SAN SALVADOR, June 2 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele’s controversial war on gangs has led to tens of thousands of arrests and sparked criticism from rights groups, but helped win him sky-high popularity three years into his term.
First seen as a young challenger to the status quo but later accused of authoritarian tendencies, the 40-year-old Bukele – a relentless presence on social media – has brushed off the criticism and boasts a 91 per cent approval rating, according to a poll by Cid Gallup.
Bukele has made reducing the murder rate in the violence-plagued Central American country a key priority.
After a wave of murders left 87 people dead at the end of March, he declared a state of emergency, sending troops onto the streets and giving his security forces special powers to arrest people without a warrant.
Since then, 35,000 suspected gang members have been locked up, adding to the 16,000 already behind bars out of an estimated total of 70,000 in the country.
Political analyst Dagoberto Gutierrez described the move as an “audacious action, necessary in the face of a complicated phenomenon that is the gangs.”
It “can be seen as a bitter medicine, but it is necessary,” he added.
Criminologist Ricardo Sosa said that while the war against gangs is “impacting their capacity to cause damage” and forcing them to “disband or go into hiding”, they will not disappear in the short term at least.
Even so, eight out of every 10 Salvadorans approve of the government action, the University of Central America says.
Bukele has pointed to falling crime figures as evidence of his policy’s effectiveness.
Murders dropped by more than 50 per cent in two years – from 2,398 in 2019 to 1,147 in 2021. But critics attribute the decline to alleged secret government negotiations with gangs, which authorities deny.
Bukele has also come under fire for creeping authoritarianism, with the United States and numerous rights organisations demanding he respect human rights following allegations of mass arbitrary arrests and mistreatment of detainees.
In May 2021, aided by a Congress dominated by allies, Bukele sacked all five judges of the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court, the highest judicial authority in the country.
He also fired the attorney general and a third of the country’s 690 judges – all those aged over 60 or with more than 30 years of service.
The United Nations, the Organization of American States and the United States all called on El Salvador to respect the rule of law and press freedoms. — NNN-AGENCIES
