El Salvador was the most violent country in the WORLD. In just 3 years it has become the safest in Latin America. And this is due to one person: Nayib Bukele. However, many media outlets are incredibly critical of this man. And the question is, what exactly has Bukele done? “The number of murders continues to rise to historic levels.
” There was a time when El Salvador was more dangerous than any country at war… “Last Thursday there were 50 murders in 24 hours.” Mara Salvatrucha and Barrio 18 marked the daily lives of Salvadorans. But now… EVERYONE is in jail. Since then, almost 65,000 people have been arrested, and what was once the most violent country in Latin America now registers unprecedentedly low levels of crime.
DW Español – March 4, 2023 I am here to tell you all something that many thought was impossible. We are about to win the war against the gangs. El Salvador opens the largest maximum-security prison in the Americas for gang members DW Español – March 4, 2023 I present to you Nayib Bukele: The Salvador of El Salvador. Latin America’s new rockstar…
with fans even in the United States… And you won’t escape history, Bukele. You’ve got your place as a traitor and puppet of imperialism. It’s that simple. Euronews – November 4, 2019 But not everything is rosy around Bukele. Behind the figure of Bukele, the shadow of authoritarianism also looms.
I swear to God they don’t eat rice. And we’ll see how long they last. Telemundo – April 6, 2022 In his country he is a hero. Outside… opinions are divided. What is the truth? In this video, I’ll tell you. El Salvador is experiencing its best moment. Bukele has cleared the country’s streets of gangs. However, he remains a very controversial figure.
By now, you all know who this man is. So why am I making this video? Well, because I want to tell the whole story so that we can form a well-founded opinion of what I consider to be the most important political figure of recent decades. Few politicians can boast of having improved the lives of their citizens in such a clear way. And this is not an opinion: it’s a fact.
The ballot boxes speak for themselves: he has just achieved 85% of the votes. And I know what you’re thinking… but no. This is not Russia: there is no evidence of electoral fraud here . It was a clean election. And, as we will see later, it is very reasonable to think that the vast majority of Salvadorans adore him. However… many media outlets label Bukele as an aspiring dictator.
Because yes, the price of so much security is freedom. I’ll tell you now that today’s video is going to present you with many dilemmas. Today I’m going to tell you all the key points of the Bukele Code. I’m Fonseca, welcome to my channel. INTRO Nayib Bukele is perhaps the most important political personality of this century in Latin America.
I challenge the two-party system that had shared power in El Salvador since the end of its Civil War. He won the presidential elections and took office in June 2019. And almost 5 years later we are talking about a president who has truly changed the lives of his citizens for the better.
And what do you want me to say? Looking at the situation in the region, it’s clear that finding someone like that isn’t easy. “And where are you going to get the salary increase from, Mr. President? It’s with the same money… I ‘ve said it before and I’ll say it again: there’s enough money when nobody steals.” I know: it sounds like a typical cheap populist politician’s phrase.
But in Bukele’s case , the idea that “money is enough when nobody steals” has translated into real results. El Salvador has gone from having the highest homicide rate in the world to being a country as safe as Canada. These are the facts. However, to achieve this he has waged a war against gangs… outside the rule of law. To give you an idea, El Salvador has been under a state of emergency for 2 years.
Do you remember the states of emergency during the pandemic? Well, imagine that… TWO YEARS! And… yes, it’s true: Bukele has been accumulating more and more power in his hands. So much so that some claim we may be facing the next dictator of Latin America. For now, Bukele responds to his critics with considerable irony on his Twitter profile.
First he wrote dictator of El Salvador and then he wrote the coolest dictator in the whole wide world . Is Bukele, strictly speaking, the beginning or the seed of a dictatorship? Epicentro TV – September 30, 2021 Now then: El Salvador held elections last February… and Bukele’s support figures are worthy of Putin! With one difference! In this case, there is no reason to doubt the integrity of the Salvadoran elections. People really love Bukele.
