The president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, promised this Saturday in his inauguration speech for a second consecutive term to “heal” the economy after curing the country of the “cancer” of violence, generated mainly by gang groups.
“Now that we have fixed the most urgent thing, which was security, we are going to focus fully on the important problems, starting with the economy,” Bukele said before hundreds of people, including guests and followers, from the box of the centenary National Palace, in the heart of the Salvadoran capital.
He assured that “Salvadoran society is still sick, but it no longer has cancer,” and that “it is still sick from the other things it has always had,” because “the country has already cured itself of gangs and now wants to cure itself of the bad economy.” .
Bukele’s second term
“In this new treatment to heal the economy, perhaps we also have to take bitter medicine,” he said and said that the three things he needs to do this are “the guidance of God, the tireless work of the Government and for the people to defend their people again.” cloak and dagger each of the decisions that are made, (…) without hesitation.”
According to various surveys, Bukele reached the end of his first term (2019-2024) with a demand from society to solve economic problems, a concern that has displaced the issue of security.
Since March 2022, El Salvador has been under an emergency regime, which suspends constitutional guarantees to combat gangs, after an escalation of homicides and has left some 80,000 arrests of alleged gang members.
Bukele says he cured the “cancer of violence”
With this measure, the president managed to accentuate the reduction in violent deaths that began in 2016, after the impoverished Central American country recorded the most violent year in its recent history with 103 murders per 100,000 inhabitants in 2015.
However, under the Bukele administration this country has remained at the bottom of economic growth in Central America and is highly dependent on family remittances, which annually inject more than 8 billion dollars.
According to official data, the general poverty percentage went from 22.8% to 27.2% of households.
Economy, the great challenge
On the other hand, the public debt as of March 2024 reached 30,000 million dollars, of which 10,500 have been generated by the current one and which has taken more than 1,615 million dollars from the workers’ pension fund since 2023.
This second consecutive term of Bukele occurs despite the fact that the Constitution prohibits it, with the precedent of the dictator and general Maximiliano Hernández Martínez, who governed between 1931 and 1944.
Source: Agencies
