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.