The president, who on December 1 obtained a license from the Legislative Assembly to begin the presidential campaign seeking re-election, was paving the way to continue with his political projectdespite the fact that the Salvadoran Constitution, specifically in its article 152, prohibits immediate re-election.
Juan José Monsantformer ambassador of Venezuela in El Salvador, considers that although this prohibition, expressed in the 1983 Constitutionrepresented an advance for the time, in which the Central American nation was experiencing a “long history of political instability”, due to the authoritarian regimes that governed, resulting, after the Chapultepec Peace Accords signed in 1992, in a distribution of political and economic powermainly, between the Marxist guerrilla party Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) and its main opponent, the Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA).
“From the election of President Alfredo Cristiani (1989) to the election of Nayib Bukele in 2019, governments followed one another, which were distributed by the same peace agreements, and the population was worn out by not seeing concrete results in their lives. daily, where democracy meant nothing in concrete terms to the voter“explains Monsant in conversation with DIARIO LAS AMERICAS.
The end of a Marxist guerrilla scheme
With the arrival of Bukele to power, El Salvador began a process of transformation, says the former diplomat, which was established in the 2020 legislative elections, when the people gave a vote of confidence to the new president, granting him the parliamentary majority, which would allow him implement the changes that the country demanded.
“Bukele’s project managed, in this legislative election, to project democracy and defeat the scheme of the Marxist guerrillas with projects and advice that for 20 years they had shared power with ARENA,” he asserts.
In his opinion, with his project, Bukele responded to the demand for change made by El Salvador, which had been “boxed in” in the distribution of the country between two parties, which controlled the economy, industry and the media.
“(Bukele) represents a phenomenon that is occurring in the world, where party democracies are no longer enough for the population because political parties fell behind the needs of the electoratewhich is looking for new ways to express itself and make itself felt, and is leaving the rigidity of a partisan democracy towards the search for greater freedoms, where the citizen feels and lives, not only freedom and the vote, but the quality of life in itself,” he maintains.
Institutional endorsement
The policy of “firm hand” of Bukele, who declared war on the gangs that were terrorizing the population and fighting for territorial control, managed to catapult the popularity of the Salvadoran leader, who by June of this year was established as the highest valued president of Latin Americawith 90% approval, according to the German company, Statista.
Given the impossibility of carrying out a constitutional reform, which would require the approval of the current Congress and the one that will be elected in 2024, the president obtained the approval of the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court in September 2021, through an interpretation of the Constitution, to seek re-election. A decision that has been questioned by the opposition, which describes it as “unconstitutional”.
However, for Monsanto, this was a legitimate decision, voted, with four votes in favor and one against, by a legitimate Supreme Court, appointed by an “absolutely legitimate” Legislative Assembly, which “has never been questioned,” therefore that “there is no anomalous act”.
Furthermore, at the beginning of November, the Supreme Electoral Court endorsed Bukele’s candidacy for the 2024 elections, after considering that both he and his duo, Vice President Félix Ulloa, They meet “the legal requirements” to participate in the contest.
Nayib Bukele, a new dictator?
In view of Bukele’s almost assured re-election, there is, from different fronts, the fear that he will become a new dictator in the region. However, the analyst indicates that, although the future cannot be foreseen, there are precedents that demonstrate the democratic spirit of the president.
An example of this, he mentions, is the fact that there are broken relations with the dictatorships of Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela, and even expelled, upon assuming the presidency, the “political operators” of Chavismo in his country. It also adds its firm condemnation of the terrorist group Hamaswhich massacred and abused Israeli civilians in its October 7 attack.
“There is a lot of fear of Bukele, because of what is at stake, I am not giving him a blank card because I cannot give it to the future, but at this moment he is doing what needs to be done, it is in accordance with the times. If mistakes and arbitrariness are committed, which I do not doubt they will be committed, it is not the objective, so yes I think it should be observed”, he points out.
A new government with greater support
Since March 2022, Bukele has governed under a state of emergency regimewhich suspends some constitutional guarantees, within the framework of its anti-gang fight, with which it has achieved imprison more than 73,000 suspected criminalsof which about 7,000 have been released.
This has caused a wave of protests from human rights organizations. Although he does not doubt that abuses have been committed, since the operations were carried out by police and military, he rules out that there is a “mistreatment policy”as exists in Venezuela.
Monsant indicates that having ended the gangs, brought the corrupt to justice, won freedom of mobilization and included the peasant and working class in his project, making them after so many decades feel “proud to be Salvadorans”will guarantee him a greater victory in the legislative elections, which after 12 years coincided with the presidential elections in 2024.
“The legislative votes that the government will obtain will be greater than those in 2021, in support of the president. It will be a vote of confidence in transparent electionsin which the electorate is going to tell him, ‘keep going.’ And if we do not leave the margin of the legal structure, fear will disappear”, he emphasizes.
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