El Salvador faces an intense political crisis, which threatens to bring about a new authoritarian regime.
President Nayib Bukele, who assumed office last year, sparked the crisis earlier this month after calling on Congress to hold an emergency session to approve a $109 million loan for the third phase of his security plan for territorial control.
“At this moment we are seeing [Bukele] utilizing his alliance with the armed forces as an instrument to threaten and intimidate not only the political class, but any opposition as well.”
On February 9, the day of the session, Bukele entered the legislative building backed by heavily armed soldiers and police officers. He walked to the front of the legislative chamber, sat in the chair normally occupied by the president of the Congress, and called on the few congressional representatives who were present to pray. He then threatened to dissolve congress if the loan is not approved.
“This is a return to authoritarianism and a step back of the construction of democracy,” Julia Evelin Martínez, a feminist economist and professor at the Jesuit Central American University, tells The Progressive.
The presence of the military brought back memories of the country’s twelve-year internal armed conflict, which resulted in more than 75,000 deaths. The United States backed the military dictatorships during this period, from 1979 to early 1992.
Following Bukele’s show of force in the legislative branch, Defense Minister Rene Francis Merino Monroy stated in a press conference that the military continues to be a non-political force. But the use of the military to intimidate Congress is seen by some as a violation of the country’s peace accords, which were signed in 1992.
“The peace accords established that the armed forces were non-political,” Jeannette Aguilar, a Salvadoran investigator who focuses on security and violence, tells The Progressive. “At this moment we are seeing [Bukele] utilizing his alliance with the armed forces as an instrument to threaten and intimidate not only the political class, but any opposition as well.”
She adds, “We haven’t seen this since the years of the internal armed conflict.”
The Salvadoran supreme court ruled on February 10 that Bukele could not use security forces for “activities contrary to established constitutional ends.” Bukele stated the following day that he would respect the court order.
The loan is needed to implement the president’s efforts to combat the presence of powerful gangs, including MS-13 and Barrio 18. The gangs have gained vast amounts of territory in the decades since the Clinton Administration first deported gang members back to El Salvador from Los Angeles.
But as Martínez points out, “this is all bigger than the loan.”
Bukele, the thirty-eight-year-old former mayor of San Salvador, is a rising populist who assumed office in June 2019. He had campaigned as an outsider candidate separate from either of the two political parties, the leftist Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) and the conservative Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA).
Both parties have dominated politics in El Salvador since the signing of the peace accords. Both have lost credibility in the eyes of many Salvadorans, however, due to accusations of corruption and a failure to resolve the near constant crises of murders, kidnappings, and gang violence.
“Bukele arrived to power due to the support of a large number of the electorate in the context of strong opposition and little credibility of the traditional political parties,” Aguilar says. “Bukele utilized the crisis of traditional political parties to emerge as an alternative proposal.”
Bukele has continued to utilize this “anti-traditional political party” narrative throughout his administration. The battle sparked with Congress is seen as being a continuation of Bukele’s attacks on the traditional political parties and one that positions his party, Nuevas Ideas, to gain more congressional seats in the 2021 legislative and municipal elections.
Faced with widespread criticism in the international media following the February standoff, Bukele has gone on a public relations offensive, publishing op-eds and sending letters to the editors of The Miami Herald and The Washington Post. He insists his administration respects the separation of powers.
But Aguilar says Bukele’s style of leadership, his profile as a messesanic leader, the lack of transparency, and the centralization of power all suggest he is forming an authoritarian style of governance.
“At any moment, with consolidation, he could form a new dictatorship,” Aguilar says.
Bukele currently enjoys wide public support. According to a poll carried out by the Salvadoran newspaper La Prensa Gráfica, the president maintains an approval rating of 88 percent.
More troubling, a poll by Jesuit Central American University found that nearly 50 percent of the population agreed an authoritarian government would be ideal in some circumstances. The same poll also found that more than 75 percent believed leaders should govern with a heavy hand, and nearly 65 percent of the population felt threats to society should be eliminated.
However, the vast majority of those polled said they believe that democracy, despite its problems, is the best system of government.
Authoritarian tendencies are on the rise across Latin America and around the world. The age of the caudillos, the authoritarian strongman leaders who were responsible for violent repression in the name of maintaining power, seems to be returning to the region.
“Sadly, the debilitating of the political party system in our countries has opened the way for the emergence of messesanic and populist leaders,” Aguilar says. “This is a regional and global phenomena. Faced with this rejection of a majority we are going to once again fall into the cycle of the 1970s and 1980s, of new dictatorships.”
The Latin America Barometer poll, carried out across the region in 2018 and 2019 by Vanderbilt University’s Latin American Public Opinion Project, found an overall decline in support for democracy.
Central America is ground zero for the rise of these new authoritarian autocratic leaders, although several have appeared in South America as well. These new caudillos have attacked the division of power, the constitutions of their countries, and the institutions of a democratic state.
A few examples:
Guatemala saw the attacks on the judiciary, anti-corruption efforts, and on reform efforts within the national police during the administration of President Jimmy Morales, who ended his term in January 2020.
Honduras has seen security efforts in the Military Police for Public Order, which President Juan Orlando Hernández formed in his first term beginning in 2013 and is widely seen as his personal police force, as well as a constitutional crisis after Hernández ignored the constitution and obtained a second term as president.
Nicaragua has seen political power centralized in the family of President Daniel Ortega during the three terms of his second presidency, with the blessing of the country’s economic elite.
As Bukele continues to show authoritarian tendencies, El Salvador finds itself in a dangerous place. What is needed is a widespread movement, according to Martínez.
All these attacks on democracy have largely been met with silence by the Trump Administration, with the exception of Nicaragua, which Trump still perceives as Marxist.
Further south, rightwing populism is spreading like wildfire in Bolivia and Brazil. These new forms of authoritarianism have returned the specter of fascism.
Sociologist William I. Robinson, who teaches at University of California, Santa Barbara, has referred to the recent rise of fascism across the world as “twenty-first century fascism,” which he argues is largely different than previous forms. In July 2019, he told The Progressive that the Trump Administration is the embodiment of this new form of fascism.
As in the United States, Evangelical groups have proven to be key allies in the rise of these authoritarian leaders. Amidst the crisis in El Salvador, President Bukele stated that he was “talking with God” as he pursued his attack on the legislative branch.
“At the end you have a fascist government that presents itself at being appointed by God,” Martínez says.
As Bukele continues to show authoritarian tendencies, El Salvador finds itself in a dangerous place. What is needed is a widespread movement, according to Martínez.
“The only alternative right now is to form an ample social and popular front against fascism and authoritarianism for the election in 2021,” Martínez says. “After we need to undo the neoliberal policies and reconstruct the public [policies] that have debilitated Central America.”