The world has taken more than 350 million selfies. Selfie-taking hordes have invaded popular tourist destinations, while the bathroom mirror selfie has not yet gone out of vogue on Instagram. Amidst this growing popular trend, one place seemed sacrosanct: the United Nations General Assembly.
It is sacrosanct no longer. President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador made headlines when he took a selfie at this formerly august forum for diplomats and world leaders to discuss and declaim, marking another conquest in the selfie’s inexorable quest for world domination. “Believe me, many more people will see this selfie than will hear this speech,” Bukele proclaimed to the audience of baffled politicians. Nonetheless, his statement proved true, as more than 7,000 excited Salvadorans quickly liked the photo on Twitter.
The selfie fits right in with Bukele’s image as El Salvador’s “social media president.” Formally sworn in on June 1, 2019, the 38-year-old defeated candidates from the two main parties, the left-wing FMLN and the right-wing Arena, with an unconventional campaign which shunned debates and media appearances in favor of Facebook and Twitter.
Just as a selfie is taken, liked, and quickly forgotten, the world clicked “like” on Bukele’s presidency and then quickly turned its attention to other issues. In El Salvador, though, Bukele has quickly sparked controversy, especially as the first 100 days of his presidency came and went on September 8. Proponents argue that Bukele has succeeded in his first 100 days, successfully fighting corruption, poverty, and gang violence. Critics charge that Bukele’s presidency is little more than a social media stunt: full of optics but light on any actual substance.
Bukele’s supporters and detractors both make valid points. However, the first 100 days is a rather meaningless yardstick to evaluate his performance, and one man alone cannot solve El Salvador’s problems, however popular he may seem. El Salvador needs improved institutions, not selfies and social media rhetoric, to begin this process.
Fighting Corruption
With three former presidents under indictment for corruption, the issue unsurprisingly featured heavily in the presidential campaign. Bukele had distanced himself from the political establishment, building on his youth; the mantra “there’s enough money if no one steals” played a significant part in winning Bukele the election. Once Bukele actually won office, the Twitter gears launched into action: In August, Bukele promised to launch a new anti-corruption commission within the first 100 days of his presidency.
With two days to spare, Bukele announced an agreement with the Organization of American States to launch the Comisión Internacional Contra la Impunidad en El Salvador — the International Commission against Impunity in El Salvador — on September 6. CICIES would supposedly ensure impartial investigations, aid the country’s Public Ministry in carrying out investigations, and develop institutional policies to combat corruption. So far, this announcement has been Bukele’s landmark achievement — he has also fired many bureaucrats and officials associated with the old regime on charges of corruption or nepotism.
However, the body has yet to actually spring into existence. “In order to fit into [Bukele’s] promise to create such an organization within 100 days, they were able to credibly claim in early September an agreement had been reached to launch a commission, but none of the details have been ironed out,” Charles Blake, a professor of political science at James Madison University and an expert on corruption in Latin America, told the HPR. “Right now, we don’t know enough about that new body to make a good prediction on how successful it will be.”
El Salvador’s burgeoning investigative journalism scene quickly picked up on this fact. “Bukele opted for dramatic effects and ambiguous words, for empty shells and narcissism” instead of revitalized institutions, the newspaper El Faro charged. Investigators will not arrive in El Salvador until 2021, it pointed out, comparing CICIES to a previous anti-corruption organization, the Secretariat for Transparency. That body largely focused on past allegations of corruption, doing little to investigate contemporaneous corruption within the government then in power. If the same thing happens with the current body, it could spell trouble for Bukele. “The more that the new commission focuses on past acts, the more likely it is to be viewed as a political organization,” Blake noted.
Furthermore, CICIES will operate under the executive branch, raising two major concerns. First, both inside and outside observers have raised questions about the body’s operational autonomy, fearing that it would hesitate to investigate questions surrounding Bukele’s administration, especially considering Bukele’s prior backlash against investigations involving his own presidency. Second, limiting the body’s authority to the executive branch also limits its ability to investigate other cases of corruption. “Corruption might take place in any of the three branches [of government] and levels of government beyond the national government” as well, Blake explained.
And then there are the worries that Bukele is a wolf dressed in sheep’s clothing. El Faro and another independent Salvadoran publication, Revista Factum, conducted separate investigations into Bukele’s finances, alleging that Bukele had illegally received money from the Venezuelan state oil company, participated in a bribery ring while mayor of San Salvador, and involved himself with a group of crooked ex-politicians linked to drug traffickers. To make matters worse, Bukele’s main parliamentary ally, Guillermo Gallegos, has also been accused of giving state money to a company owned by his wife. Such allegations, if true, would dramatically impede Bukele’s credibility in regards to corruption.
The key to solving corruption lies not in creating new institutions, but rather in shoring up existing ones. Since CICIES lies within the executive branch, it will remain susceptible to influence from the incumbent administration to mount politically-charged investigations — or, more importantly, to ignore abuses of power within the administration currently in power. Instead, El Salvador should invest its anti-corruption momentum in an institution such as the fiscalía, the attorney general’s office, with officials appointed independently from the president’s influence. The country should also invest more money in this office to ensure it has the appropriate manpower to prosecute corruption cases. “It’s this capacity-building at the fiscalia level or at other institutions that [enables us] to fight against crime and corruption in a sustainable way,” Maria Eugenia Brizuela de Avila, a former Salvadoran minister of foreign affairs, told the HPR.
