Central American News #158: Reelection by Interpretation in El Salvador

Sep 06, 2021

El Salvador’s Constitutional Court has given President Bukele the green light to run for president for a consecutive term.

While the Salvadoran Constitution prohibits presidential reelection in four different articles, the Constitutional Court issued an interpretation on Saturday that would allow President Nayib Bukele to run for reelection in 2024. The issuing court’s judges were recently appointed in May by the National Assembly, which is ruled by Bukele’s party, after having the previous judges removed.

The authoritarian move is reminiscent of the actions of the Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández and Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega, both of whom used their countries’ judicial system to achieve the same end – reelection.

Various human rights organizations have issued statements against the actions of the Constitutional Court, expressing how it will negatively impact democratic governance and rule of law in El Salvador. Meanwhile, hundreds of Salvadorans have gone to the streets to protest the ruling.

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Protest poster in San Salvador, citing a tweet by current President Bukele.

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Headlines

Migration

📰 Deportations to Guatemala: After a meeting with the U.S., Guatemala negotiated an end to the U.S. policy of deporting migrants to a remote Guatemala city without resources to return home.

📰 Migrant Caravan: Border agents and police in Mexico blocked a migrant caravan in southern Mexico. // The United Nations Refugee Agency is calling on the U.S. and other countries to end border restrictions.

Belize

📰 Debt and Marine Conservation: The Government of Belize has struck a deal with the superbond holders who control much of the country's debt. Essentially, the government will be able to buy back its debt at a discount in exchange for financially backing The Nature Conservancy, whose mission is to protect marine life.

📰 Indingeous Land: The Garífuna Nation has released a statement condemning the Government of Belize for encroaching on sovereign Garífuna land, citing the Maya land rights case and the Government's promise to leave indigenous land out of Belize's land registry system. // Maya leaders from Jordan and Blue Creek in the Toledo District have jointly signed an inter-boundary land agreement.

📰 Good Governance: The Government of Belize has signed an agreement to implement "good governance”, a win for the Belize National Teachers Union who had requested this action in their strike demands.

Costa Rica

📰 General Elections 2022: Electoral competition towards 2022 starts with more undecided voters than ever. Half the voters still don’t have a choice; José María Figueres is the leading candidate, but with only a preference of 17% on the polls. // Presidential candidate Rodrigo Chavez was accused of sexual harassment in 2019 while he was a World Bank official.

📰 Environment: 133 active pesticide ingredients are still used in the country and are considered highly dangerous due to their implications for health and the environment.

📰 Education: The pandemic and teachers strikes in previous years impacted the education levels in Costa Rica, with 50% of missing lessons in math, Spanish, and other courses since 2020.

El Salvador

📰 Constitutional Changes: The Constitutional Court issued a ruling that would allow the country’s president to serve two consecutive terms allowing President Nayib Bukele to run for reelection in 2024.

📰 Legislative Reform: Under the reasoning of fighting corruption, the Legislative Assembly approved a law reform on Aug. 31 that automatically retires a third of the country’s judges. One of the judges affected by this is Jorge Guzman, who oversaw the trial for the El Mozote Massacre.

📰 Bitcoin: Mario Gomez, a computer specialist who has been outspokenly critical of the government’s adoption of Bitcoin, was arrested and detained without a warrant on Sept. 1. He was later released with the National Civil Police citing they had detained him for financial fraud. // El Salvador’s Congress recently approved a law that would redirect $150 million from the Finance Ministry’s Budget to fund conversions from Bitcoin to dollars. // A study by Central American University found that a majority of those surveyed are skeptical of cryptocurrency and do not know how to use it.

📰 Workers’ Rights: Vendors gathered to protest outside of Mayor Mario Duran’s Office for the unfair evictions of vendors in San Salvador.

📰 Money Laundering Probe: The commission investigating bonuses granted during ARENA and FMLN governments filed a notice with the Attorney General’s Office to investigate four former ARENA officials.

Guatemala

📰 Juan Francisco Sandoval: A Guatemalan court has issued an arrest warrant for former anti-corruption prosecutor Juan Francisco Sandoval. He is being charged with obstruction of justice and breach of his duties. Sandoval fled to the U.S. after he was fired from the Special Prosecutor's Office against Impunity (FECI), and these charges close any possibility of him resuming his work investigating the highest-profile corruption cases in Guatemala.

📰 Indigenous Women: Maya, Xinka and Garífuna women gathered to demand that the electoral affairs commission and the plenary session of Congress include women and indigenous peoples, and to reject the commemoration of the Bicentennial. They also held the Second Global Conference of Indigenous Women where they shared the inequalities they face at the state and global level, and potential structural changes.