Does this mean there are no problems? Well… yes, there is one. Basically, the Constitution of El Salvador prevents presidents from seeking re-election. But that hasn’t stopped Bukele from getting his way . Of course, his critics have seized upon this to emphasize that we are indeed dealing with a dictator.
They also recall his authoritarian methods for waging war against gangs. But is Bukele really a dictator? On the surface, El Salvador remains a democracy. But such strong support for Bukele has effectively meant the end of the separation of powers and the rule of law. So the question is: What does the Bukele Code consist of? What arguments are there to suggest that Bukele is a hero and what arguments suggest that he is a villain? Today we are going to answer these questions.
But first, let’s look at a little history. THE POWER OF THE GANGS Before continuing, let me remind you that I release new videos every week on Solo Fonseca, so if you’re interested in international politics seasoned with a bit of dark humor, t
his is the place for you. So please subscribe, hit the bell icon, and… well, all those things we YouTubers say! Thank you so much! And now let’s continue with today’s story. The gangs that have terrorized El Salvador in recent decades have their origins far from this country. Specifically, more than 3,000 kilometers away. “They call it the city of Los Angeles, but that’s not the impression I got.
” Yes, our story begins in Los Angeles, the city of the Lakers, the Oscars, and… the Maras. What does Los Angeles have to do with this story? In the 1980s, El Salvador was in the midst of a civil war. So thousands of Salvadorans emigrated to the USA… only to encounter Mexican gangs. But of course… these immigrants came directly from the war; As if you’d back down in front of mariachis with guns! So they organized themselves into rival groups.
This is the origin of Mara Salvatrucha and Barrio 18. To learn more about their misdeeds, I recommend you watch the two videos published by the Lethal Crysis channel. Like everything Rubén does, they are spectacular. In this part, he tells us how the gang members not only did not hide, but that was precisely one of their objectives: to instill fear simply through their appearance: It was very easy to recognize them.
With all those tattoos they had of numbers, letters, all this symbolism they made with their hands. They were very easy to spot on every corner. Lethal Crisis – February 1, 2024 For those of us who see the gangs from a distance, their name really catches our attention. Why are they called that? Correct me in the comments if I’m wrong , but it seems that “mara” is a term that in Central America referred to a group of friends. Over time it became assimilated to that of a gang.
“Salva” is a reference to El Salvador and “trucha” for these gang members is like saying you are ready, alert. But come on, that must be in Central America. Because I’m warning you now , gang members of the world, that in Spanish prisons, being a “trucha” has a very different meaning. The name Barrio 18 offers less doubt , as it comes from 18th Street in Los Angeles.
If you decide to look for it on Google Street View, don’t confuse it with 18th Street in Santa Monica. Or well, it’s almost better if you look for both and that way you can see the differences that exist in just 20 kilometers. Well, in the mid-90s, Central American gangs were beginning to be a problem for the United States . So the Clinton Administration toughened its policies.
It expanded the criminal charges for which a foreign-born resident could be deported. Conclusion? Mass deportations of Central Americans! By the way! All this with a Democratic president! And what happens when you put thousands of gang members in a low-security prison? Exact! They organize themselves and become more violent. This is how expert Juan Carlos Torres explained, in an interview with Lethal Crysis, the requirements to enter Barrio 18 or Mara Salvatrucha, also known as MS-13.
Gangs, at first, developed an initiation process that, depending on the gang, was either 13 seconds of beating or 18. That was at the beginning, when it started. Then they evolved to the point where… those rituals, let’s say that if someone wants to be a gang member, they have to pay the blood quota: kill someone.
Lethal Crisis – February 1, 2024 The civil war had ended in 1992. So the gangs found thousands of ex-combatants without work, with assault weapons in their possession. With this abundant workforce, what do you think the gangs did? So, they’re going to extort Salvadorans.
