It's Not Just El Salvador. Democracies Are Weakening Across Central America.

[Judi Lynn]

BY PATRICIO NAVIA AND LUCAS PERELLÓ | MARCH 1, 2021

Nayib Bukele isn’t the only reason to worry for regional democracies.

For much of Latin America, 2021 will be the year of vaccines and economic recovery. However, the big story for four countries in Central America is likely to be one of continued democratic backsliding.

After his party won an unprecedented majority in El Salvador’s Feb. 28 legislative elections, President Nayib Bukele now looks set to forge ahead with his trademark style of demonizing the opposition and undermining his country’s young democratic institutions. Bukele’s trajectory echoes what has already happened in Nicaragua and Honduras, where elections have consolidated power for autocratic forces – and could do so again later this year. Guatemala also merits concern.

The election in El Salvador confirmed fears that there will soon be few checks left to rein in Bukele’s authoritarian drift. Since the country does not celebrate concurrent presidential and legislative elections, the mandate Bukele earned in the 2019 election did not translate into a majority in Congress. For the past year and a half, opposition lawmakers from the rightist Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA) and the leftist Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) have joined forces to block the president’s legislative initiatives.

Bukele has used extremely harsh language to describe his opponents on Twitter: “ARENA and the FMLN aren’t trash, they are worse than that.” In Feb. 2020, he walked into the legislature flanked by military officers to pressure lawmakers into funding his public security program. A few weeks ago, after shooters killed two FMLN activists and injured another five after a rally in San Salvador, Bukele suggested the FMLN staged the murders.

More:
https://www.americasquarterly.org/article/the-bigger-reason-to-worry-about-nayib-bukele-and-el-salvador/