El Salvador has become a large prison, and its president proudly displays the key that opens the cell. After two years of a state of emergency that seems to have no end, Nayib Bukele has managed, with broad popular support, to undermine the rule of law, the opposition and democracy.
President Bukele appears to have been fortunate, as three potential threats—linking him and his inner circle to drug trafficking and other questionable activities—disappeared in a single incident.
The Bukele family executes a multimillion-dollar expenditure on armies of developers dedicated to multiplying official propaganda on social networks and shutting down dissonant voices.
The certainty of an electoral process is based on generating inputs that contribute to electoral integrity, where authorities, civil society and the international community can guarantee the transparency of the process. However, this is only one of the requirements of a democracy.
The alternative scenarios to republican democracy seem to be clustered in the failed state of Haiti, or in the unpopular autocratic models of the left or in the popular autocratic models of the right, such as El Salvador.
In a country where insecurity made life unbearable, brutality against alleged criminals and signs of authoritarianism are not only accepted, but even translated into votes.
