Can the people legitimize policies that violate legality or human rights with their vote in democratic elections? It's not the first time it's happened in history. El Salvador's president, Najib Bukele, has no doubt that Sunday's landslide election victory vindicates the controversial actions of the past five years, and he also believes he has carte blanche to do whatever he wants in the future.
"The next five years wait to see what we will do, because we will continue to do the impossible and we will continue to show the world the example of the Savior". Thus, Bukele closed his victory speech on Sunday night (yesterday morning from here) from the balcony of the Palau Nacional de San Salvador in front of an enthusiastic crowd that kept chanting his name. Then there was a show of drones and fireworks, in a party prepared since before the elections.
"El Salvador has broken all the records of all the democracies in the entire history of the world", said Bukele, and declared himself the winner of the elections with 85% of the votes, before the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) announced the official results In fact, the TSE website, still with 70% polled, indicated last night a victory for the president with 83%, leaving Manuel Flores, candidate of the left-wing FMLN – the former guerrilla group – and Joel Sánchez, from the right-wing Arena, who got just over 6% of the vote.
The president also assured that his party, Noves Idees, had obtained "at least" 58 of the 60 deputies of the unicameral National Assembly, despite the fact that the TSE barely offered 5% of the vote last night. "It is possible that there are more", he said from the balcony, accompanied only by his wife. "It would be the first time that in a country there is a single party in a fully democratic system", he let go without shame. "The entire opposition together was pulverized", he added.
There is no doubt that Bukele has widespread support among Salvadorans thanks to his successful and controversial security policy, which has drastically reduced crime, to the point of almost completely ending violent gangs and organized crime. Despite this, the opposition sows suspicion about the cleanliness of the scrutiny, alleging flaws in the system for transmitting the results.
However, the US endorsed Bukele's re-election yesterday through a congratulation from the Secretary of State, Antony Blinken. "The United States praises the work of the election observers and looks forward to working with the president-elect," said Blinken, who, however, affirmed that Washington's priorities are to observe "guarantees of fair trials and human rights."
After winning the presidency in 2019, Bukele took two years to control all the branches of power when, after the victory in the 2021 legislative elections, he undertook a purge of the judicial system that has meant a questionable re-reading of the Constitution to be a candidate for re-election prohibited by the Magna Carta.
He was also able to get Parliament to validate in 2022 his declaration of a state of emergency, which governs practically indefinitely, and which has allowed the imprisonment without judicial guarantees of 75,000 alleged gang members in harsh conditions of confinement, many of which they would be innocent, according to human rights defenders' organizations. The fact is that the homicide rate in El Salvador went from 103 per 100,000 inhabitants in 2015 to 2.4 in 2023.
"We have gone from being the most insecure country in the world to being the most secure country in the entire Western Hemisphere," Bukele said on Sunday, while explicitly charging against Oenagés, international organizations, governments and journalists who question his iron fist. "And what did they say? It violates human rights. Whose human rights, of honest people? No, maybe we prioritized the rights of honest people over the rights of criminals, it's the only thing we've done and what you call "violating human rights", said the president.
"We are about to win the war against the gangs", indicated Bukele, and assured that "the gangs grew until they came to control 85% of the national territory and murdered more than a hundred thousand Salvadorans ". And then he called out to divine justice, amid the joy of those present: "What are we but God's tools! God wanted to heal our country and he healed it."
