Inter Miami and the El Salvador national team met goalless at the Cuscatlán Stadium in the city of San Salvador days ago. The play was definitely an anecdote. The important thing for Nayib Bukele was to take a photo. Leonel Messi and other players. He salutes them one by one in a row, as if he were giving medals to the soldiers. He later shared this on social networks: best player in the world And biggest club on the planet It emerged as the presidential election was approaching. The man who was re-elected without any opponents received thousands and thousands of likes. He took these to account X as a preview of what’s to come at the polls this Sunday.
HE Son of a leader of the Muslim community Born in 1981 in the midst of civil war, El Salvador turned his surname into a verb and an adjective: The government is ‘bukelizing’, penalties for gangs and beyond are ‘bukelizing’, Latin America is in danger of bukeling From the right, this small Central American country with a population of less than 6.5 million ‘boucolified’ when voices are raised calling for the replication of its oppressive model 42.9% poor And 71,000 prisoners. The Salvadoran was pleased. It exports not only a policy of punishment, but also an image: baseball cap turned upside down, casual clothes, hair care. There is no worry that will upset him.
To: 31 years selected Mayor From Nuevo Cuscatlá. Three years later he repeated the same experience in the capital. He did it on her behalf Farabundo Martí Front for National Liberation (FMLN). He never believed in his political program. The FMLN was just a transitional moment that gave it visibility. At the end of his term, he took office with the words and concepts adopted by those in the south. anarcho-capitalist Javier Mieli. bukele He presented himself as a man outside the system, thus rejecting “caste”. He won the election as a candidate far-right Grand National Alliance.
god’s instrument
Just as the Argentinian Milei claimed “the powers of heaven” as protectors of the crusade, the El Salvadoran saw himself as “God’s instrument.” Under his divine protection, he tried to get his way and undo it from the very beginning, to the point of taking over a legislature that was against him in 2020, and was only able to dominate when his party came to power after the 2021 parliamentary elections. won absolute majority.
From February of that year It was Bukele.. About this new power relationship Dismissal of members of the Constitutional Court Moving forward on the decision of the Supreme Court and other powers of the State. The Armed Forces watched the attack with satisfaction as it stood out. The president had no qualms about converting. Bitcoin becomes legal tender, change the Criminal Code in its first stage fight against Mara Salvatrucha 13 and Barrio 18 gangs, and transition seamlessly to the new normal: exception case.
HE ‘Bukele’ model It had two phases: The first was secret negotiation with the gangs that emerged in California in the late 70s and reorganized in El Salvador after mass deportations. Then conflict in all ranks. Systematic human rights violations began under the name of fighting against crime. Capture of innocent people, temporary arrests lasting more than two years, torture, virtual trials without witnesses, suspicious deaths in prisons.
We eliminated the culture of extortion
bukele He systematically ridiculed accusations and complaints: he merely statistical errors of a big company. He also relies on figures that he believes are undeniable. El Salvador had one of the highest murder rates on the planet: 103 deaths per 100,000 people. Currently, 2.4 fatal cases are being reported for the same proportion of people. extortion culture All the gangs were destroyed.
President who feels The ‘Messi’ of punitive politics, Beyond mega-prisons and cities controlled by men in uniform, he is the brave face of a deeply unjust country that has failed to address its inequalities. Oxfam offers definitive data on this subject: 160 families accumulate wealth equivalent to 87% of GDP.
I’m singing to myself
WITH bukele He likes to sing to himself. But the president has no one to apologize to. And he doesn’t seem to like it very much when fiction mirrors reality. Michelle Recinos, 25, was outraged. Her ‘Liver Matter’ book He becomes the target of the state’s hatred, especially in one of his stories called ‘Barbers on Strike’. They were left without help. From the moment the all-out fight against criminals was launched, “everyone was in a punishment center,” the study says, adding: “Soldiers were everywhere.” The capture wave had consequences. 500 barber shops were closed. One day, the narrator of the story heard his mother telling about the kidnapping of his cousin. Recinos is also a journalist.
In ‘Daisy Miller’ the author recreates a real situation: A former police officer who has a secret cemetery in the garden of his house. He learned through his studies in journalism. “I met mothers who came to that house to ask if their daughters, sons or other relatives were among the remains they had exhumed. Mothers for whom the announcement of a secret grave meant at least the joy and hope of finding the remains of their missing persons.” Recinos knows he has to write what the president doesn’t want to hear. “For me, silence is not an option. If I don’t tell you I will explode“, To add.