Keep in mind that El Salvador, the smallest country in the Americas, does not have many resources. He can only exploit his people. Furthermore, they found a population accustomed to living without freedom, subject to the orders of left-wing guerrillas or forces loyal to the right-wing government. According to a study by the Central Bank of El Salvador and the United Nations Development Programme, when gangs were in power, Salvadorans paid $756 million to the gangs each year , around 3% of the country’s GDP. Specifically, 3% of the income was extortion money that the gangs used to demand; It makes no difference whether
we’re talking about a street vendor or a large multinational company. In fact, this study estimates that the total impact of gangs on El Salvador’s economy reaches a staggering 16% of GDP. This would come from the cost of so much violence, the additional expenses on security, and the lost investment opportunities.
No other American country has borne a burden of such magnitude. El Salvador was absolutely a failed state, as Gustavo Villatoro, current Minister of Justice under Bukele, told Lethal Crisis. If you lack the capacity and organized crime wins or rules the streets , you are a puppet, a failed, criminal state.
Lethal Crisis – February 1, 2024 Sometimes gangs had the government’s approval. The corrupt politicians put in power by the mafias were in charge. On other occasions, though few, attempts were made to combat them with hardline policies. Some governments tried it, not with Bukele’s forcefulness, but with the goal of imprisoning them.
And what do you think happened? It turns out that this heavy-handed approach was counterproductive. The more gang members were arrested, the greater the control that the gangs had over the prisons. From there they ran their criminal business and carried out their acts of revenge. Conclusion? More violence and more deaths. And wars between gangs for control of the territory.
Their control was so extensive that people living in a neighborhood controlled by one gang, which they call a ” colony” there, could not go to another colony controlled by a rival gang. This is how a Salvadoran citizen explained it to Lethal Crisis.
– You couldn’t go to another neighborhood because they would already ask you where you were from. And if you were from a rival colony, then you never left. – Even if you had nothing to do with the gang. Even if you were innocent; You have nothing to do with it, you’re in the wrong neighborhood, you’re getting involved where you shouldn’t, they’ll kill you. Or they killed you. Was that how it was? – Yes, that’s how it was.
Lethal Crysis – February 1, 2024 And some will say, “Well, what a surprise!” Another country controlled by drug cartels! ERROR! Big mistake! There is a VERY big difference between the classic drug trafficker and the gangs. Drug traffickers want to make money and sometimes use violence as a means to do so. But it is not an end in itself.
Proof of this is that in Europe we also have drug traffickers and they do not pose an existential problem for the state. Something similar happens with terrorists: they use violence as a means to achieve ideological goals. Watch out! I am not justifying anyone with this. But it’s important to understand the difference. What is truly disturbing about gangs is that they have neither an ideology nor an economic objective: for these people, violence is an end in itself.
Their goal was (and is) to control territories in order to enslave people. In other words, we are talking about a problem unimaginable in any country. And that’s how things were in El Salvador, when the mayor of the capital, San Salvador, ran for election and said that things had to be done differently. Enough of the two-party system. This was Nayib Bukele’s introduction.
When they come to power, they steal because that’s what they’ve always done. They see corruption as something normal. They’re the same as always, with their old way of doing politics. We’re fed up. In the municipalities of Nuevo Cuscatlán and San Salvador, we demonstrated that things can be done differently; We demonstrate that new ideas can become reality.
Because there’s enough money when nobody steals. Now I know what many of you are thinking. Fonseca, this slogan of “I’m going to solve El Salvador’s problems because I’m not going to steal”… sounds incredibly populist. He won’t tell you otherwise! But now let’s look at the facts.
OPERATION MONTESQUIEU President of El Salvador since June 2019, Nayib Bukele comes from a wealthy family, as he is the son of an industrial chemist of Palestinian origin. As a young man he began studying Law but soon went on to work in his family’s companies in the advertising sector. One of their clients was the leading left-wing party in El Salvador, the FMLN.
