El Salvador Perspectives

This post attempts to tie together the threads of many developments in the recent news from El Salvador. United States Charge d-affaires, Jean Manes, is leaving El Salvador with a  parting blast  at the Bukele government.  After Bukele's May 1 sacking of supreme court magistrates and the attorney general, the Biden administration sent Manes, who had previously been Ambassador to El Salvador from 2016 to 2019, to deal with the challenging relationship between the countries.  (As of today, Biden still has not named a new ambassador to El Salvador).  On a  morning interview show , Manes spoke of paid media attacks orchestrated by the government against the Embassy, herself, and Joe Biden.   Today the US Statement Department said that Bukele government had  rejected a path  towards a productive bilateral relationship.   Manes' criticism included the proposed Foreign Agents Law in El Salvador. The march towards approval of that mea...

How do you maintain your image as the most popular president doing the coolest things in the world? For Nayib Bukele, that means having a public relations media machine which knows all the tricks in the book. Today I present a case study of one instance earlier this year, where public opinion polling of dubious quality was broadcast far and wide as "real news." On October 4, 2021, news pieces began circulating which announced that the Salvadoran diaspora in the US overwhelmingly supported the re-election of Nayib Bukele as president.  The poll was authored by the Center of Investigations Social and Economic Studies of Central America (CIESCA) and found that 99% of those polled favored a second term for Bukele and 96% agreed that Bitcoin would improve El Salvador's economy.  Soon the results had been shared broadly. The full document can be found here .         A poll which was dubious on its face. The CIESCA poll results, presented in a meeting room...

Today, November 16, 2021, is the 32nd anniversary of the 1989 murder by Salvadoran troops of six Jesuit priests, a female co-worker and her daughter at the José Simeón Cañas University of Central America (UCA) during El Salvador's civil war.  This past year has passed without any developments for the ever more remote possibility that the intellectual authors of the massacre will face justice in a court in El Salvador.  As noted for last year's anniversary , the criminal chamber of El Salvador's Supreme Judicial Court issued a ruling dismissing all charges against the senior military command alleged to have participated in the orders and cover-up of this crime. Nothing has happened to change that result, although the Jesuits at the UCA have charged two of the magistrates involved with malfeasance .   Update:  This morning, November 16, El Salvador's current Attorney General filed a legal pleading with the Constitutional Chamber to set aside the ruling of the c...

The Bukele regime in El Salvador has taken another swipe at its critics this week as the Salvadoran president proposed in the Legislative Assembly a new " Foreign Agents Law ".   Critics say that law is intended to stifle the voices of organizations who point out the authoritarian drift of Bukele's administration and to cut off the ability of the international community to meaningfully support those organizations.    The law has two key components. One part requires the registration of persons and entities who are directly or indirectly funded, or at the direction of, foreign interests.  The second component is a 40% tax on foreign donations to such persons and entities.  Failure to register or to comply with any provision of the Foreign Agents Law can result in cancellation of the legal status of an organization and a fine of up to $10,000.   Excluded are activities characterized as humanitarian, health, religious, academic, scientific ...

Here is a collection of recent English language news coverage of events in El Salvador. International Monetary Fund negotiations The Salvadoran government needs a $1.3 billion IMF loan to fund itself going forward.   The IMF has conditions it may place on such a loan. IMF meets Salvadoran delegation in Washington  (Reuters, Nov. 10) Decisive Loan for the Bitcoin Country (El Faro English, Nov. 5) El Salvador needs policy changes to advance IMF program - Fund spokesman (Reuters, Nov. 4) Bitcoin The fascination with Bitcoin in El Salvador continues. El Salvador President Nayib Bukele says he will use some of his country's bitcoin profits to build 20 schools  (Markets Insider, Nov. 3, 2021) El Salvador Pours Bitcoin Profits Into Health and Education Amid Ongoing Chivo Wallet Fraud Furor  (Pymnts.com, Nov. 5, 2021) Does Bitcoin provide the relief that El Salvador sorely needs?  (International Banker) Dismantling democracy is antithetical to Bitcoin  (El F...

October was the deadliest month of the COVID pandemic in El Salvador according to official government statistics.  Despite the surge of cases of the virus in this third wave of contagion in the country, the government stayed the course with its plan to vaccinate its way out of the pandemic starting with the arrival of the first shipments of vaccine into the country in February.   Bars, restaurants, churches and sporting events remained open. The government regularly posts the totals of first, second and third dose vaccinations administered on a daily basis.   As of yesterday, November 8,  4,348,302 - have received at least one dose 3,923,083 - have received two doses 476,490 - have received a third booster shot According to Salvadoran government figures from the EHPM study , the population of El Salvador is approximately 6.7 million, and there are approximately 600,000 children ages 5 and under who are not yet eligible to receive the vaccines. Thus 64.9% ...

Nayib Bukele's time in office has been marked by the promotion of major public works projects.   Promised developments such as a new international airport in the east of the country, a train system, hospitals and a satellite are announced with careful attention to marketing and promotion.  If all the projects underway and proposed are completed, they will mark a major increase in such public works compared to much of the past twenty years under ARENA and FMLN governments.  And that is the point which the Bukele marketing machine makes again and again. What follows is a list of most of the largest projects with an update on their current status.   The projects announced to great fanfare but not yet being built  The international airport in the eastern part of the country .  From the earliest point in his presidential campaign, Bukele promised a modern international airport to be built in La Union in the eastern region of El Salvador.  The gove...

Two legislative deputies from the Nuevas Ideas party of Salvadoran president Nayib Bukele are being suspended from the party and publicly labelled traitors to Bukele's political movement. The abrupt action by the leadership of Nuevas Ideas came with disclosures that not everyone donning the blue and white "N" may be in agreement, dissension which Bukele and his allies are blaming on US interference. The internal divisions came to light on October 30 when Nuevas Ideas announced that it was suspending two of its deputies in the Legislative Assembly, José García and Gerardo Aguilar, pending an investigation. The announcement was cited with approval by president Nayib Bukele, and other top party officials, as well as the president of the Legislative Assembly, Ernesto Castro.   Nuevas Ideas made public an audio recording where voices are heard discussing concerns with the party's actions in the Assembly.   Nuevas Ideas proclaimed that Garcia and Aguilar had betraye...

Two of the leading emphases of the Bukele government have been its response to the COVID-19 pandemic and its roll-out of Bitcoin as legal tender with a government-promoted Chivo wallet app. Whether you agree with those policies or not, the government has declared most of the information around those policies to be confidential information not to be revealed to the public. When the government says it is doing a world-class job managing the pandemic, it withholds the information necessary to verify the claim. When the government says millions of Salvadorans are using the Chivo wallet app and the country is benefiting, it declines to share the underlying financial information. Here is a selection of the unanswered questions about COVID response and the Chivo wallet.  This is information which would promote transparency and increase trust around pandemic response and the government's Bitcoin initiatives. COVID-19 Since the official COVID death toll only includes persons with a COV...