El Salvador: President Bukele’s landslide reelection raises concern for one party-state

Written by: Diego Carney; Edited by: Luke Wagner

Nayib Bukele, who is known for his strict anti-gang and tough on crime standpoint in the Latin American Country has won re-election with 85% of the vote. His New Ideas party also won 58 out of the 60 assembly seats in the unicameral legislature. This has brought concerns of a possible one-party state that is not shy to violate human rights. 

This steep victory has raised possible election fraud concerns from a president who proclaimed himself to “the world's coolest dictator” although there has been no reports of electoral irregularities. 

Bukele has been the legitimate president of El Salvador since 2019, but it hasn’t come without its controversies. When the president sent the Salvadoran Army to the Legislative Assembly in order to coerce the government into approving a multi-million dollar loan, many organizations denounced this action as resembling a coup. Additionally, Bukele’s has tough-on-crime policy has amounted to mass-mistreatment of prisoners who had already lived in poor conditions. For instance, Bukele’s main crime policy – an anti-gang state of emergency – has already led to the imprisonment of 1% of the population.

His re-election raises interest on unequal separation of powers in El Salvador which threaten the country’s democracy. El Salvador has a unicameral legislature which is the main check on the executive branch. However, the legislative branch is often incapable of limiting Bukele, because his New Ideas holds a super-majority. 

Judicial accountability is likewise unreliable. In 2020, Bukele dismissed the entire Supreme Court and appointed his own Justices. Bukele rationalized this action as a necessary evil in order to clean up the corruption of the Judicial branch, but neighboring countries have been deeply concerned by this rash action.
Bukele’s tough-on-crime posturing and uninterest in democracy seems to have others in the region interested. Honduras and Guatemala have expressed interest in following a similar model to El Salvador. If Bukele’s next term can deliver on his anti-gang promises, perhaps his model may become adopted by others.

Mexico: $10 billion lawsuit against U.S. gunmakers goes forward while more arms flow across the border

Written by: Luke Wagner; Edited by: Chloe Baldauf

Early this week, a U.S. federal appeals court ruled that a $10 billion case brought forward by Mexico’s government against multiple American gun manufacturers did not violate U.S. law.

This ruling had reversed a lower court’s 2022 decision to dismiss the case for violating the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA), which provides gunmakers broad civil protections against lawsuits for the misuse of their products.  Mexico’s lawyers argued successfully that the PLCAA does not legally shield manufacturers from their argument that the manufacturers facilitated the trafficking of weapons across the U.S.-Mexico border.

Mexican Foreign Secretary Alicia Bárcena called the ruling “great news,” and the country’s U.S. lawyer in the case, Steve Shadowen, called it “an important step forward in holding the gun industry accountable.”

Mexican cartels have long bragged about their ability to acquire U.S. weaponry.  They have not been shy to post images on social media of gang members in tactical gear posing with their military-grade firepower.  Last June, the Mexican army said that it had seized 221 fully automatic machine guns, 56 grenade launchers, and a dozen rocket launchers from cartels since 2018.  However, these weapons are not sold for civilian use in the United States.

On Monday, Foreign Secretary Bárcena publicly conveyed to Washington that an investigation is “very urgent” to determine how weapons that are “for the exclusive use of the U.S. army” have entered Mexico.

U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Ken Salazar confirmed Monday his awareness of the issue and that the United States is committed to working with Mexico’s Defense Department “to see what's going on.”

Ecuador: President Noboa Decides to 'Neutralize' Criminal Gangs

Written by: Candace Graupera; Edited by Chloe Baldauf and Luke Wagner

Prosecutor César Suárez was fatally shot on Wednesday in Guayaquil, deemed Ecuador’s most dangerous city. Suárez, known for his involvement in high-profile cases, was targeted while driving.  

This month, Mr. Suárez had been investigating an incident during which masked gang members stormed the set of a public Ecuadoran television station, brandishing pistols and what appeared to be sticks of dynamite. The intrusion occurred during a live broadcast on the TC Television network – terrorizing public audiences and prompting the Ecuadoran President Daniel Noboa to assert that his nation had fallen into an "internal armed conflict." 

The assault is part of a series of attacks that have rattled Ecuador, such as the reported prison escapes of two prominent narco gang leaders. President Noboa declared a national state of emergency, which suspended the rights of prisoners and suspected gang members.  Additionally, the presidential decree identified twenty narco gangs as terrorist groups and ordered the military to "neutralize" these illicit organizations.  

The recent escalation of violence in Ecuador has been linked to the prison escapes of two gang leaders, Adolfo Macías and Fabricio Colon Pico.  “Los Choneros” – a narco gang led by Macías and that has strong connections to Mexican and Colombian cartels – are vying for control of routes and territory, even within detention facilities where they exert considerable influence. 

Suárez was also handling the Metastasis case, involving an Ecuadorian drug lord accused of receiving preferential treatment from various authorities. The murder of Suárez adds to the wave of violence in Ecuador, including the abductions of police officers, following the escape of gang leader José Adolfo Macías Villamar from prison. Macías, associated with the Los Choneros gang, triggered a state of emergency, prompting military intervention in prisons and sparking a series of attacks across the country. 

Earlier this month, President Noboa declared a nationwide state of emergency in response to an uptick in organized criminal gang activity across the country. A nighttime curfew has also been instated as a precautionary measure, which remains in place as attorney general Diana Salazar’s office investigates the murder.