Brizuela de Avila also pointed out civil society’s impact, especially in the realm of transparency. A law passed under the Bukele administration “allows any citizen to go up and request the information in regards to any type of transaction, any type of salaries,” which would clamp down on corruption by publicizing state-run information. El Salvador’s vibrant investigative journalism scene also provides a “civil audit” to accompany the anti-corruption fight, as she put it. Shoring up existing civil society groups such as FUSADES provides another independent way to hold El Salvador’s leaders accountable.
Ending Gang Violence
While the Salvadoran people may have strong feelings about government corruption, the country’s rampant gang violence impacts them more on a day-to-day basis. More than 20,000 Salvadorans died in a three-year period at the hands of gangs, and gangs routinely extort money from businesses and individual citizens. Obviously, improving security and combating gangs lay at the top of Bukele’s agenda.
This agenda revolves around the Territorial Control Plan, which would replace the mano dura — iron fist — strategy used by his predecessors. Announced in June 2019, the plan revolves around denying gangs the ability to control territory, whether in jails or in city centers, with heightened police and military presence in areas with a significant gang presence. Bukele has also cut off communication between jailed gang members and the outside, reduced the number of businesses paying extortion money, and refused continued negotiations with gang members.
The plan “has had a very positive impact on the psyche of the people,” Brizuela de Avila asserted. “People are optimistic.” Indeed, El Salvador reported its first homicide-free day in over two years on July 31, the homicide rate has started decreasing steadily, and people have begun conducting their daily business more openly.
Yet the policy smacks of the previously repressive policies. “There’s absolutely no question” that Bukele is continuing mano dura, Geoff Thale, who oversees Central American programs at the Washington Office on Latin America, told the HPR. “He’s basically continuing the very tough approach to the most conflictive and gang-ridden neighborhoods … it’s always accompanied by serious human rights abuses and violations of due process that are not good for the institutional character of the police.” Bukele also has appointed several security officials with “problematic records on due process and human rights concerns,” as Thale charitably put it.
And once again, El Salvador’s newspapers went after Bukele’s policy of “governing via Twitter.” In an impassioned June article, the independent outlet Revista Factum pointed out that Bukele had promised to launch a “comprehensive proposal” to combat gang violence by June 1, which had yet to materialize two weeks later. It did emerge on June 20, but it serves as an example of Bukele’s relatively lax attitude towards converting campaign promises into actual plans. “I’m nervous about where his anti-crime strategy is going and what it will mean for human rights and due process concerns,” Thale said. “And, frankly, about how effective it will be in reducing crime rates.”
Viewing the police as an institution helps explain the appropriate path forward for El Salvador. Instead of investing the police with new powers, which only makes the agency more empowered to commit human rights abuses, El Salvador should work to build trust between local communities and the police through community-based policing efforts and improved accountability measures, rather than harsh, one-size-fits-all policing. Institutionalizing these reforms would go a long way to improve the country’s policing effectiveness.
Bukele should also work to introduce a holistic approach to reducing gang violence by tackling its roots. Brizuela de Avila noted that Bukele has already introduced technical and vocational schools to gang-ridden areas while promoting sports programs as an outlet for young people. Such a long-term approach, if institutionalized, will eventually pay security dividends.
Promoting Economic Development
Economic development will also pay dividends, both in terms of gang violence and corruption. In a poor economy, gangs provide poor men an outlet to prove their masculinity, especially in a heavily patriarchal society. They also act as economic agents, providing otherwise jobless men with an income and a sense of community. As a result, improving economic opportunities could help to tamp down gang violence.
Likewise, substantial inequality throughout Latin America “creates stressors and opportunities for the emergence of political corruption,” Blake said. When unemployment is high and jobs are scarce, many people “pursue their economic ambitions by becoming government officials. That doesn’t provide the best of breeding grounds for a public service orientation towards government work.” If he succeeds in promoting economic development, the incentives for corruption would likewise decrease.
But Bukele faces challenges in securing foreign investment without first improving El Salvador’s security situation. “High levels of crime and insecurity don’t make the place attractive to foreign investors,” Thale said. “Even with a serious commitment and the best of intentions, persuading people you’re not the [previous administration] and you’re a friend of the Trump administration, that’s a tough one to do.”
Finally, Bukele’s economic reforms could maintain or even worsen inequality if firms already owned by Salvadoran elites get big construction jobs, for instance, or if foreign investment favors these already-established firms. “Will the market-oriented reforms create more opportunities for entrepreneurship [and] small- and medium-sized businesses, or will the benefits of the reforms that eventually get adopted go to relatively few Salvadorans or relatively few Salvadoran firms?” Blake asked.
From 100 Days to the Long Term
On issues such as corruption, gang violence, and economic development, Bukele still has a long way to go in fully implementing his promises and making sure his administration does not repeat previous mistakes. However, both Blake and Thale emphasized that the international community should not be too quick to judge Bukele’s government. “I think it’s hard to argue that any government can make very much progress in three months,” Blake opined.
Whatever his merits or demerits, Bukele’s story offers many lessons in the age of the social-media populists. For starters, Twitter promises and selfies are not policy proposals, bills, or laws, and nothing will change if Salvadorans mistake tweets for action. Likewise, Twitter likes are not votes. “Bukele’s a big believer in the power of the Internet and social media more generally,” Thale said. “That’s clearly enough to get the attention of young people looking at their phones, but whether that’s enough to … turn people out to vote, that’s a whole other question.”
How to create institutions that achieve long-term change is also a distinct question, and one that governing by Twitter cannot answer. With trending hashtags coming and going, social media populism is short-term pandering rather than long-term planning. Across the board, strong governmental and economic institutions are necessary to enact long-term change, whether on corruption, gang violence, or economic development. Selfies will not create the institutions that El Salvador so desperately needs.