Tainari88 wrote:Bukele, is the voters choice and it was a fair election. The salvadoreños chose him. And all I have heard and seen of President Nayib Bukule is about a very honest, upright, consistent, well informed and well educated leader. I do not share his political philosophy. So what? If he can get progress with those gangs done, and a better job situation for the people of El Salvador and keep many Salvadoreños hopeful for their futures? He is going to be doing a good job.
I really liked his speech to the security forces. Excellent speech. He wants to end the violence, the corruption and the mass exodus out of El Salvador. He talks with good statistics and frankly I do not think he is in it for the money. He is not greedy.
The Salvadorans are very religious people, and hard working, humble and extremely warm and nice. I know a lot of them. Just because one percent of them are into gangs does not mean all of them are criminals. My Uncle Freddy married a woman from El Salvador. They also named senior housing place and a tutoring for youth place after my mother and are always going for human rights.
I ate a lot of pupusas in my day.
Bukule is young and honest, educated and dedicated. It is a vast improvement. The USA created a civil war in the 1980s and it was horrible. They killed Bishop Romero in front of the church. That School of the Americas trained those killers. Unleashed a civil war. People are sick of all that violence. They have a real need for peace and jobs and stability and real security that can help them solve and combat crime.
What is there about Nayib that is bad? He is not a white liberal from the USA. None of the Central Americans are like that. They are religious and family oriented in the extreme, love family life, work hard, and are always wanting to get community work done for the benefit of children and the elderly. The women are super nice, polite, and very pretty. There is a lot to like about El Salvador. The wars, strife, and fighting are over. They came together and the Far Right does not want more violence and neither does the Far Left. They chose Nayib because he is focused on the issues that are important for his people. Me cae bien el presidente de El Salvador.
I have to admit I'm surprised.
The South American left in general, specially the progressive left, doesn't like him. They see him as inhumane against criminals (be they actual or just alleged), and I think his approach reminds some in that camp of the military dictators. The fact that he's religious doesn't help, neither does that he supported Guaido over Maduro.
Indeed, Bukele had a rather public spat with Gustavo Petro (Colombia's President), who accused Bukele of only managing to lower his country's crime rate by reaching a deal with the gangs. Bukele responded in kind, making reference to a campaign funding corruption case involving Petro's son:
Anadolu Agency wrote:Colombia's president trades barbs with his Salvadoran counterpart
Gustavo Petro alleges that top officials under Nayib Bukele made pact with gangs on reducing Central American nation’s murder rate
Laura Gamba Fadul |
10.03.2023 - Update : 10.03.2023
BOGOTA, Colombia
Colombia’s president became embroiled in a quarrel with his El Salvadoran counterpart Thursday in a series of exchanges on social media.
Gustavo Petro posted a report from CNN on Twitter saying that prosecutors in New York allege that top officials under Nayib Bukele made a pact with gangs to reduce the murder rate in the Central American nation.
Petro commented on the report, saying "better than making government pacts under the table would be for justice to make them over the table without deceit and in pursuit of peace."
Bukele immediately reminded Petro that his son is immersed in a corruption scandal that will soon prompt him to testify before Colombian authorities.
"I don't understand your obsession with El Salvador. Isn't your son the one who makes pacts under the table and also for money? Everything all right at home?" he said.
Bukele was referring to Nicolás Petro, who allegedly received illegal money for his father's campaign.
Petro responded, saying: "Here there is a presumption of innocence, a universal principle. Here the president does not dismiss judges or magistrates; he fights for a more autonomous and stronger justice system."
"Here in Colombia, we deepen democracy (and) we do not destroy it,” he added.
The Central American leader shot back.
“Presumption of innocence? I imagine that he has never accused any of his opponents. Colombians will know if that is true or another lie.
“Besides, it was you who attacked me (again) and our internal affairs.”
In mid-February, Petro and Bukele had a strong exchange of words on Twitter when the Colombian leader lashed out at Bukele for having built a high security prison in Tecoluca that had received 2,000 suspected gang members. Petro compared the prison to a “concentration camp.”
According to polls, 95% of El Salvador’s population supports Bukele’s security strategy which has reduced the homicide rate in the country but has been harshly questioned by human rights organizations.
Boric, my country's President, has also criticized Bukele:
Time wrote:...
What do you think of the region’s other millennial leader, El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele. Is he an autocrat?
I don’t know him personally, and he hasn’t participated in multilateral summits. And if you choose freely not to participate, that is suspicious. Why not face the scrutiny of your peers? From what I have studied and my conversations with Salvadorans, there is indeed an authoritarian drift to confront a really serious problem: the gangs. I know it is a really difficult situation and has to be confronted very decisively, but that can’t be done by undermining democracy. The truth is I don’t identify with the way Bukele is leading his government. He probably feels the same about me.
