On 28 February 2021 El Salvador held legislative and municipal elections, and, for the first time in 30 years, elected a government with an absolute majority in Congress. Nayib Bukele, elected president in 2019, led his New Ideas party to win 66.58% of the vote, giving it 56 of the 84 Congressional seats representing the country’s 14 multi-party constituencies. At the same time New Ideas won 179 of the El Salvador’s 262 mayoral seats. The turnout was 2.6 million of 5.4 million registered domestic voters (48.5%). President Bukele’s success was a result of his tough and effective control of the Covid-19 pandemic, widely accepted criticism of the previous governing parties, and a highly publicised and successful campaign against criminal violence in the country. What does his victory mean for the poor? Alvaro Michaels reports.
An inherited crisis
This small and most densely populated country in Latin America faces a horrendous crisis of imperialist exploitation, crime, corruption, unemployment, climate change and subsequent emigration. Half a million of the 6.5 million population are homeless. Between 1979 and January 1992, El Salvador suffered a vicious US-backed war against the poor. The Chapultepec Accords ended the fighting, but US imperialism and its ally ARENA, the party of the ruling class, prevented the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN), which had previously led the armed struggle, from governing as its members wanted, despite its heroic sacrifices. This led to a rapid liberalisation of markets, and little investment for the working class, while the country became a net importer of grains and other basic products, paid for by debt and speculative foreign capital.
The election showed that most Salvadorans want to break the political impasse, but any ‘third way’ faces the continued struggle over who owns and directs the country’s resources. The poor are demanding employment, above all for the young. Before Covid, 9.5% of young people available for work between ages 15 and 24 were unemployed. In the last year the situation worsened with the net disappearance of 30,000 jobs.
Bukele’s advance
Bukele, the capital city’s popular mayor since 2015, expelled from the FMLN in October 2017 for harshly criticising it, immediately created a new party (see FRFI, 31 March 2019: https://tinyurl.com/bkwk3brd). This New Ideas Party was unprepared for the February 2019 presidential election, but Bukele won as candidate for GANA (Grand Alliance for National Unity), a conservative group usually supporting the congressional FMLN.
Following through his mayoral campaigns against crime, Bukele then created the International Commission Against Impunity in El Salvador (CICIES), and a special department to recover money embezzled from taxpayers and to investigate tax evasion by businesses. From 2019 to 2020, the Attorney General’s Office charged 783 police officers and 159 soldiers for a range of serious crimes. This clean up continues. On 21 April 2021 six agents of the National Civil Police (PNC) were arrested for illegal detentions and a disappearance between 2016 and 2018.
From the 1992 Peace Accord onwards, males from Salvadoran communities convicted of crimes in the US, were deported to El Salvador. Mostly young, many had never known the country. Unregistered workers continued to be deported. Some 1.2 million Salvadorans living in the US today are not US citizens, 900,000 lack papers or have temporary or precarious legal status. From 2014-2018, the US and Mexico deported about 213,000 Salvadorans (102,000 from Mexico, 111,000 from the US). In El Salvador this has created a large pool of demoralised youth, mixed with deported criminals, from which grew the estimated minimum 60,000 gang members active today, with another 9,000 in prison. Poverty and the low growth rate of the economy drives youth into murderous gangs, active in most municipalities. Along with killings, almost 11,000 people ‘disappeared’ during the last decade. Unemployed and living in fear, a net 40,000 and more Salvadorans have emigrated every year for the last four years, from a peak of 65,000 in 2000.
Between 2012 and 2017, Salvadoran annual asylum applicants in the US grew from about 5,600 to over 60,000. By 2018, Salvadorans were the largest number (101,000) of any nationality with asylum applications in the US. Between 2014 and 2018 the US accepted only 18.2% of Salvadorans for asylum. Approximately 129,500 more Salvadorans had asylum applications pending in other countries.
The middle class (about 10% of the population) and lower middle class, previous supporters of ARENA or the PCN (Partido de Concertación Nacional), approved of Bukele’s successful Plan to combat gangs. Prisons had been hubs for planning crime via mobile phones which Bukele acted to block, and he ended the separation of prisoners according to gang membership, which had strengthened the gangs. While Mayor of San Salvador, Bukele promoted a new truce between gangs and ended protection rackets in the capital’s large open market by pushing it into a new indoor site. Bukele’s opponents criticise him for negotiating with the gangs, despite previous governments having done so. The result in 2020 was just 1,332 known homicides, 362 of whom were victims of gang violence, dramatically down nearly 45% from 2019. The murder rate fell by more than half to 19.7 per 100,000, although ‘disappearances’, by which gangs assert control, have grown.
