Next week, the Bukele government will celebrate four years in office, making it the perfect time to assess its achievements. For this, we can rely on government plans. Government plans should define the respective goals and indicators that the authorities themselves wish to achieve. In El Salvador, despite four years of control, the government’s plans are still unclear, and according to an explanation released by the Office of the President of the Republic’s Public Information Access Department, the document was still “documented” as of April 2023. is said to be in At the “final stage of preparations,” the existence of an organization in charge of planning, such as the Blue House Technical Planning Secretariat, seems to have been meaningful.
But what is the explanation for the past four years? I fear that we are nowhere near having a government.
Over the past four years, we have experienced an accelerated and sustained deterioration of our democratic institutions. The independence of power has been clearly destroyed, civic space has been closed at the same time, and voices critical of the government’s actions have been persecuted and condemned. Societies, civil society, social movements, media more and more iterate.
The administration had to face the emergency created by the COVID-19 pandemic, but its response was improvised and guided by a propagandistic approach rather than public policy. rice field. Thousands of people are stranded abroad, containment centers are very poorly managed, viral infections and deaths are underreported, the distribution of $300 subsidies to families is abnormal, vaccines Immunization programs and vaccine purchase contracts were declared. According to classified information, several officials, including ministers, are suspected of committing corrupt practices during the emergency.
The lack of comprehensive public policy on the part of the current administration also contributes to the decline in social indicators. Poverty is on the rise at the national level, with one in four households in El Salvador living in poverty by 2022, and 170,000 households across the country unable to afford even the cost of a basic basket. Half of El Salvador’s population suffers from food insecurity, not eating enough or even not eating at all.
On the security front, it is undeniable that the number of murders has dropped significantly, but the government response continues to focus on crackdowns accompanied by a state of emergency, resulting in mass arrests of gang members as well as this. is an instrument of military and police abuse of power, condemning a number of arbitrary arrests, deaths, systematic violations of the rights of detainees, and violations of the civil and political rights of its citizens.
Finally, the financial sector is the government’s biggest weakness. Public debt payments are consuming more and more budgetary resources, with key items such as health care and education becoming moderating variables. Deteriorating democracy, lack of action plans on fiscal issues, and adoption of Bitcoin as legal tender have increased country risk and limited funding options. There is also an accelerating setback in terms of the right to access public information and transparency, and the implementation of reforms to weaken and make more flexible many of the regulations that protect public resources from corrupt practices. To date, the government has had no intention of fulfilling its election promise to build a fiscal pact.
We are once again heading towards the end of a regime that, like its predecessors, puts individual interests and collective well-being first. A regime that prioritizes popularity indicators over citizen rights.
Source: Diario.Elmundo
