El Salvador Perspectives

While I am not a fan of beauty pageants, clearly others are .   This week the 2023 Miss Universe pageant is taking place in El Salvador.  It is another of the sweeping image-making projects of which president Nayib Bukele is so fond. The Miss Universe pageant came to El Salvador once before in 1975. At that time, the country was run by an unholy alliance of an oligarchy and the military.  The country brought in a contest of beauties with sights of sun and beautiful beaches in an attempt to improve its image during a year which saw massacres, repressions and unrest in the lead-up to the approaching civil war. As the New York Post wrote today: The last time that organizers held a Miss Universe pageant in El Salvador, in 1975, rioting students staged demonstrations that ultimately ended in a massacre and plunged the country into a brutal civil war.... Meanwhile, San Salvador locals are protesting the national government having spent a reported $12 million in public f...

The adoption of Bitcoin as legal tender in El Salvador has not created a financial bonanza for El Salvador.  Instead, El Salvador's Bitcoin trading, led by its Bitcoin-cyber bro president, has accumulated $18 million USD  in unrealized losses, and the country's credit rating on world financial markets has fallen through the floor.  The International Monetary Fund urges Bukele to reverse course, and the likelihood of needed loan funding from the IMF seems ever more remote. All of this has produced an abundance of negative commentary in the world press.   Today, only the Bitcoin maximalists seem to be unreserved fans of Bukele's Bitcoin gambit.   Here is a collection of recent articles: Nayib Bukele trades bitcoin naked. El Salvador is paying the price  (Wash. Post, Jan. 26) El Salvador was the first country to adopt Bitcoin. It might be the first to go broke, too  (Miami Herald, Jan. 26)  Bitcoin Trades Add to El Salvador’s Sovereign Risk...

My most recent post described the newly-released draft of a proposed overhaul to the constitution of El Salvador prepared by the so-called Ad Hoc Group led by Vice President Felix Ulloa .   In that post I highlighted a variety of proposals in the area of individual human rights which made progressive changes in the list of protected interests, from LGBTQ rights to the human right to water, which are absent in the current 1983 constitution. But this list of rights can only be meaningful and enforceable if there is a true separation of powers with independent institutions and, especially, a strong and independent judiciary.   Since Nayib Bukele’s ascension into the presidency, however, there has been a continual assault on the judicial system and the independence of those other branches of the government which could act as a check on a president’s powers. So when a commission backed by Nayib Bukele proposes an extensive revision of El Salvador's constitution, serious ...

The ballots appear to be ready for El Salvador's upcoming elections in four weeks on February 28 for members of congress and mayors.   With 9 parties competing, Salvadorans will be faced with complex ballots in the larger departments.     The ballot which was last finalized is the ballot for legislative deputies from the largest department, San Salvador, after one candidate from Nayib Bukele's Nuevas Ideas party was banned from participation.  The Constitutional Chamber of El Salvador's Supreme Judicial Court ruled that Walter Araujo could not appear on the ballot for deputy in San Salvador Department under the flag of Nuevas Ideas.   The court ruled that the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) had failed to take required steps for verification that Araujo was of "Notoria Honradez" --  good character.    The petition before the court was brought by attorney Bertha María  Deleón who is a candidate for deputy for the new Nuestro...