El Salvador has been experiencing days of violence and tension since the Legislative Assembly, controlled by the country’s leader, Nayib Bukele, approved, on the 27th, an exception regime for a month. The measure was taken after a huge episode of violence, in which 62 homicides were committed by gang members.
Bukele’s answer was not far behind. The government released images of semi-naked prisoners, forced to remain seated and close to each other, with the threat that they would suffer the consequences of what “their partners do outside”, with rationed food and “without seeing more sunlight”. .
For José Miguel Vivanco, lawyer and former director for the Americas at the NGO Human Rights Watch, who spoke to sheet over the phone, Bukele acts like a mobster and jeopardizes the legitimacy of the state.
How do you see the authoritarian rise of Nayib Bukele? The logic that the popularity of those who came to power is equivalent to legitimacy is increasingly being imposed in Latin America. The two factors have come to represent the same thing for high-approved leaders like Bukele. [81%, segundo a mais recente pesquisa Mitofsky]. It is enough for research to show that the leader is popular for the government to feel with complete legitimacy to govern as it wishes. And if the press, the opposition or anyone else questions a policy, a decision, this government’s argument for overturning the criticism will be to ask “who are you?” and “what credential do you have?” and say “because I’m popular”.
Thus, the leader claims to represent the majority sentiment of the population, justifying the legitimacy of what he is doing. This is tremendously dangerous, because if you resolve with arguments from majorities or minorities everything that involves democratic norms of conduct — such as questions of fundamental rights and respect for the separation of powers — it means that we are in trouble.
Misuse of popularity, therefore, is bad for democracy. Yes, because if this temporary majority is enough for a government to decide to go to war, to exercise power in an abusive way or to declare a state of emergency, serious setbacks are beginning to occur. After all, the fundamental idea of ​​a rule of law, which respects public liberties, the work and the role of other powers, must be the basis of a democratic system in which citizens have their rights respected.
One cannot, as in a Roman circus, ask people “do we execute this gentleman or do we forgive his life?”, “do we go to war or not?”, “do we expel such and such churches?”, “do we kill homosexuals?”, because this system that puts popularity above all else serves to legitimize extreme abuse.
Governing only with criteria of popularity breaks the foundations of the rule of law, and this the international community must reject. Because, after that, it escalates to other abuses, such as lack of transparency, more violation of basic rights, less free public debate and persecution of the media. In other words: more caudillismo and less democracy. This is what is happening in El Salvador.
But this popularity is supported by the fact that the “maras” [grupos criminosos] are a real threat to the security of Salvadorans, correct? Certainly, El Salvador’s massive public safety problem is real. The “maras” are now superpowered. These are very dangerous criminal entities that, through fear and extortion, subjugate important parts of the population. Many popular sectors in El Salvador are under the control of these groups, which brutally exercise their power, recruit minors and extort traders. They are mafias and they need to be confronted. Any government has an obligation to organize a policy that is aimed at dismantling these groups.
Therefore, Bukele’s speech, in general terms, to Salvadorans is seductive. Yes, when people see that there is a real danger that affects their safety, they feel fear. Then a leader like Bukele appears, who promises them that he will apply [as polÃticas com] iron hand. This is an attractive speech. But when Bukele says that there will be no judges or other institutions that oversee the correct application of the law, that is, that an innocent person will not be condemned for being confused with someone from the “mara”, he starts to act outside the law. The risk of human rights violations by the public force, arbitrariness with people who have no ties to these groups, is open.
Is Bukele confused about how the State acts? I don’t know if it’s confused or if it’s done on purpose. The point is that, when he tries to justify these draconian measures against the “maras”, for example by saying that those in prison will pay for the atrocities committed by the criminals outside, he is using the same strategy as a mafia leader or drug trafficker. How does the mafia work? It grabs a guy and threatens his family, his partners who are away. This is the role of a mafioso, not the role of the state. A State does not act with vengeance, but applying justice.
The State must always be in a position to protect, to protect its legitimacy from the mafias. You cannot resort to the same practices. The State has a monopoly on the use of force and must use it to dismantle mafias and violent groups, not to become one of them. This is not sustainable and causes the state to lose its moral superiority over criminals.
How can this situation escalate? Sooner or later, what will happen is to give more fuel to conflict and violence. Over time, groups that currently support Bukele for economic reasons, seeing that the country starts to suffer possible sanctions or penalties that affect their business, will move away from him, which will complicate their stability. And it will no longer have legitimacy as a state, because it has lowered itself to being and acting like the mafia. The State cannot sit idly by the “maras” in any way. What the citizen aspires to is for someone to guarantee their security, but the guarantee of security cannot be given by the military and police who act in a similar way to the mafias.
Would citizens go from support to distrust? Yes. In order for citizens to feel free and able to cooperate with the authorities, they need to understand that the authority will value this collaboration, that it will not treat them as suspects or criminals, that it will have the ability to investigate the cases they present. No citizen will trust a State that works an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.
To a lesser extent, it can be said that this has been happening in Mexico as well, with President Andrés Manuel López Obrador despising institutions based on their popularity. [64%, segundo recente pesquisa Mitofsky]? Yes, to a lesser extent. AMLO [como ele é conhecido] is someone who feels that their decisions are based on two elements. First, that he came to power with an avalanche of support, and second, that polls still show him as a highly popular leader.
That popularity is the oxygen that allows him to get on stage and attack the Supreme Court, threaten and stigmatize anyone as corrupt, and call a referendum to try former presidents. He does all this because his popularity gives him strength. The exercise of power that is based on approval ratings in practice leaves leaders blind, and they become radicalized like caudillos. From there, they feel that the rule of law, public liberties, independent media, civil society and the international community are, in practice, obstacles, impediments that stand between the people, represented by him —by AMLO, in this case—and the possibility of achieving your goals.
It is a messianic position. He practically believes himself to be an envoy of God and representative of the good. But Mexico’s situation is not as serious as El Salvador’s, because Mexico has greater institutional strength. It is not a perfect democracy, but it has independent institutions of control, justice and Congress. El Salvador does not. The same would say of Bolsonaro. His period will have been a stressful period for Brazilian democracy, which is not perfect either, but I believe that democratic institutions —Brazil’s federal structure, the work of the Federal Supreme Court, the media, civil society— have been resilient enough , show themselves capable of resisting the worst clashes with one of those governments that come to power through democratic means and, soon after, try to legitimize their practices and policies resorting to the argument that, if the people ask for it, and they are the majority, then they will are licensed to govern arbitrarily, as is happening now.
x-ray | Jose Miguel Vivanco, 61
Former director of the Americas division of the NGO Human Rights Watch and a specialist in Latin America, he worked as a lawyer for the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR). In 1990, he founded the Center for Justice and International Law. Born in Chile, he graduated in law from the University of Chile and has a master’s degree in the same area from the Harvard Law School.
