San Salvador. The Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele yesterday justified the action of absorbing the Judiciary by affirming that no opponent who won elections in Venezuela, Nicaragua or Honduras, would keep the judges imposed by the autocratic governments.
Through his Twitter account, emulating Donald Trump’s strategy by turning said platform into a kind of boxing ring, Bukele wrote: “If the opposition wins in Nicaragua, they would leave the Sandinista Court and Prosecutor. If the opposition manages to win in Honduras, they would leave the Court and Prosecutor of JOH (initials of President Juan Orlando Hernández). If the opposition wins in Venezuela, they would leave the Chavismo Court and Prosecutor. I mean, because of the balance of forces ”.
On Saturday night, pro-government deputies voted to dismiss the attorney general and the magistrates of the highest court of justice, a decision that the international community criticized and expressed concern.
Yesterday’s editorial in the newspaper La Prensa reflects the surroundings of Bukele’s decision: “The ruling party threatens the rule of law in El Salvador. He does it out of authoritarian aspiration, with an undemocratic fury that has been accentuated in the last year with regard to the pandemic ”.
Identifying himself as a victim of criticism from the opposition and in various parts of the world, Bukele turned to the political history of his country to justify his coup: “Here it took us 30 years to throw out the regime that had us in misery, in corruption, in insecurity and hopelessness. They negotiated with the life of the people and ordered assassinations from the institutions (there are videos of that). The people did not send us to negotiate. They go. Everyone”.
Crafty examples
Félix Ulloa, vice president of El Salvador, defended Bukele from criticism from abroad. Through an example about the presidency of Donald Trump. Ulloa considered “double standards” to criticize the actions of the ruling Assembly since these voices were silent due to appointments that occurred during Trump’s term, although these were due to different reasons.
Specifically, Ulloa mentioned the appointment of Amy Coney Barett, proposed by President Trump, to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg. This occurred after Bader passed away in September 2020. Unlike the appointments made by the Salvadoran Assembly last Saturday, Coney was appointed to replace a magistrate who had previously died.
Likewise, Ulloa also referred to Jeff Sessions, who served as US attorney general from February 2017 to November 2018. However, Sessions was also not removed from office, but resigned at the request of Trump. Faced with his resignation, Congress appointed his replacement, William Barr.
In his thread of tweets, Ulloa complains: “For a superpower there are no accusations, but for a small country that begins to exercise the sovereignty of its people and free itself from the chains with which the elites, politicians and corrupt officials had it submitted to him come out hypocrites and prudes.
The United States, the European Union and multilateral organizations such as the OAS have shown their concern about what happened in El Salvador.
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