📰 Corruption: The Constitutional Court abolished a provision that prohibitied those convicted of crimes against the public administration to commute their sentences.

This new ruling allows persons convicted of corruption the option to pay an equivalent amount to their sentence instead of going to prison.

📰 State of Calamity: Giammattei issued a new state of calamity, taking into account health experts’ requests in the face of a rebound in COVID-19 infections.. This decree has to be approved by the Congress.

Honduras

📰 COVID-19: More than 18,000 people have died due to COVID-19 in Honduras, declared the Association of Funeral Homes. // 81,000 Pfizer vaccines were donated by the U.S.

📰 ZEDEs: The Labor and Social Security Secretariats launched a 3-day event titled “Empleatón”, where they offered jobs to the Honduran population. The majority of the jobs being offered are in the highly controversial Employment and Economic Development Zones (ZEDEs).

📰 Corruption: The Institute for Access to Public Information (IAIP) awarded Invest-H in recognition for allegedly complying with transparency and access to information initiatives. Yet, Invest-H has been fraught with irregularities and corruption scandals during the pandemic.

Nicaragua

📰 COVID-19: Nicaragua will receive 1.5 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines in September, doubling the number of available vaccines. // The World Health Organization reports 9% of the population hasreceived at least one dose since March 2021. // The government has only executed 10% of the budget allocated for the fight against the pandemic. // The Pan American Health Organization reports COVID-19 cases in 144 of 153 cities in Nicaragua. Some hospitals are about to “close” all non-pandemic services as they work at full capacity.

📰 Politics: Accusations and trials against political prisoners continue with secret hearings and no legal defense. The police allowed visits from relatives after 80 days in isolation for most of the detainees, who revealed psychological abuse, interrogations and other forms of torture.

📰 Elections 2021: The Electoral Council published the “provisional” list of presidential and National Assembly candidates. The same council has only published 32% of its budget as assigned contracts, leaving 68% of the budget to be executed in the last four months of the electoral year. This could reveal inefficiencies or corruption schemes.

📰 Human Rights: Mayagnas leaders in the northern Caribbean region of Nicaragua denounced the National Police and the Army for failing to initiate an investigation after the massacre perpetrated by invading settlers that resulted in the death of at least 13 Indigenous people.

Panama

📰 Economy: President Cortizo responded to questions of economic growth with the possibility of using a QR code strategy in hopes of opening large events at 80%capacity. The idea to introduce a QR code method in Panama was first used in last week’s soccer game between Panama and Costa Rica.

📰 Environment: Reports from the Ministry of the Environment confirm that the mine oil spill in the province of Colon (Donoso district) in July happened due to internal welding failures in the pipeline.

📰 COVID-19: More than two million Panamanian residents have received their second doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, 46% of the total population.

📰 Migrants: Prosecutors of the Darién have carried out visual inspections of migrant shelters in the Embera Wounaan region, in the districts of Pinogana and Lajas Blancas, to assist migrants who are victims of crime and to arrest those who have committed crimes against migrants.

Good Reads

📌 Central America: Addressing Instability in Central America: Restrictions on Civil Liberties, Violence, and Climate Change (Atlantic Council)

📌 Salvadoran Diaspora: Los Angeles City Council recognizes victims of forced disappearances in El Salvador (World Today News) (Cipota Power)

📌 El Salvador: Gift for El Salvador mudslide victims comes at steep price (Minneapolis Star Tribune)

📌 Races in Costa Rica: Independence came to a mestizo country with 60,000 inhabitants. Demographic analysis of the population of Costa Rica in 1821 (La Nación)

📌 Nicaragua: "Brain drain" hits families, companies, and Nicaragua (Confidencial)

📌 ‘Everyone Is on the List’: Fear Grips Nicaragua as It Veers to Dictatorship. A crackdown on opposition by President Daniel Ortega leaves Nicaraguans to wonder: Who is next? (NY Times)

📌 Cybersecurity: Information security agreement between Nicaragua and Russia: “a new weapon of the regime” (Confidencial)

Central American Voices, Multimedia & More

Author Maggie Carranza poses with her book "ABCs of El Salvador".

✨The Book 'ABCs of El Salvador' Expands Cultural Horizons, One Letter at a Time: Maggie Carranza, author of “ABCs of El Salvador,” was recently interviewed by PBS SoCal about her book and experience as a Central American. (PBS SoCal)

🎥 Culture Clash: Salvadoran performers Ric Salinas and Herbert Siguenza from the trio Culture Clash collaborated with Center Theater Group to produce The Salvi Chronicles to talk about Salvadoran history, culture, and identity.

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