerns over the overall size of the loan and certain individual expenses. The current saga does not however represent the first occasion in which Bukele has come to blows with those around him, as after becoming Mayor of San Salvador (the capital city of El Salvador), he was expelled from his political party over accusations of actively promoting divisions within it. In parallel with his past, he has once again sought to create
division, only this time at a national scale by encouraging his supporters to protest outside the parliament, building and to force it to sit again at the weekend, if what he referred to as the “good
for nothings”(legislators) do not approve the Territorial Control Plan. He has also escalated the rhetoric and potential for violence against parliamentarians by not so subtly saying to gathered crowds that "When officials break the constitutional order, the Salvadoran people have the right to insurrection to remove those officials".

These aggressive steps taken by President Bukele has been widely criticised by onlooking states and international agencies as an unnecessary and provocative escalation that threatens to derail the progress being made in El Salvador. Amnesty International said that the military presence "could mark the beginning of a dangerous route for institutions and for human rights in the country." Likewise, the European Union expressed “great concern” over what it called a “confrontation” between Salvadorian institutions. Given the history of fragility and propensity for violence in the
nation it would be dangerous to ignore the possibility of the political standoff escalating further, potentially into a much more deadly situation.

However, it is likely that in reality neither Bukele’s motives nor those of the legislative branch are completely genuine. Bukele certainly stands to gain greater political clout and in doing so enhance his prospects of re-election if he can continue to keep the country’s murder rate tumbling, providing a strong incentive to the legislature, who wish to return their leaders to power, to frustrate him. Equally though, the amount Bukele is demanding is excessive and is yet to be justified, raising concerns as to at least some of the fund’s ultimate destination. The most probable outcome will
be a compromise in which the loan demand is lowered but granted, allowing both sides to claim victory. This is not to diminish the fact that the Bukele’s decision to masquerade armed soldiers and police in parliament represents a high-risk manoeuvre that sets a dangerous precedent, yet given the context of improving living standards in the country it would arguably be irrational to
escalate to the point where such improvements would be reversed. Thus, Bukele is neither the dove he claims to be nor the dictator that his opponents wish to portray him as. Through his sizeable stunt he has merely made a calculated attempt to trade some of his international reputation for increased domestic popularity.