Q24N – The president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, ironically called himself a “dictator” in his profile on Twitter, a way of making fun of his adversaries, amid international criticism and after a recent march in the country where he was accused of concentrating power.
Bukele first indicated on his profile simply as “Dictator of El Salvador,” later updating it to “The coolest dictator in the worldwide world”.
Although at the beginning it emerged on social networks that the account had been hacked, sources from the Presidential House informed AFP that the text was indeed written by the president.
Bukele, 40, who enjoys a high popularity, has been noted for using social networks to report on his administration. Previously on his Twitter profile, he had caused a stir by defining himself as “an instrument of God for our history.”
In a speech delivered on September 15 on the occasion of the bicentennial of the Independence of Central America, the president questioned his opponents who called him a dictator.
“Here there is no dictatorship, here there is a democracy that has expressed itself freely at the polls and not once but twice,” he said, alluding to his triumph in the 2019 presidential elections and that of his allies in the February elections. 2021.
His comments came after a massive demonstration in San Salvador against his administration.
For the director of the Institute of Public Opinion of the Central American University (UCA), Laura Andrade, “the blows” that the president would have given to the Supreme Court of Justice and the Prosecutor’s Office, give him an “authoritarian mood.”
When the new Legislative Assembly took office on May 1, he removed and replaced the magistrates of the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice and the attorney general, who had had serious differences with the ruler.
This new Constitutional Chamber interpreted at the beginning of September an article of the Constitution that gives the green light for Bukele to stand for reelection, if he so wishes, in 2024.
The president recently promulgated a decree approved by Congress to retire judges at 60 years of age or 30 years of service, almost a third of the country’s magistrates.
By using the concept of dictator, according to Andrade, the president “is trying to get people to normalize this qualifier (…) in his administration, which is a risk in terms of political culture in El Salvador.”
The use of mockery is the “typical way of reacting to any questioning” that the president has, Andrade stressed.
Ultimately, according to Andrade, “it is a tactic for people to try to normalize that it is correct to reproach critical voices, that abuse is correct (…)”.
On his Instagram and Facebook accounts, he continued to describe himself as “Papá de Layla” (Layla’s Dad),” the name of his daughter.
