What does Nayib Bukele want to hide with the dismissal of the Attorney General and Supreme Judges in El Salvador

When Nayib Bukele’s Nuevas Ideas (NI) party won a large majority in El Salvador’s election in February, international analysts and Salvadoran Democrats held their breath. Bukele, 39, who with 86% approval he is the most popular president in Latin America, He hasn’t shown much attachment to the checks and balances of power since coming to power in 2019. On May 1, the day when lawmakers first sat in the seats of the new Legislative Assembly, this authoritarian tendency was reflected. Within minutes, members of the assembly quickly voted in favor of the dismissal of the attorney general and the five judges of the Supreme Court. Bukele, as usual, celebrated with one of his constant messages on Twitter: “And the Salvadoran people, through their representatives, declared ‘Dismissal!“”.

The assembly’s decision was quickly declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court itself. Hundreds of demonstrators took to the streets to denounce “The blow of self-blow”. Several US officials, including Vice President Kamala Harris, condemned it. Juan González, President Biden’s powerful advisor on Latin America, tweeted “It’s not done.” At that time, five new judges and a new attorney general, who had arrived under police escort, were seated at their desks. “Democracy is dead in El Salvador”, was the title of the digital magazine FACTum.

Bukele was not going to back down. He had to cover two fronts which he himself had opened and about which the judges were beginning to inquire: management of public funds during the pandemic and secret negotiations with gang criminals ravaging the country. This is why he redoubled the bet: “If he had been a dictator he would have shot them all”he said on a national network. The truth is that prosecutor Raúl Melera had opened a corruption investigation against the ministers of finance and health and another for the agreement with the jailed leaders of the Mara Salvatrucha-13.

The independent site Lighthouse released the news that the government had negotiated a pact with criminal organizations to end crimes and gain electoral support in return for impunity. He obtained hundreds of pages of prison intelligence reports and press books from two maximum security prisons, which prove the meetings of the director of the social fabric office Carlos Marroquin, and the director general of prisons, Osiris moon, with gang leaders. In 14 visits hooded men who entered prisons without identifying themselves participated. They were leaders of the fugitive criminal organization. The result is that some of the best bosses in the M-13 they were transferred to hospitals They did not have a serious illness and they were even granted temporary releases, while other gang members were granted prison benefits ranging from “hygienic visits” to permission to cook and sell food to others. other inmates. Too decision to mix opposing gang members into cells overturned, to return to the modality of exclusive pavilions and cells for each gang. In return, the criminals promised to reduce violence and “turn off the valve” on the murders, as well as call to vote for Bukele and the candidates of his party in the neighborhoods they control, which are 90%.

All this while the government celebrated the heavy hand and the decrease in deaths. El mismo jefe carcelario, Osiris Luna, que negoció con los pandilleros, escribió en su cuenta of Twitter: “Este día se acabaron las celdas de una misma pandilla, hemos mezclado a todos los grupos terroristas en la misma celda, en todos los @CentrosPenales of security. The state is respected!“. And Bukele bragged about this measure in his official account a day later: “Now all the gang cells in our country, will remain sealed. You will no longer be able to see outside the cell. This will prevent them from being able to log into the hallway. They will be inside (sic), in the dark, with their friends from the other gang ”.

Bukele couldn’t let prosecutors and judges expose what was going on, let alone how he had achieved such a victory in the parliamentary elections in February. He also did not want an investigation into where the pandemic aid money was going. Therefore, the second step taken by the Assembly was to vote in favor of a law that grants immunity from civil and criminal prosecution to public servants and contractors of medical supplies and equipment acquired during the emergency. Thus, impunity has been consummated for the whole government.

The most dangerous thing in this whole process is that agreements with gang members can be broken at any time and trigger an unprecedented spiral of violence. This already happened in 2014 when “La Tregua” came to an end, which the then president Mauricio Funes had achieved with the Mara Salvatrucha, the MS-13 and the two factions of the “Barrio 18”, the Sureños and the revolutionaries. El Salvador became the most violent “not at war” country in the world in 2015, with a rate of 103 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants. Among the factors that contributed to the failure of the truce was strong popular rejection: 76.2% of Salvadorans disagreed with negotiating with gangs. And that feeling continues. This is why Bukele must hide by all means his pact to artificially reduce violence and to win an election by deception. According to the magazine’s “democracy index” The Economist, with the “auto coup” El Salvador went from an “imperfect democracy” to a “hybrid regime”, those who have a democratic facade but are inherently authoritarian.

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