It was a period in which Bukele learned everything about politics… and about propaganda. Because he is a leader who knows how to perfectly sell his image. His arrival was a breath of fresh air in politics: Bukele, the millennial president, had arrived. This is how she presents herself on social media. He is the youngest president in Latin America. He began governing El Salvador at the age of 37.
It’s Nayib Bukele. He describes himself as the coolest president in the world. ADN 40 Mexico – April 21, 2023 In 2015, the gang war brought deaths in El Salvador to a peak of more than 100 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants. To give you an idea, this is equivalent to the monstrous figure of 18 murders per day.
In a country with the population of the Community of Madrid. Imagine a reality like this. We’re not talking about there being a lot of crime in that place! No! Every single inhabitant has to rebuild their life to avoid being killed. Not even in Ukraine, with the Russian bombs, do they experience anything like this.
So, once elected as president, Bukele tried to continue the path he had started as mayor of San Salvador. Between 2015 and 2018, Bukele cleared the center of the Salvadoran capital of gangs. Now the challenge was enormous: to clean up the entire country.
What do you think was their first step? Bukele denies having done so, but the reality is that the homicide rate continued on a downward trajectory. Did violence then magically disappear? Not at all. El Faro, a newspaper in El Salvador, claims that Bukele started by doing the same thing as his predecessors: negotiating with the gangs. The digital platform El Faro presented evidence of a negotiation between the country’s president, Nayib Bukele, and the Mara Salvatrucha 13 gang.
In exchange for reducing violence on the streets of El Salvador, the president allegedly promised to improve conditions for gang members in prisons. DW Español – September 6, 2020 Bukele strongly denies negotiating with gangs. Obviously, I have no evidence to add. But I assure you that it made perfect sense for him to do it.
Why get involved by negotiating with criminal gangs? For one clear objective: to buy time. What time for what if he had just been elected president and had 5 years ahead of him? Salvadorans know this, but those of us who are outside don’t. And it is necessary to explain that in El Salvador presidential elections are held to choose the leader of the executive branch.
In other words, it is a system similar to that of the United States or France, where on one hand the parliament is elected and on the other hand the president. So, when Bukele was elected, the Legislative Assembly of El Salvador continued to be dominated by the traditional political parties … which were in opposition to Bukele.
In fact, in his first year and a half as president, there were brutal clashes between the executive and legislative branches. The conflict escalated to such a point that Bukele himself went to Parliament accompanied by soldiers to intimidate the parliamentarians. Behold. If these scoundrels don’t approve the Territorial Control plan this week, we’ll meet again here on Sunday, we’ll ask God for wisdom again and say, “God, you asked me for patience, but these scoundrels don’t want to work for the people.”
TVN Chile – February 11, 2020. Parliament had already agreed to spend $400 million on Bukele’s security plan , which included a strategy to combat gangs, more money for social programs, and improved police equipment. However, it blocked the approval of a $109 million loan from the Central American Bank for Economic Integration.
And of course, Bukele comes out with this Bolivarian accent and on both sides of the Atlantic we fear the worst. But this case is still a symbol that that Bukele, the one from 2019 and 2020, was a president with his hands tied. He had to negotiate with other political parties for the approval of laws and budgets. Despite these authoritarian performances, Bukele’s popularity remained at around 90%.
So his party, Nuevas Ideas, only had to wait for the legislative elections held in early 2021. According to the preliminary count, Nuevas Ideas achieved a qualified majority in the Legislative Assembly with 56 seats, so it would not need to ally itself with any other political party to pass laws and budgets, nor to elect magistrates of the Supreme Court of Justice or the Attorney General of the Republic among other key positions.
Voice of America – March 3, 2021 From here on, the Bukele government enters a new dimension. It controls the executive branch and has a two- thirds majority in the Legislative Assembly. Or to put it another way: since 2021 Bukele has had all the power to do absolutely whatever he wants .
Pedro Sánchez would sell “The Lady of Elche” just to enjoy a similar feeling during a legislature. What do you think Bukele did then? Well, to accumulate even more power . As? By trying to seize the only power he lacked: judicial power. Parliament used its majority to dismiss all the judges of the Constitutional Chamber and the country’s Attorney General .