Bukele accuses El Salvador’s traditional parties of abandoning the victims of the country’s 1979-92 civil war. At his meeting with Amnesty International in June 2019, Bukele said he wanted to focus on compensating the victims of the civil war of 1979-92 and change the celebration of the ‘Peace Agreement’ of 1992, to a ‘Victims of the Armed Conflict’ day. Bukele has promised Amnesty International that his government will not criminalise women and girls and will guarantee their sexual and reproductive rights. Until the new constitution El Salvador remains one of the 26 nations that still prohibits abortion.
Covid-19
Throughout 2020 Bukele aggressively tackled the spread of the coronavirus, imposing some of the strictest measures in the Americas. From 11 March 2020, El Salvador was closed to foreigners. Soldiers and police enforced 30 days of quarantine in 90 containment centres for those returning from abroad, which prevented a rapid dispersion of the infection.
Bukele ignored both Congress and Supreme Court demands to halt or weaken his tough measures, including the Court’s May 2020 order to suspend the lock down. He provided a $300 pandemic stipend last year to 60% of all poor Salvadoran households, with food distributed to low-income households. There were payment deferrals for basic utilities, mortgages and personal loans, extensions on income tax payments for individuals and applicable firms, and easier loans with longer repayment periods. The government ordered the building of a new Covid-19 hospital. Bukele created an Institute for Access to Public Information, to inform the public, denounced by the reactionary ARENA. Pressure to reopen from big business was immense. From June, with only 72 deaths recorded, to August 2020, the lockdown was lifted. Consequently, until 23 April 2021 there were 2,093 deaths, or 33 per 100,000 population. This cost compares to Guatamala’s 43 per 100,000, Honduras 53, Israel 71, Paraguay 81, Germany 98, Ecuador 105, Bolivia 112, Colombia 141, Panama 148, Mexico 170, Peru 183 and the UK 186. The government administered 1.35 million Indian Astra Zeneca vaccine doses, from 12 March to 15 May 2021, a much faster rollout than in its neighbouring Central American countries.
The new government
The New Ideas parliamentary majority is a severe blow to the right-wing ARENA (14 seats, down from 37) and to the FMLN (four seats, down from 23, and 31 in 2015), which had, between them, governed the country for decades.
Until this April, Bukele maintained good relations with the US, obtaining promises of more than $2m from the US State Department for CICIES, and getting $431,911 of protective and hospital equipment from US Southern Command, plus $25 million in other US donations.
In March 2021 negotiations started with the IMF for $1.3bn, to reduce the public debt. The Treasury has promised that this would not mean tax increases, but faces IMF demands to reduce spending.
On 27 April, the Central American Bank for Economic Integration (BCIE), agreed a loan of $600m to El Salvador, the largest it had ever provided, to support post-Covid recovery. The aim is to support 21,000 small businesses, 14,755 led by women, and retain 100,000 employees. Overall, it benefits four million workers and small businesses. The loan is for 20 years at 2.5%.
Removing Constitutional Division Judges from the Supreme Court
On 1 May, with 64 votes in favour, the very first motion that the new Congress unprecedentedly approved was the removal of five judges and their five deputies from the Constitutional Division of the Supreme Court, accusing them of ‘arbitrary’ decisions – obstructing the fights against both Covid-19 and tax evaders. This Court is one of the four that make up the Supreme Court, resolving claims of unconstitutionality, ‘habeas corpus’ and disputes between state bodies. The Attorney General, Raúl Melara, was also removed, accused of political bias, and Rodolfo Delgado replaced him until 5 January 2022. On 3 May Finance Minister Alejandro Zelaya urged the new Attorney General to investigate 87 cases of evasion that the finance ministry has identified, totalling $71 million.
Unsettled by the removal of the judges by an assertive new government, US Vice-President Harris interferingly demanded of the Organisation of American States that ‘We must respond in El Salvador.’ US Secretary of State Blinken expressed his ‘serious concern’ by phone to Bukele. The OAS joined the chorus. In fact, Article 186 of the Constitution, allows the removal of members of the Court by a two thirds majority of Congress.
Bukele tweeted in response: ‘To our friends in the international Community: We want to work with you, trade, visit, know each other, visit and help in what we can. Our doors are as open as ever. But with all respect: We are cleaning our own house … and this is not your business.’
