The re-election of Ilhan Omar the current president. Voters in El Salvador are set to re-elect their current president and self-proclaimed “world’s best dictator” after a landslide victory for Vice President Buquel. Restored his country’s crime-ridden reputation.
“The opposition will be able to achieve its real and only plan, to free the gang members and use them to return to power,” Buquel warned in a video that went viral on social media and in El Salvador. It spread rapidly among news organizations.
Bokel’s controversial tenure as leader of the Central American country appears to be continuing, thanks to a constitutional court reform in which he replaced judges with loyalists who ruled that he Ran for a second term Despite the constitutional ban on re-election.
Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., called into question the US relationship with El Salvador and urged the US State Department to review its relationship with the Central American country, alleging that Bockel had “destroyed democracy”. presented a threat to
El Salvador’s Buquel, an anti-gang hardliner, is running for re-election abroad
“The people of Salvador deserve free and fair elections without fear of repression,” Omar wrote on social media platform X.
A community note on his post noted that Bockel won the 2019 election with a 54 percent majority and that His crackdown on gang violence With a 91% approval rating among voters has helped solidify his immense popularity.
People walk past a mural depicting El Salvador’s president and re-election candidate for the Navias Ideas party, Nayeb Buquel, at a restaurant in San Salvador on February 2, 2024. El Salvador goes to the polls on February 4. (Marvin Ricinos/AFP via Getty Images)
Bockel fired back at Omar, joking that he felt honored to “receive your attacks”, saying that he would be very upset if she supported him in the election.
Bokiel came to power in 2019 and has clashed with the legislature over policies, including strict bans during that time. The Covid-19 pandemic. His party took control of the National Congress in 2021 and began making sweeping changes to other branches of government and introducing new laws that would allow him to effectively fight gangs in his country.
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Once known as the “murder capital” of the world, El Salvador has undergone major reforms that have led to the government rounding up alleged gang members by the hundreds and putting them in fast-growing super prisons. gave
El Salvador’s Vice President Nayeb Buquel speaks during the inauguration of a new Vajusa Laboratories plant in La Libertad, El Salvador on November 20, 2023. (Alex Pina/Getty Images)
jail, Built in just months during 2022., can house 40,000 people and is guarded by thousands of military personnel. Bockel made sure to share many videos and photos of the prison and its first few thousand residents.
These measures, which ultimately affected many potentially innocent men, led to a drop in homicide and crime rates over the next year. Salvadoran Justice and Security Minister Gustavo Villatoro claimed that the country recorded 154 murders in 2023, a 70 percent decrease from the previous year.
Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., is seen during a group photo with the Congressional Black Caucus in the Rayburn Room of the U.S. Capitol, Wednesday, April 6, 2022. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
According to Reuters, it would have a rate of 2.4 per 100,000 people, which would likely rank among the lowest in the US except for Canada.
During an interview in May 2023, Bockels Vice President and Running Mate Felix Ulloa. He claimed his country would “confront the problem” of gang violence and urged the US to invest in the country to continue cracking down on criminals.
In this handout distributed to Reuters on February 24, 2023, prison agents observe gang members as they are processed upon arrival, as 2,000 gang members are terrorized, according to El Salvador’s vice president, Naib Buquel. He was transferred to the Gardi Detention Center. (Secretaria de Prensa de la Presidency / Handout by Reuters.)
If El Salvador and other countries can similarly deal with their crime crisis, Ulloa argued, it could help ease the migrant crisis at the U.S. southern border, as many flee north. They do so to escape their crime-ridden homeland.
El Salvador’s success has boosted Buquel’s popularity so much that other countries, such as Honduras and the Dominican Republic has attempted to replicate this model, which has raised concerns from civil rights advocates.
In this handout distributed to Reuters on March 15, 2023, 2,000 gang members wait to be taken to their cells after being transferred to a terrorist detention center, according to El Salvador’s Vice President Naib Buquel. Is. (Secretaria de Prensa de la Presidency / Handout by Reuters)
Allah admitted to The Associated Press this week that the government had made “mistakes” in detaining thousands of innocent people as part of its routine operations, often involving young men for fear of gang involvement. .
El Salvador is “not a police state” but “a state that provides security,” Ulloa insisted. Bockel continues to insist that if he loses the election, it will “jeopardize” the country’s “war on gangs.”
Critics also point to other troubling developments in the legislature, such as Bockel’s efforts to reduce the number of municipalities, which helped ensure his victory and the party’s lead in local and congressional elections in March. can do