Some officials who had clashed with Bukele over their investigations into the government and his administration. France 24 Spanish – May 2, 2021 These magistrates were replaced by Bukele supporters. Likewise, months later, the Legislative Assembly approved a law that allowed the Executive to get rid of all judges over 60 years of age or with 30 years of service.
This allowed Bukele to replace up to a third of the judicial branch. In short, Bukele’s support at the polls is such that the separation of powers in El Salvador has become a pipe dream. Formally, the country remains a democracy. But of course, with Montesquieu dead, Bukele had free rein for two things: first, to endorse a new constitutional interpretation that would allow him to run for a second term.
The second, and much more important, is to carry out without obstacles his plan to end the violence. What plan are we talking about? Well, we’re going to see it right now. THE DARK KNIGHT Dominating the legislative assembly and with the judicial power under control, Bukele no longer had his hands tied.
This allowed him to fully develop the plan he had always had in his head: to declare total war on the gangs. For that, he was clear about what he needed. Beyond providing resources to the police, he needed a special legal instrument to act decisively against the gangs: the State of exception. Bukele just needed the pretext to declare it. And the gangs handed it to them on a silver platter in March 2022.
On Saturday, a record 62 violent deaths were recorded, the highest single- day total in the country’s history. Faced with this situation, Bukele convened an emergency session of the legislative assembly, which met in an extraordinary session during the early hours of Sunday to approve the president’s request.
CGTN Español – March 31, 2022 The state of emergency in El Salvador suspends for 30 days constitutional guarantees of citizens such as freedom of association or the right to defense. Under this special regime, the police have arrested anyone they suspected of having links to gangs, even if the only argument against them was a tattoo or an anonymous tip.
Apart from the large number of detainees, more than 70,000, the state of emergency has meant the end of extortion. The balance of power in the neighborhoods, which were previously dominated by gangs. It changed radically. Now it’s the gang members who are afraid. The Minister of Justice of El Salvador, Gustavo Villatoro, is clear about who they are fighting against, as he indicated in Lethal Crisis. They are a breed of serial killers.
They are not citizens. They are serial criminals. Our mission is to remove them from society. And if something is an enemy of society, it is an enemy of the State and we will confront it as it should be. Lethal Crisis – February 4, 2024 Conclusion? The Government of El Salvador has declared war on criminal gangs without mincing words.
He entered the neighborhoods with the police and the army, went after all the gang members and put them in jail without a court order. It is war and they intend to wage it without any restrictions whatsoever. Equal to equal. And now many of you will be thinking, but well Fonseca, the gangs, the gang members… are the bad guys in the movie; In El Salvador, its democratic government and law enforcement agencies are the good guys. They cannot put themselves on the same level.
TRUE? Well, I have to tell you that Bukele seems like Ra’s al Ghul’s most accomplished student. The crime is unacceptable. Criminals take advantage of the leniency of a compassionate society. Batman Begins. Bukele’s iron fist is different from that practiced by other Salvadoran governments. A much larger number of people have been locked up. But it has been done based on overly flimsy evidence.
In addition, Bukele’s administration has built CECOT in the east of the country, a prison designed to house 40,000 inmates, the largest in the world. On a plot of land of 116 hectares, 23 correspond to prison buildings. Rubén Díez visited this mega-prison and was able to chat with the prison director.
Belarmino García confirmed that the Bukele government plans to keep gang members locked up for life because it does not believe in their rehabilitation. It is also noted that prisoners are even deprived of seeing their families. – It’s a maximum security regime. There is no visitation schedule for them – There is no system for visits… they, for example, talk about… in the future, if they get out, about reintegrating.
