María* sells sweets and handicrafts on a street stall in El Salvador. present she made only $10 – it's an highly mediocre payoff and only half the amount she usually earns – an average of $20, although if she's lucky, sometimes 25.
– Sales are going poorly. There is simply a tourist traffic in the area, but here, to the village, people do not come – he says in an interview with openDemocracy on the marketplace in Osicala, a tiny village in the Morazán region in the east of El Salvador. The village is distant from the capital, San Salvador, by 4 hours on a winding road among volcanoes and fruit stalls. It is 110 kilometres distant from the Conchagua volcano, where president Nayib Bukele promised to build a bitcoin-free town – a tax-free technological bonanza. If this ambitious task is to come true, these places will shortly seem millions of miles apart.
The economy is deteriorating, María tells us. Cost of the basic basket of food products – monthly supply of essential products for 4 people – in the last 4 years increased by about $50 and now accounts for almost 3 quarters of the $258 minimum wage ($365, since 2001 the US dollar is the authoritative currency in El Salvador).
– Everyone says it, the prices are besides high," says María. On Sunday 4 February, she voted again for president Bukel – self-appointed “coolest dictator in the world”. The winner was 84.6 percent of the votes, although 48 percent of the eligible people did not vote, and his fresh Ideas organization won 54 of 60 seats in Congress, sweeping the opposition off the board.
Election results challenged, although unsuccessfully, citing that the Constitution of El Salvador does not let the re-election of the President, and that there were irregularities in the counting of the votes, which ceased abruptly on election night, and so there were complaints that not all votes had been counted.
However, Bukele's re-election was not a surprise. Although it is frequently heard that his constituents complain of officials and officers, blaming them for the mediocre state of the economy, the president himself seems to have been impeached for criticism. No one's reached the level of Bukele. He brings only good ideas, but people do not always realize him – a taxi driver told me the day before the election.
Bukeley's top accomplishment was to break the gang structure that over decades They actually ruled the country.. According to authoritative data during his term, the number of murders decreased by over 60%, and in 2023 the country noted the lowest ratio in its past (2.4 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants). “The president succeeded,” says María. It never went out before. Now we feel more confident, you can walk freely on the streets, go for a walk in the park.
Such voices are heard in both urban and agrarian areas of this smallest and densest Central American country, where 6.3 million people live. They are always accompanied by a individual communicative about what life was like in gang times and what has changed since then – blockages and roadblocks have disappeared from streets and roads, no more weekly labour is paid. safety policy led by Bukele, who put more than 75,000 people in prison and introduced an endless state of emergency, allowing for a recognized and endless arrest, began to enjoy fame in Latin America, where he finds More and moreimitators.
– Bukele is like a savior to us, individual whom God has sent us to save us from this criminal cataclysm – 1 of his supporters told me after leaving the election place. The President's popularity is reinforced by a powerful propaganda device operating on social media, where it is created as an influencer.
But the more crime falls, the more others become aware pain. Weak growth economic, utmost poverty, which now covers around 80 000 fresh families (i.e. almost 9% of the population, of which 30% are poor), and half of the population of the country devoid food security.
Behind the scenes of a bitcoin dream
In 2021 by the Bitcoin Act legalized in the country of cryptocurrency. A fewer months later, it became clear that their impact on regular life in El Salvador would be low.
At the time the government opened up to cryptocurrency, according to estimates Issue over $100 million to acquisition Bitcoins from classified funds, Bukele announced a number of immense projects in the east department of La Unión: Pacific Railway, Pacific Airport, and yet the Bitcoin City, tax-free property based on cryptocurrency, drawing power from the geothermal energy of the Conchagua volcano.
None of these projects have been implemented so far. The deadline for their implementation is unknown, and the full communities are already at hazard of displacement. Far from the country’s capital and the public’s eyes, hundreds of families are preparing for decades of fighting for these areas. The government sweeps the problem under the carpet, focusing on utopia, which is to grow on bitcoins.
– Since the Bitcoin Act entered into force, speculation on the real property marketplace has increased enormously," said César Artiga, a human rights defender and typical of the planet Wide Appeal for Action to Fight poorness in his interview with the openDemocracy. (Global Call to Action Against Poverty, GCAP). "The government has announced respective immense projects aimed at looting the land. An alliance was formed between the alleged bitcoiners, foreigners lured by taxation privileges and the anticipation of not disclosing sources of capital and cane growers [who have owned the most land in El Salvador for centuries—among them]. any already feel this effect, and the people of La Unión say the government is trying to disembark them.
Erme Martínez, a farmer from the village of Flor de Mangle, located on the scrapie of the municipality of Conchagua, where they were promised to build a Pacific Airport, has a recording of a visit from government officials who gathered people from the neighbourhood and said they would give people money to decision out. Only that the amounts offered were considerably lower than the values of local residents' houses, and according to Martínez, they did not let the acquisition of akin land elsewhere. The government says that those who invest here are improving the country. What do we get from these investments? This year there was no support for agriculture, the government does not care about it – says Martínez, erstwhile we stand on the ground on which the government wants to build a runway.
