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El Salvador’s ‘cool dictator’ boasts country would be ‘a one-party system’ after election win (www.telegraph.co.uk)
submitted 9 months ago by MicroWave to c/world
114 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Nayib Bukele claims landslide victory and says Spanish democracy is a colonial fraud in impassioned speech to supporters

Nayib Bukele, El Salvador’s millennial president, attacked Spanish colonialism and imperialism in a fiery victory speech after he won a landslide victory.

Amid claims he is turning the country into a dictatorship, he boasted to flag-waving crowds below the presidential palace that El Salvador would be the first country with “a one-party system in a democracy”.

“The entire opposition together was pulverised,” Mr Bukele, who once styled himself the “world’s coolest dictator”, told the cheering masses.

The baseball cap-wearing Mr Bukele, 42, has become vastly popular for his war on gangs, but he has also been accused of stifling the courts and silencing opposition.

In his speech he said a Spanish journalist had recently asked him why he wants to dismantle democracy.

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[–] gmtom 40 points 9 months ago (4 children)

I fully expect to get downvoted for this but as much as im anti-dictator (like any normal person) you cannot deny he has objectively been a good thing for the country so far. He has decimated the gangs which has caused a 70% decrease in the homicide rate, going from the highest in the world to the lowest in Latin America. And him being talked as a "dictator" isnt really accurate either. He was elected Mayor of the capital at fist, was extremely popular so ran for president and won, democratically, in a landslide. And his policies, specifically with that gangs has kept him at a mind-boggling 90% approval rating, making him the most popular leader of any country, and he is running for re-election fairly and democratically, because why would he even need to rig the results when hes so insanely popular?

Yes there is Plenty you can criticise him for (being anti-aborition and anti-gay marriage for example) but in that regard he is no worse than any previous leader of the country.

[–] ralphio 40 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

He's not a dictator yet, but he'll have the opportunity to rewrite the constitution with the numbers his party will get in the next election. He seems to have signalled this is what he plans to do. Given his economic policies and the fact that he runs a police state (even if it was temporarily needed to get rid of gangs I doubt it will stop), he looks a lot like Pinochet which gives some people pause.

That said it's up to the people of El Salvador to decide if it's worth the risk to hand one party all the power.

Edit: current election not next election

[–] bigFab 11 points 9 months ago

Imagine the opposition was inviting gang leaders to decide what to do with the country.

That's what happened and it's documented in video.

Why would anybody vote for them?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Bunch of people in this comment thread have no idea what they are talking about. I have family in various parts of el Salvador and ever since bukele came into office politics is all they fucking talk about. It's actually quite annoying but the people there absolutely love him and his party. Maybe I am biased as I also have family that hold positions in nuevas ideas. Either way I don't think I've ever heard of a Salvadorean that didn't love the direction the country is going.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago (2 children)

You can deny it. He has been arresting thousands of people with zero evidence they are involved in gangs. Police have quotas on how many “gang members” they have to arrest to make him look good so they arrest random people to fulfill the quotas.

He’s a fascist and the fact he gets so much support because he’s “arresting the criminals” with so little pushback is scary

Here’s a story on it by a really great journalist https://youtu.be/jQcTYgOuEzA

[–] gmtom 4 points 9 months ago

You can deny it

No, you really cant. You can do what you're doing which is criticising the method and thats very fair, but the results are undeniable.

Police have quotas on how many “gang members” they have to arrest to make him look good so they arrest random people to fulfill the quotas.

Thats an unsubstantiated claim and the couple of reports thats based off claims its orders from specific regional police chiefs, not the government, you can argue his government should do a better job monitoring those things, but you cant pin that on him personally.

He has been arresting thousands of people with zero evidence they are involved in gangs.

This claim has more evidence but independent organisation (HRW and Cristosal) only had 200 complaints in the first couple months after 25,000 arrests (its difficult to find more recent figures). So even if we assume all those complaints are valid and those people were wrongfully arrested then thats <1% of arrests being innocent, which is pretty good honestly.

he gets so much support because he’s “arresting the criminals” with so little pushback is scary

Because you dont have the context. Its easy to think of it as scary when you live in a relatively peaceful developed country, but for the people actually from El Salvador that had to deal with extremely violent gangs that could murder you for basically any reason at any time with no consequence and a government that was making deals with those gangs to keep the citizens organised, its an incredible relief, and yes he is actually arresting criminals and massively reducing the homicide rate. The fact that any time he is brought up, even on that Youtube video you linked Salvadorian people come out universally in support of him and point out how your "journalist" can only go around the country making her documentary without being murdered is because his policies, just goes to show how much good his policies are doing.

and again, dont get me wrong, im opposed to a lot of right wing populist policies and im against undemocratic dictators (which I think he is only on the borderline of) but human lives are more important to me than political principles.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

Here is an alternative Piped link(s):

https://piped.video/jQcTYgOuEzA

Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.

I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.