Isn’t that the plan? – That’s not the plan – In this case, none of these people will ever leave CECOT again – That’s correct Lethal Crisis – February 4, 2024 Here the dilemmas begin. I’m sure that before this video you had already seen images of gang members imprisoned in El Salvador’s jails. Bukele himself has published photos and videos on his social media of nearly naked inmates running with their hands cuffed behind their backs, heads down.
Or also huddled together on the ground, with their heads resting on the back of the prisoner in front of them. It is clear that many Salvadorans are happy to see their former torturers suffer. Furthermore, since Bukele locked up these thugs, life has become more pleasant on the streets. But friends, the biggest flaw in this whole situation is that practically all the arrested gang members have not had a fair trial. Well, they haven’t even had a trial.
These detainees are being held in pretrial detention while the Prosecutor’s Office investigates whether or not there is sufficient evidence for a formal accusation. And this, thanks to a series of legal reforms, can be prolonged for months, even years. BBC News Mundo – July 6, 2023 And wait a moment, because the worst part is that among the tens of thousands imprisoned, there are also innocent people.
Remember that an anonymous complaint is enough to get you arrested; They have already freed more than 6,000 people. Come on, we ‘re not talking about an isolated case or a one- off mistake. Certainly, the authoritarianism that emerges from the images of imprisoned gang members is not seen in other prisons. Even Bukele has no problem threatening to starve imprisoned gang members if the gangs try to retaliate and violence returns to the streets.
In short, the gang members are being used as hostages by the government. Another controversial issue is the high cost to the State of maintaining so many prisoners. The government is talking about $1.5 billion a year. That’s why he invented the prison co-payment. What am I talking about? Well, the prison provides inmates with the basics.
It has been established that gang members have to ingest 1,800 calories daily, compared to 2,100 for common criminals and 2,500 for an adult under normal conditions. Come on, they’re starving more than Ronaldo Nazario in a vegan restaurant.
If they want to eat something other than rice or spaghetti, their relatives have to buy the so-called package, which contains some food products such as sugar, oats, powdered milk or vitamins. As you can imagine, human rights organizations are outraged by the treatment El Salvador gives its prisoners. But Bukele is not worried at all. This is how he responds to critics. They generally argue that the entire international human rights approach, or that of NGOs, is focused on the rights of criminals.
They have rights! Nobody says that criminals don’t have rights. But why is the focus always on the rights of criminals? And the vast majority of honest people… nobody cares about their rights! Azteca News – October 18, 2022 It’s something key. You can act with maximum force against the gangs. But always within the law.
For example, Bukele has raised the maximum sentence for gang affiliation from 9 years… to 45. Some will see this as a radical change. However, if you amend the law following the legal procedure, go ahead. The problem is that El Salvador has been under a State of Emergency for more than 2 years, a special regime that is intended to last a month. And it keeps getting extended.
So, given everything we’re seeing, is Bukele a hero or a villain? The answer actually goes far beyond that. Because the success of their president is what the good people of El Salvador deserved. Bukele is fighting crime Batman-style. The laws take a back seat. His role as a vigilant protector, as a dark knight, prevails.
However… let’s be honest: their formula works. The question, the real question now is… How long will Nayib Bukele be the superhero that El Salvador needs? Well… pay attention. THE SHADOWS OF BUKELE By now, you’ll think I’m a fan of Bukele. And one thing I will admit: if I were Salvadoran, I would have voted for him without hesitation.
But now let’s move on to the other side. Her charisma is undeniable and her command of the public stage is masterful. He knows how to put on a show better than Pedro Sánchez himself. Is Bitcoin becoming fashionable? Well, the millennial president jumps on the crypto bandwagon and grabs headlines around the world by declaring Bitcoin legal tender in El Salvador.
In the end, that has meant nothing for the country; But it hasn’t done him any harm either. Even more worrying is that the independent anti-corruption body he created at the beginning of his term has also come to nothing. There are doubts about how the Bukele government spent hundreds of millions of dollars during the pandemic.
