2024-02-03 22:32:25
This Sunday, February 4, the presidential elections of El Salvador will be held, and Salvadorans will have five options on their cards. So far, according to the polls, the president “on leave”, Nayib Bukele, is the one who has the lead and could once again come to power in the Central American country, with more than 80% of voting intentions.
Thus, the options that voters have in addition to the controversial Bukele are Carlos Calleja, with the support of the alliance between Arena, PCN and PDC; He is followed by Erick Salguero, GANA candidate who has focused his speech on improvements to security and the economy.
Then we have Juan Manuel Flores, representative of the FMLN, a candidacy that has focused its proposals on greater guarantees for students and the slogan of security without appealing to fear, and finally, Mario Tenorio, for the community of Vamos, who also arrives with ideas to improve the country’s economy and its security.
However, there are those who say that all these candidacies are being overshadowed by the spotlight that has been placed on Bukele since he became president with his proposals, such as including Bitcoin within the economy or creating megaprisons to forcefully attack the gangs.
Now he is doing it by seeking his re-election, which goes against the Salvadoran Political Constitution. However, the Supreme Court of Justice ruled in their favor in 2021, a fact that generated a deep debate among citizens, because there are those who described the decision as unconstitutional and a blow to democracy, and on the other hand, there are those who are willing to give him all the support to continue governing the country, whatever the cost.
Although Bukele has not been content solely with seeking re-election, in recent months he has managed to get some opposition candidates disqualified from participating in the elections, which has caused tensions and questions about equity in the process.
During his years in office, the president of Palestinian origin has managed to be remembered internationally for at least five moments of eccentricity and in which he caused discomfort in meeting spaces between leaders.
Selfi in the UN
Wearing a formal suit, without a tie, Bukele was preparing to give his first speech at the UN General Assembly in September 2019. He apologized to the plenary session, took out his phone, put it in front of his face, smiled and that’s it.
“Believe me, many more people will see this selfie than those who will listen to this speech,” he said before the plenary session, which was quite surprised, and then added that the world was no longer there, but “on the largest network,” the Internet.
“All the speeches throughout this week have less impact than that of a famous ‘youtuber’,” he assured the heads of state and government from around the planet.
This is how he announced the style of his leadership, with a powerful media machine and a predominant presence on social networks.
To Congress with soldiers
In an unusual event, on February 9, 2020, Bukele entered Congress flanked by police and soldiers with rifles and bulletproof vests, to demand resources for his offensive against the gangs.
The event was broadcast live on television news, which showed the president praying on the stage of the legislative board of directors.
In that prayer, Bukele said, God asked him to be “patient” with the legislators, who in the end did not approve the loan.
War on gangs
After 87 homicides in a weekend in March 2022 attributed to gangs, Congress, at Bukele’s request, decreed an emergency regime.
On the social network
On January 31, 2023, the president showed everyone the symbol of his “war” against gangs, the megaprison that he inaugurated with capacity for 40,000 inmates, the largest in Latin America.
He took a tour broadcast on national television to show the modern prison with high walls, cells with bars, steel cots and reinforced security.
At the end of February 2023, X showed the entry of the first 2,000 gang members, with shaved heads, in white shorts, with their hands and feet handcuffed, stacked in a hallway surrounded by cells.
First country with bitcoin
At the beginning of June 2021, in a pre-recorded message broadcast at a bitcoiners conference in Miami, Bukele announced that bitcoin would have legal tender in the dollarized economy.
On September 7, 2021, El Salvador became the first country in the world to give legal tender to the cryptocurrency, and then called Salvadorans through X to use bitcoin.
In November 2021, at the close of a “bitcoiners” forum on a beach, Bukele, wearing a white baseball cap with the visor turned back, went up on stage and under the burst of fireworks announced the construction of a bitcoin city in the slopes of the Conchagua volcano, in the east of the country, but the works have not yet begun.
Re-election announcement
On September 15, 2022, in an event broadcast on radio and television, Bukele spoke from the presidential house to announce his intention to seek re-election.
“I announce to the Salvadoran people that I have decided to run as a candidate for the presidency of the Republic,” he stated from the podium, along with his wife Gabriela Rodríguez.
The announcement, made before invited ambassadors, spread like wildfire on social networks, mostly people who supported it, but it brought criticism from the opposition who consider that the Constitution does not allow re-election.
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