SAN SALVADOR.- Salvadorans will go to the polls on Sunday, for the first time in years, in an atmosphere of tranquility that they attribute to the “war” of the President Nayib Bukele against gangs, questioned, however, for serious violations of human rights.
Some 6.2 million Salvadorans are called to vote in elections with no surprises in sight, since Bukele enjoys 90% approval thanks to his “iron fist” security policy, and according to surveys his re-election is practically guaranteed. in the first round.
“We have a president who governs for the Salvadoranss. We call this peace, tranquility and freedom… I thought it was something my eyes would never see,” said Álvaro Pérez, a 47-year-old carpenter, in San Salvador.
Pérez attended an improvised party in a square in the capital on the eve of the vote, something unthinkable a couple of years ago. But this will be the first time, since the end of the civil war in 1992, that El Salvador goes to the polls with soldiers in the streets, under a state of emergency.
After a bloody weekend with 87 murders, in March 2022 Bukele established an emergency regime that has almost 76,000 detainees and drastically reduced homicides (2.4 per 100,000 inhabitants in 2023) in a country that became the country with the highest criminal violence in the world (rate of 106 in 2015).
But organizations such as Human Right Watch and Amnesty International, as well as local humanitarian groups, denounce “arbitrary detentions”: more than 7,000 people have been released for being innocent.
Amnesty also registers “236 cases of forced disappearances” and “more than 200 deaths in state custody,” and points out that El Salvador is the country with the highest incarceration rate in the world, with 102,000 prisoners, according to the organizations that Bukele points out to defend crime and not the victims. .
“Everything has changed”
Still, Bukele is by far the most popular leader in Latin America. People now say they feel free and safeand small businesses can operate without having to pay so-called “rent” to the feared criminal groups Barrio 18 and Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13).
A transport businesswoman, who preferred anonymity for fear that there were “gangsters” hiding, told the woman she had to pay $560 a month “rent” and sometimes thousands of dollars: “They threatened to kill my mother, a brother or another family member if I didn’t pay.”
Alberto Serrano, a 40-year-old Uber driver, says that “everything has changed” since the crackdown on gangs began, to which Bukele attributes some 120,000 deaths since the end of the civil war.
“If they got on the bus and said to you, the passenger: ‘Give me a dollar,’ and you refused, at best they would beat you; at worst, they would kill you,” says Serrano, who previously was a bus driver. .
Beatriz Martínez, a 32-year-old crafts seller, says she was not able to visit her mother for years because she lived in a neighborhood controlled by a rival gang to the area where she lives. “Now I can go see her, it is quiet even at night”he assures.
A few weeks ago the country even welcomed the star’s visit Lionel Messi and three months ago the contest miss Universewhich, according to Bukele, showed that El Salvador “has changed forever.”
“At the cost of freedom”
But Maricela Méndez, 35 years old, who was imprisoned for five months, pregnant, is the other side of the coin: “We live in a militarized country. “It is security at the expense of freedom and the innocent, especially young people,” he said, claiming his own innocence.
“The government strategy has promoted a narrative that presents false dilemmas, the idea that one must choose between protecting certain rights or canceling others,” in the opinion of Irene Cuéllar, researcher for Central America at Amnesty International.
Miguel Juárez, a 37-year-old taxi driver, says he voted for Bukele when he won in 2019 with 53%, but this time he will not do so “even if he tries to intimidate” by saying that with the opposition he will “go back to the past.”
“There are people who are resentful because their relatives have been taken away and they are innocent. There is also corruption and life is very expensive.“, argument.
Bukele is accused by his critics of being authoritarian and violating the independence of powers, since he controls Congress, the justice system and the rest of the state apparatus. Magistrates renewed by that Parliament interpreted the Constitution in his favor and allowed him to run for re-election.
But the president, a 42-year-old former publicist of Palestinian descent, turns a deaf ear to criticism, and nothing seems to prevent him from winning a second five-year term on Sunday, he has the support of the majority of Salvadorans.
This Saturday, the military is deployed in the streets and guarding the voting centers, which will open on Sunday at 07:00 local time (13:00 GMT) and close at 17:00 local time (23:00 GMT).
Source: With information from AFP