Others besides complain about the deficiency of support for local agricultural production and the urge to bring food from outside. “It will all disappear,” says Martínez, pointing to plantations. The construction of an airport in this wet, swampy, overgrown area will require immense investments, coming from inactive undetermined sources, although the government claims that the process is already underway. At various places in La Unión, signs and posters appear announcing projects or simply saying that any areas, until late utilized together, become private property.
Ángel Flores, leader Indigenous Residents Movement for Integration of the Ancestors of El Salvador (MILPA), established in 2023 to support the communities affected by the planned investments, believes that they are simply a cover for changing land improvement plans, retraining plots to areas of public interest, then selling them and utilizing them for another purposes, specified as tourist infrastructure.
On El Icacal beach, José Marvin and Esmeralda Minero, a pair of crab fishermen, are afraid that they will shortly not have access to sea-covered fishing sites where dense machinery is already working. – Crabs fish off the shore, but it becomes impossible erstwhile machines and people revolve around – says Marvin. Why, then, did he vote for Bukile in February? - Bukele got free of the gangs and that's good for us. Now I easy scope communities that I could not trade with before – he explains. Minero didn't vote for anyone. “The government helps the poor, before [gangs] utilized to impose rackets on us. And that's great, he says. – But too that, we did not benefit from this government. Nobody cares about us here. They forgot about us.
In Conchagua, where Bitcoin City is to be established, local residents say that representatives of companies claiming to have bought land from cooperatives are already here. These local associations received this land as part of the reforms introduced during the civilian War which took place in El Salvador from 1980 to 1992. By moving through unpaved streets and roads, it is easy to see abandoned homes.
Debt machine
According to economist José Luis Magañi, prof. at Universidad Centroamerican University, all this momentum of immense projects hides the brutal reality: – Bukele has no plans as such, his full economical policy is improvisation.
During the pandemic, the government granted a generous hand subsidies And he got active in any public utility projects, but that ended it. “It wasn’t until last year that signals began to appear where it was going; a tourism-oriented policy and attracting capital could be seen,” adds Magaña. – However, many actions taken so far are based on debt borrowing.
Bukeley's government has incurred a public debt of Almost $9 billion, and last year the full country debt reached $28.6 billion – over 80% of national GDP. This means that during his first five-year term, Bukele incurred 1 3rd of the national debt. However, lenders have changed. Limited access to global markets has made the government decided the acquisition of funds by Treasury bills called LETES and operated from savings collected in banks and pension funds, which, as Magaña claims, can thus be drained of funds. Many people fear that this is simply a bubble that will crack during Bukel's second term.
The president is presently seeking a $1.3 billion debt to be granted by the global Monetary Fund (IMF), alternatively forcing fiscal concessions on the government, and possibly even changes to the Bitcoin Act. According to IMF projections this year growth In this country, it will be only 1.9%, which is 1 of the lowest indicators in the region.
El Salvador faces structural constraints. In addition to the dollar-oriented economy, there are not many natural resources and most foods import. One 4th of GDP it is money sent to the country by more than 2 million migrants working in the United States – they are the main origin of income for many families. “The president does not care about changing the situation,” says Magaña. – The baker who has stopped paying the gang hare now has more money at his disposal, nevertheless he inactive depends on imported wheat.
Magaña believes that there will be a emergence in the country in the revolt of poorness and unemployment. “The economy will become a burden for the government,” he says and adds, “if the president does not solve the financial problems with conventional mechanisms specified as a debt from the IMF, he can decide to usage cryptocurrency and start paying authoritative salaries in the form of tokens. – Finally, the government can start releasing its own currency as the last lifeline.
However, if material conditions do not change, even improving safety will not help. The control of the full areas of the country of the gangs were broken, but the state failed to fill the gap thus created, without investing in education, wellness protection or social policies. Specialists are afraid that the deficiency of planned action to eradicate the phenomenon of gangs – which is based on the deficiency of youth education and the deficiency of employment opportunities among young people – can contribute to the reconstruction of criminal networks.
Rina Montti, manager of human rights investigation for Cristosal, as well as human rights activist Artiga, points to the presence of militia remnants in areas formerly controlled by gangs, as well as a persistent problem related to drug smuggling. Published on Insight Crime website report states: ‘Unprecedented power in the hands of the safety services suspected the past [e.g. those that were part of the death squads during the civilian war] may make conditions in which state officials carry out criminal activities or usage criminal gang residues.”
– erstwhile you go to these areas, you can see that drugs are inactive present in the communities," says Artiga. – But since the smuggling was handled by gangs and the gangs were broken up, how is it that drug trafficking continues? Who took over the business?
Abandoned lands
Bukele was a publicist in his father's agency, only then turned to politics, where he initially acted in the left-wing Liberation Front of the National Name Farabundo Martí (FMLN). But now his presence in the eyes of the public is so powerfully marked that even posters and electoral advertisements with his image no longer appear. His last run focused on getting as many parliamentary seats as possible.
