The party of El Salvador President Nayib Bukele approved constitutional changes in the country’s National Assembly on Thursday that will allow indefinite presidential reelection and extend presidential terms to six years.
Lawmaker Ana Figueroa from the New Ideas party had proposed the changes to five articles of the constitution. The proposal also included eliminating the second round of the election where the two top vote-getters from the first round face off.
New Ideas and its allies in the National Assembly quickly approved the proposals with the supermajority they hold. The vote passed with 57 in favor and three opposed.
Bukele overwhelmingly won reelection last year despite a constitutional ban, after Supreme Court justices selected by his party ruled in 2021 that it allowed reelection to a second five-year term.
Genuine question: Why did his policy work?
He treated the situation as a civil war rather than a criminal matter. What do you do in war? You go after all enemy combatants, you don’t try to determine if one specific soldier killed any of yours. Anyone in enemy uniform is a legitimate target unless they surrender.
El Salvador gangs do have specific ways of visually distinguishing themselves even if those are not traditional uniforms. Of course there are people wearing the same clothes and tattoos just because they think it’s cool, but that is unfortunately a darwin award case.
In this context the captured are not in prison but in a POW camp. What he’s missing is an exit strategy. Eventually you have to establish a permanent peace and release the POWs under some conditions. Not to mention obey the Geneva Convention which enumerates some rights. That’s why he’s always framing it as being tough on criminals.
This completely omits the other part of his strategy which is paying bribes to gangs to chill out and giving cushy treatment to participating members who happen to be incarcerated. Since they typically fight over money (directly and indirectly) this seems to have quieted things but I can’t see this lasting forever. People will get greedy and break the peace eventually.
Not when you’re totalitarian dictator
Yeah fuck them for wearing colors they liked.
I get where you’re coming from but if you were to fly to Ukraine today, put on a Russian uniform, and walk around you’d have a bad time.
But this is only applying to those that continued to wear these things after their government declared a war on it’s own citizens.
He threw everyone in jail, guilty, innocent, didn’t matter. Those innocents were worth it according to Salvadorans. He lowered crime rates by suspending liberties. You know who else did that? Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, etc
Roosevelt
Because Bukele abolished the law and effectively turned the government of El Salvador into one giant gang. Of which the results now become rather apparent.
His rival cartels did not stand a chance.
He made a deal with some gangs and imprisoned the others. And any and all critics of his.