Moreover, in November Bukele himself assured that if his first term was to fight against the gangs, in these next 5 years he plans to wage a war against corruption, no matter who falls. So I don’t steal, because I don’t want to be remembered as the thief or the corrupt one. I am not going to be the president who didn’t steal but surrounded himself with thieves.
I want to be remembered as the president who did n’t steal and didn’t let anyone else steal. Have you ever seen anything like it? Come on, he’s calling them thieves. He says it with that half-smile, like… “you’ll see, but I’ve got it all tied up and well secured.” As a gesture of, “look, I fight against corruption”, it’s great.
Now, when the independent anti-corruption body sent Attorney General Raúl Melara evidence suggesting misuse of pandemic funds… what did the government do? Remove the prosecutor! Ah, the advantages of enjoying a more than absolute majority and having the judiciary under control. And then there’s the controversy surrounding the constitutionality of his second term, which is even worse.
The Constitution of El Salvador is very clear and expressly prohibits a president from being re-elected. But the judges aligned with Bukele have come up with an interpretation that in no way recognizes the Salvadoran Constitution. The farce is such that right now Bukele is not officially the president of El Salvador. No! Don’t think I’m going to talk to you about a conspiracy like “El Salvador is run by the Bilderberg Club”! What has happened is that Bukele has requested a kind of leave of absence for 6 months to make us all believe that he has left power and is thus complying with the Constitution. And many of
you will be wondering, then, who is the president of El Salvador now? His vice president? Well, no, that’s out. Lest he turns out to be argumentative like Mike Pence and make a fool of you at the first opportunity. So, have you posted the job opening on LinkedIn? Well, it would have been better because it would have been less noticeable that Bukele does whatever he wants. Behold.
Congress appointed his private secretary, Claudia Juana Rodríguez de Guevara, to temporarily replace him. Rodríguez de Guevara will serve as head of state until May 31, 2024, one day before a new presidential term begins. Univision – December 2, 2023 Come on, Bukele has gone on vacation with his family and left his secretary in the office .
Well… Bill Clinton would have done it the other way around and Hillary would finally have sat in the Oval Office. And so everyone was happy. Returning to Bukele, since he has enough power to do so, he should have proposed reforming the Constitution, changing it, and allowing his re-election. Why didn’t he do it that way? Essentially because if El Salvador were to enter a constituent process, the state of exception would fall and the gang members would return to the streets.
But certainly his solution to the constitutional conflict has been very Putin-esque. Do you remember when Putin held back a bit, pretended not to notice, and served as prime minister for a few years while Medvedev was president? Well, similar. It is still clearly a ploy to stay in power at any cost. Then in the elections Bukele swept the vote with 85% of the votes. What does the opposition say? Well, not much.
Especially since it practically doesn’t exist anymore because people are with Bukele. But, well, when it’s their turn to speak, they denounce the president’s excesses . Congressman René Portillo speaks. What is being done tonight in the Legislative Assembly, with a majority that the people gave them through the vote, is a coup d’état.
AFP Spanish – May 2, 2021 Coup d’état? Can we then say that Bukele is a dictator? Well, the truth is, no. At least for now, because everyone recognizes that the elections in El Salvador are absolutely clean. So El Salvador continues to be a democracy. However, Bukele has no rival because Salvadorans appreciate that he has put an end to the gangs’ control of the streets.
What is certain is that it increasingly resembles a liberal democracy with strong institutions, in the style of established democracies such as the American or British ones. But of course, before Bukele, El Salvador was more of a failed state than a liberal democracy. So, to be fair, we can’t blame him for destroying something that didn’t exist.
He, for the moment, doesn’t seem very worried about his critics. Yes, Bukele is a dictator, Bukele is a dictator. Dictator? He would have shot them all or something like that if he were a real dictator. Telemundo – August 11, 2020 Of course, the dictator’s handbook knows it . I also tell you: he wouldn’t be the first authoritarian leader who is good for his country.