...
I've also seen many in the Chilean right who have some sort of hardon with Bukele's security policies. Chile is currently experiencing a crime wave and many in the Chilean hard-right want the state to be as harsh against gangs and crime in general as Bukele is. They see him as some sort of Central American Trump, just like Bolsonaro was a Brazilian Trump - and those guys
really like Trump. And even more so since Boric and his camp do not like him.
As you said, a huge majority of Salvadorans support him, to the point that same majority gave Bukele the control of the executive and legislative branches. He also got Salvador's Supreme Court to allow him to be reelected even though it's against their Constitution - so he also can be said to exert control over the judiciary. What will happen when Salvadorans want a new administration as it will happen sooner or later?
France 24 wrote:El Salvador's Bukele gets greenlight to run for re-election
Issued on: 04/09/2021 - 09:40
Modified: 04/09/2021 - 09:38
San Salvador (AFP) –
El Salvador's top court Friday said populist President Nayib Bukele would be allowed to run for a second term, despite the country's constitution prohibiting the head of state from serving two consecutive terms in office.
The Supreme Court decision will allow Bukele to run for a second term in 2024 -- potentially making him the Central American nation's first president to serve more than five years in office since the 1950s.
In its ruling, the court said a sitting head of state could seek re-election for a second term as long as they have not "been president during the immediately preceding period".
The decision was handed down by judges appointed to El Salvador's highest court by Bukele in May after the country's parliament removed several justices critical of the government -- a move decried by critics as a "coup d'etat" and one which sparked international condemnation.
The new judges then reversed a previous decision by the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court that ruled the president could not serve more than one consecutive mandate. However, that ruling did allow the head of state to run again in a subsequent election.
Elected in 2019, Bukele enjoys broad support in El Salvador over his promises to fight organised crime and improve security in the violence-wracked country.
His allies also hold a large majority in the country's Congress -- a situation not seen since a peace deal in 1992 put an end to 12 years of bloody civil war.
But he has long been accused of authoritarian tendencies.
Last year, Bukele dispatched troops to the country's parliament in a bid to pressure lawmakers.
© 2021 AFP
As stated in the news piece, this happened some months after Bukele literally went with soldiers to the Salvadoran Legislative Assembly to get them to pass a loan that was to be used to beef up the country's security forces (with widespread support from the public, I will add):
BBC wrote:Heavily-armed police and soldiers enter El Salvador parliament
Published
10 February 2020
Heavily-armed police and soldiers in El Salvador have forced their way into parliament, demanding the approval of a $109m (£85m) loan to better equip them.
They entered the building as President Nayib Bukele was about to address lawmakers. Earlier, he gave them seven days to back his loan plan.
Opposition politicians called the appearance of armed men in parliament an unprecedented act of intimidation.
El Salvador has one of the highest murder rates in the world.
Most of the violence is carried out by criminal gangs that operate across Central America.
President Bukele took office in June 2019, pledging to tackle the legacy of gang violence and corruption in the impoverished Central American nation.
The 38-year-old leader wants to use the loan to improve the equipment of police and the armed forces in the fight against crime.
In particular, the funds would be used to buy police vehicles, uniforms, surveillance equipment and a helicopter.
But over the weekend, most MPs opted not to sit for a debate over the proposed bill.
With no quorum in parliament, the president called on his supporters to descend on the parliament building, the BBC's Central America correspondent Will Grant reports.
According to a government estimate about 50,000 pro-government demonstrators turned out, although this was disputed by local media which put the figure at 5,000.
President Bukele told them to be back in the streets within a week if MPs did not debate the bill.
His political opponents accused him of threatening them and turning increasingly authoritarian.
So yes, I
am surprised to see you are into this guy. Even progressives don't like him.
I don't trust Bukele just like I don't trust in our far-left. They aren't as different from each other as some may want to believe, even if Bukele has an appeal in the Latin American right: Both seem to be changing or trying to change their countries' Constitutions or to put themselves in a position to act against the law unopposed to perpetuate themselves or their cadre in power.
I don't trust politicians who even try to play that game, it doesn't matter if they are Chavez/Maduro, Morales, Boric, Castillo, Ortega, Bukele, Bolsonaro, Trump, Netanyahu or Orban.
This is despite the fact that I can fully understand why is it that a majority of Salvadorans support a far more authoritarian government that provides a minimum of security. It should be a cautionary tale for those progressives who don't take crime or security seriously, like the ones we have in Chile, just as the Venezuelan example should be a cautionary tale for those who vote for Constitutions that concentrate the government's power in too few hands, allowing the politicians in power do as they wish as long as they can be buddies with the military.