The presidency lasts for five years. Bukele’s term ends at the start of 2025. He may run for a second, non-consecutive term. His proposed new constitution, to be presented in September 2021, has a target date of 2029 for implementation, so it will not affect him. His party has enough seats for both its approval and ratification in the Congress. Vice-President Ulloa has denied any intention to centralise power. The matter is under discussion by a Commission which he heads, including the extension of the presidential term by a year to six.
On 12 May Congress approved a loan for $730m, including finance for the security plan promoted by Bukele, from the Central American Bank for Economic Integration, the Inter-American Development Bank, and the World Bank. On the same day, Bukele rejected Washington envoy Ricardo Zúñiga’s call to reverse the sacking of the judges, saying the decision was ‘irreversible’.
Imperialism
From the time Bukele entered national politics, his hashtag #devuelvanlorobado (give back what you stole) supported the idea that if domestic politicians didn’t steal, public funding would be sufficient. The real, underlying problem however, is what imperialism steals from the country. A prime target is labour power stolen from El Salvador, with workers forced to migrate mainly to the US. El Salvador is increasingly dependent on remittances of wages from Salvadorans forced to create profits in the US itself. El Salvador received $5.469bn of remittances in 2018, a record and a rise of 8.4% on 2017. Two and a half million of the three million Salvadorans toiling overseas, work in the US, the rest mostly in Spain, Italy and Panama. The 2018 remittances were equivalent to 16% of the GDP, rising 4% in 2019. Remittances plunged 40% at the start of the coronavirus pandemic but recovered to end 2020 at a record high of $5.92bn as extra sums were sent to support their families and have now reached $1.7bn ($1.6bn from the US) in the first quarter of 2021, 30.4% above 2019’s figure. El Salvador’s economy does not create the jobs needed to end poverty and insecurity for the youth. In 2014 Oxfam reported that just 160 Salvadorans owned more than $30m in assets and collectively controlled the equivalent of 87 percent of the GDP. Growth has hovered around 2% for years. Most Salvadoran exports are currently produced in 17 free-trade zones concentrated in textile maquiladora sweatshops owned by US, Korean and Taiwanese capital. The economy is an adjunct of global exploitation by the large imperialist powers.
For ten years after the imposition of the US dollar as the national currency in 2001, the economic growth rate fell. After 2010, with low US dollar interest rates encouraging borrowing, fiscal deficits caused total state debt to grow 92%. In 2020 it was $22.625bn, or 89% of the GDP. The annual budgetary deficit is now 10.1%. Because of Covid-19, El Salvador faced its worst economic recession in the last 40 years in 2020 with a fall in its Gross Domestic Product of 7.9%, by official estimates.
Biden’s policy
Biden’s ‘US-Northern Triangle Enhanced Engagement Act’ plans a five-year strategy to ‘advance prosperity’, ‘combat corruption’, in the ‘Northern Triangle’, aiming to control migration and the reserve army of labour in the US. Currently, Biden’s $4bn ‘Northern Triangle’ fund is the carrot offered to resecure political control in the face of the Chinese government’s 2016 blueprint for its future economic and military relations in Latin America. In August 2018, the then FMLN government broke diplomatic ties with Taiwan and recognised Beijing, which agreed to a three-year assistance programme of $150m toward 13 ongoing infrastructure projects and donated 3,000 tons of rice. El Salvador has made no formal commitment to the invitation to participate in China’s Belt and Road Initiative. Bukele’s application of principles of transparency and open competition undoubtedly present obstacles to projects. In 2017 El Salvador’s imports from China were over 19-times the value of its exports in return. Discussions continue over selling the inactive La Union container port to Chinese companies to build a major free trade zone.
The social crisis
As a result of Covid-19 and climate change, the country has around one million people facing serious food shortages, including 121,000 in acute need. The owners of small plots of land and the casual rural labourers are at highest risk, hit most by the Covid-19 restrictions. This tragedy is behind the surge of migrants to Mexico and the US.
Bukele says he wants El Salvador to be a place for US and other companies to invest. He hopes, with Mexico and other Central American countries, to raise funds ‘to turn the region around’. Bukele’s small business sympathies attracts the middle and lower middle class but stands no chance of removing the ills besetting the majority poor, unless a more radical and internationalist and socialist movement can be built. Energetic and outspoken, Bukele seems trapped in his world of conservative, or bourgeois, ‘socialism’, completely dependent on outside capital. This market led ambition can only lead to frustration, and political desperation as foreign investments force themselves into profitable areas alone, with the burden of interest on debt to imperialist rentiers, and the final need to repay loans.