It’s extremely rare… but there’s the case of Paul Kagame in Rwanda or Lee Kwan Yew in Singapore. Both will be remembered for having left a legacy worthy of applause. However… they are NOT democratic leaders. So, regarding Bukele, he is criticized for accumulating the powers of the State.
But of course, how could he not have so much power if he has the support of 85% of Salvadorans? And how could it not have that support if it has literally changed the lives of all its citizens? And for the best! The ballot boxes have spoken, and most importantly, no one questions the result. And there is nothing healthier in a democracy than questioning the president.
José Miguel Vivanco, former director of the Americas Division of Human Rights Watch, said that Bukele is a kind of caricature of Trump. Epicentro TV – September 30, 2021 Ehm… OK, I’m not saying there aren’t parallels. But Trump doesn’t have even 1% of the merits that Bukele does. In fact… this February, 2024, he was invited to speak at the CPAC.
To give you an idea, CPAC is like the Met Gala of the American right. And I can tell you right now that they don’t call on just anyone. And even less so to a Salvadoran in a country as proud as the United States. The truth is that success in the war against gangs provokes admiration. He now has a 5-year term ahead of him and many challenges.
Fair trials must be held for gang members and the state of emergency must be ended. The laws and constitutional guarantees must once again reign in El Salvador. I could explain why I think Bukele should act this way. But I think Christopher Nolan said it better than I did. “Die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.
” – “The Dark Knight” (Yes, I would have liked to include the whole quote, but… Copyright! And I can’t do a dramatization either because I don’t have a Batman mask.) In any case, Bukele’s presence at CPAC also tells us two things: first , that he has been definitively lumped in with the conservatives.
And this has an interesting interpretation! Bukele emerged as a politician who was neither left-wing nor right-wing. In fact… he started his career on the left. However, the right wing in the US has kept it. The same thing happens, by the way, with Javier Milei: another figure who doesn’t come from the classic right… but who is conquering this space. What does this tell us? That both the left and the right are changing.
But… that’s a topic for another video that I hope to release soon. Meanwhile, I’ll leave you with your favorite section of the channel: let’s talk about OnlyFons. (INTRO ONLY FONS) Welcome to OnlyFons, the section where I give channel news, correct errors, and answer the most interesting questions you leave in the comments.
But today… @onlyfons What would happen to the China-Russia relationship if the war in Ukraine ended and Russia didn’t come out on top? Do you think it would be in China’s best interest for the war to continue or for Russia to win? @panchopantera1286 Good question! And… THANK YOU, Pancho, because you just gave me a GREAT IDEA.
Please, from now on , when you send me a question for OnlyFons, put @OnlyFons in the comment. You can also send me questions to my Twitter (@Sr_Fonseca) with the hashtag #OnlyFons. You have no idea how much it would help me to find the questions faster. Now, to answer your question, Pancho: precisely the best thing that could happen to China is for Russia not to come out on top in this war.
Does that sound strange? Think of it this way: China is a giant with feet of clay. They have industry, technology… but they lack natural resources. Which is precisely what Russia has plenty of. And now imagine this scenario: Russia desperate because it can only trade with China. Not a bad negotiating position! TRUE? The worse things go for Russia, the better position China has to negotiate. This has already been seen with the Power of Siberia gas pipeline.
And… Hmmm! You know what I’m saying? I’m going to cover it in a video. Because it’s a topic that could be discussed at length. But in short: it’s very good for China that Russia is weakening. Another thing is that right now they are s
elling weapons to Russia and making a profit. But come on… their interests are not aligned, NOT EVEN CLOSE. And having reached this point, now the question is for you. Do you consider Bukele a hero or a villain? How long do you think the State of Emergency should last, and how long can gang members be kept locked up without a fair trial? You can leave your answer in the comments.
If you found the video interesting, give it a like and don’t forget to subscribe to Solo Fonseca if you haven’t already . Goodbye and until next time.
Disclaimer : This content may be created by AI for entertainment purposes. Any resemblance to real persons, events, or places is coincidental.
