By Agencies
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Nearly 2½ years into a state of emergency that has suspended key civil liberties in El Salvador, President Nayib Bukele says the security advances achieved are sustainable without what was supposed to be a temporary measure.
Each month, El Salvador’s congress, which is comfortably controlled by Bukele’s New Ideas party and its allies, approves another extension of the state of emergency.
The justification from officials is that more needs to be done to eliminate the country’s once-powerful street gangs.
“In the near future, we hope to lift the state of exception, return to normal constitutional processes, and maintain the peace we’ve achieved through regular judicial and law enforcement activities,” Bukele told Time magazine in an interview published Thursday.
More than 81,000 people have been arrested and jailed without due process.
Human rights organizations have denounced deaths in custody of people and many arrests of people without gang ties. But improved security has changed people’s lives in El Salvador after years of living under the thumb of gangs.
In the interview, Bukele put some numbers on the path to lifting the suspension of some civil liberties, including access to a lawyer, being allowed to gather and to be informed of one’s rights.
The president said his administration estimated there were 8,000 to 9,000 gang members left, noting that some of those may have fled the country.
Once there were only 3,000 or 4,000, Bukele said the gangs wouldn’t be able to muster enough people to re-form.
Bukele is very active on social platforms and has an extensive communications team to get out his message, but rarely sits for interviews.
Bukele also said that he would not seek reelection to a third consecutive term.
El Salvador’s constitution bars reelection, but Bukele received a favorable interpretation from the Supreme Court in 2021 that cleared the way for his reelection in February.
“We have an agreement with my wife that this is my last term,” he said in the interview.
MEXICO
After protesters blocked the entrance to Mexico’s Congress on Tuesday in an attempt to stop a controversial judicial overhaul, lawmakers took the first steps to jam through the proposal at a nearby gymnasium.
The plan would make judges stand for election, something critics say would deal a severe blow to the independence of the judiciary and the system of checks and balances.
The overhaul has fueled a wave of protests by judges, court employees and students across Mexico in recent weeks, and reached another inflection point on Tuesday when protesters strung ropes across entrances to the lower house of Congress to block legislators from entering.
That came as the country’s Supreme Court voted 8-3 to join strikes, adding more weight to the protests.
“The party with the majority could take control of the judicial branch, and that would practically be the end of democracy,” said protester Javier Reyes, a 37-year-old federal court worker.
“They want to own Mexico.”
Despite that, lawmakers from Mexico’s governing party, Morena, and their allies appeared determined to quickly pass the reform.
Unable to meet at the congressional building, they instead gathered in a sweltering gymnasium about 3 miles (5 kilometers) away to begin the voting process.
The party’s strong majority in a recently inaugurated Congress is paving the way for the reform to sail through the process with relative ease.
The proposal was met by hours of fierce debate Tuesday night after workers laid out grapes, juices and other snacks in a congressional session reminiscent of a summer camp.
As Morena politicians said they were building a justice system that would be an example globally, opposition lawmakers from the National Action Party (PAN) railed on the governing party.
“We should inaugurate a wall of shame that says: ‘Today begins the fall of our Republic.’ And it should have the date and all the faces of the Morena congressmen,” shouted Paulina Rubio Fernández, a PAN congresswoman, surrounded by other members of her party.
Rubio Fernández accused the president and his party of “lying” to get a majority in Congress, while another colleague in her party warned Morena was “shooting itself in the foot” by passing the reform.
Outside, a pack of protesters roared, blocking streets and demanding lawmakers hear their objections to the proposal.
The constitutional reforms submitted by outgoing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and Morena have drawn criticism both domestically and from foreign governments and investors. López Obrador, a populist who has long been at odds with the judiciary and other independent regulatory agencies, maintains the proposal is necessary to fight corruption.
VENEZUELA
The world’s attention on Venezuela has been focused in the last weeks on the fallout from a highly contested presidential election that both the ruling party and its opponents claim to have won, the ensuing persecution of critics and the arrest warrant against the former opposition presidential candidate.
But as political tensions escalate, President Nicolás Maduro decided there was a more important matter to discuss: Christmas and the need to kick off the jolly season a tad early this year. In October, to be precise.
“It’s September, and it already smells like Christmas,” Maduro said Monday night during his weekly television show. “That’s why this year, as a way of paying tribute to you all, and in gratitude to you all, I’m going to decree an early Christmas for October 1.”
But not everyone seems eager to start singing Christmas carols.
“Christmas is supposed to be a time of joy, family reunions, parties, presents,” José Ernesto Ruiz, a 57-year-old office worker, said Tuesday in Caracas, the capital. ”(But) without money and with this political crisis, who can believe that there will be an early Christmas?”
This is not the first time that Maduro, in power since 2013, has declared the early arrival of Christmas. He did so during the COVID-19 pandemic, but never this early. Also, this year the political mood is particularly tense, even if Maduro said the season will come “with peace, happiness and security.”
Ruling party-loyal electoral authorities declared Maduro the winner of the July 28 election without showing any detailed results to back up their claim as they did in previous presidential elections.
But the lack of transparency has drawn international condemnation against Maduro and his allies, while the main opposition faction has presented electronic copies of its own electoral tallies showing that its candidate, Edmundo González got the most votes.
Just hours before Maduro’s holiday announcement, a Venezuelan judge issued an arrest warrant for González, a former diplomat, accusing him of various crimes including conspiracy, falsifying documents and usurpation of powers.
Protests against Maduro’s proclamation erupted after the election, and the government responded by arresting several people. More than 2,000 people — including journalists, politicians and aid workers — have been arrested since then.
“We are all worried about how we are going to put food on the table, how we are going to pay for the bus, send the children to school and buy medicine when we need it,” said Inés Quevedo, a 39-year-old secretary and mother of two children.
“I don’t think they will improve our salaries or pay us the ‘aguinaldo’,” she added, referring to the Christmas bonuses that workers usually receive at the end of the year.
The minimum wage has not changed since 2022: 130 bolivars per month, or about $3.55. Workers also earn a monthly food assistance bonus of about $40, and those who have signed up for a system of government benefits get an additional $90.