Official communications portrayed people of power as those who put an end to inept governments and corruption. Outside the country's capital, political posters appeared even little frequently. But it was rather common to see blue and white billboards, in the colours of the Bukele party, announcing public works or projects in the course of implementation along with the slogan and its motto: "Money is adequate if no 1 steals". The announcements are besides stamped by the Department of Municipal Public Works (in Spanish: DOM).
The DOM established in 2021 manages the part of the budget that the government erstwhile passed to municipalities. These funds finance public works construction projects, and now mayors gotta apply for funds and wait for their approval, they cannot approve the works themselves. This deprived local authorities of both resources and power.
The changes were accompanied by anti-corruption stories made by Bukele, who He accused the mayors of stealing money for public works. On the first May of this year, 262 municipalities in El Salvador will merge and form 44 municipalities, which is even more strengthen centralization of power. (In a akin way, the government reduced the number of parliamentary seats from 84 to 60 and introduced a fresh electoral ordination, favorable for the Bukele party).
“The government abandoned the weakest,” said San Simón mayor Natanael Fuentes in an interview with openDemocracy. Its municipality, located in Morazán, is 1 of the poorest in the country. – wellness clinic workers and police officers liable for the government come to us with requests for fuel money and vehicle repair. We're the ones who support the schools, though we don't have much ourselves.
The thirty-six-year-old Fuentes, who has held office since 2021 on the right-wing arm of the ARENA party, does not deny that corruption is taking place. “It is said that mayors erstwhile stole, but at least there were any public robots,” he says erstwhile we meet in his office, where 2 flags hang – El Salvador and Israel. – Safety has improved, but in another areas there is decay.
Fuentes will lose his position on May 1st, erstwhile the municipality of San Simón ceases to exist. In the elections to the local authorities held on 3 March, his organization won only in 1 of 44 fresh municipalities. By official results The Nuevas Ideas organization Bukeley won in 26, and 5 another groups remaining in alliance with the ruling organization won in 17.
On the road connecting San Simón with Osicala, close an abandoned football field, a group of women cleans up a building looking like a female monastery. They are led by Ednok Benitez, a thirty-five-year-old pastor of the Central American Mission, the oldest evangelical Church in the country. The group is building a children's hall, which they will call the Ministry of Integral Development, with funds operating in the United States of America an evangelical non-governmental organization called Compassion International.
From the same organization, the Church besides pays families to plant basic crops. “Some people live for $6 a day, work is gone and prices are cosmic,” says Benítez. But it does not blame the government. – There is simply a lot to do and it is not easy to do it alone. Bukele did well. We only hope that he will now find a solution for those in need.
Investments and repression
Other communities have gone to self-financing. In the agrarian canton of Las Quebradas, on the outskirts of San Simón, a group of neighbors organized and collected money sent from abroad, financing them to patch holes in local roads. – abroad money is crucial to us now. I don't know what we would have done without them," says Wilson, 1 of the leaders of the community. He believes that most of his neighbors voted for the Bugele out of fear of the gangs returning.
– People are scared," he says. He claims that the government has forgotten them, and stresses that the most harm was caused by the transfer of funds from the budget to the DOM. He criticises the flagship task Bukele, consisting in expanding the public library close the government palace in the capital – with funds donated by China. – The library he built in the capital is truly beautiful, but why do we request it? – he asks.
Artiga, operating under the GCAP, besides mentions the deficiency of public services in agrarian communities. You can see the military and the safety services. And where is Bukele's policy on issues as crucial as food, unemployment and deficiency of access to water? She's not here – she thinks. According to him, environmental government is not respected or mitigated to enable projects specified as Ciudad Valle el Angel. This mini-town would consist of respective 1000 homes and apartments, restaurants, hotels, hospitals, schools and bus station, built over aquifers, from which fresh water for the capital derives. This is 1 of respective large projects announced in the past fewer years – in any of them involved There are people from the immediate surroundings of Bukele.
OpenDemocracy magazine tried to contact respective state officials to conduct interviews on this and another issues, but there was no response. The leader of the Flores Indigenous Movement says that the state of emergency put in place by Bukele caused the intimidation of activists and Conchagua residents who are afraid to protest and complain of attempts to displace.
Already in early 2023 the Socorro Jurídico legal support group had documented 16 cases of trade unionists held in custody under state of emergency regulations. Hundreds of another people were fired or suspended. This is part of the wider problem – between 35 and 45 percent of 75 000 arrests under these provisions were of a discretion.
Rina Montti, a investigator on human rights, confirms: "The voices of dissidents are becoming more and more silent. People say we're safe, but besides poor. For any time, Bukele has been trying to give out rations in poorer towns, but yet there will be a breakdown.
**
Juan Elman is an Argentine journalist, specialising in global politics. He writes the newsletter "Mundo Propio" for the independent average Cenital and is the author of the book Nada será como antes. Hacia dónde va Chile? (Ediciones Futurock 2022).
Article published in openDemocracy magazine under Creative Commons license. From English she translated Catherine the Formers.
* Oh, yeah * any names have been changed to defend the identity of the callers.
