El Salvador president consolidates power amid fears of authoritarianism

[Judi Lynn]

El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, addresses supporters in San Salvador. (Moises Castillo / Associated Press)

By PATRICK J. MCDONNELL, ALEXANDER RENDEROS
MARCH 1, 2021 7:41 PM PT

SAN SALVADOR — A year ago, the president of El Salvador denounced the opposition-controlled congress as a collection of “criminals” and stormed into the legislative palace with heavily armed troops and police in riot gear.
The show of force — a failed attempt to win approval of a $109-million loan for military and law enforcement equipment to crack down on gang violence — was widely assailed as one of the darkest points in El Salvador’s history since a bloody civil war ended in 1992.

Now, it looks as though President Nayib Bukele won’t have to worry anymore about lawmakers thwarting his agenda.
The 39-year-old leader stood in a singular position of power Monday after his party won a landslide victory in mid-term balloting held a day earlier in this Central American nation of 6.5 million.

Initial results showed his New Ideas party set to win 55 of 84 seats in the Legislative Assembly, the country’s unicameral congress. An allied bloc was expected to win an additional five seats, likely giving Bukele the ability to name the attorney general, Supreme Court justices and fill other key posts and pass laws despite any objections from other political parties.

It was a triumph of unprecedented scope since the country emerged from the war — which left more than 75,000 dead — and set out on an uneven path toward democracy.
The victory was so complete that many critics at home and abroad worried of an accelerated drift toward one-man rule by a president who has been accused of authoritarian tendencies.

Left in tatters is the previous system dominated by two major parties, both with origins in the war.
Local media projected that only 14 seats would go to the right-wing Nationalist Republican Alliance, or Arena, which governed the country between 1989 and 2009.

And just four seats were expected to go to the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front, or FMLN, formerly the leftist guerrilla force that fought the U.S.-backed government during the war.

“We are writing the history of our country,” a triumphant Bukele declared Monday in a Twitter message to his more than 2.3 million followers.

More:
https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2021-03-01/in-el-salvador-the-president-consolidates-power-amid-fears-of-growing-authoritarian-tendencies