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So El Salvador's president,
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President Bukele is celebrating his recent landslide re-election victory.
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But the interesting thing is that he's using his victory to call
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out his international critics.
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And I guess, quote unquote his haters.
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Have you heard about this?
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I've heard some good some not so good.
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but also some people are just scared of,
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they're afraid to talk about this.
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You know, it's like a touchy subject.
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I feel like you know,
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we have our version one,
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well, not our version but the,
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the version, the media feeds us because we're not in El
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Salvador. So we have that and then there's the actual people
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living in El Salvador that have to,
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you know, that they're going through this.
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Yeah, it's just like I would love to hear what they
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have to say how they feel here to explain what the people
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of El Salvador want from their leader is Professor Parl Beg,
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assistant professor of Political Science at Virginia Commonwealth University and journalist Bianca
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RAA from Puerto Rico.
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Her latest documentary is a about President Bukele.
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So thank you guys so much for joining us.
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We really appreciate it.
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Thank you for having us.
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Professor, you recently posted about a survey to find out
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what matters most to voters in El Salvador.
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What did the survey results say?
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Yes, I ran some models off of survey data collected
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by Vanderbilt University called the America's Barometer.
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And I looked at what issues Salvadoran voters care about the most
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And what was interesting was that at the top of the
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list was not gangs and crime,
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which is what is mostly important in the news,
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but rather the economy and unemployment by far,
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Salvadoran voters were more concerned about those things.
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Interesting. And it seems like we were talking earlier about
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social media, like he seems to be really popular and there's
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a lot of support for Bukele.
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What's the story there?
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Well, Prince Bukele is a publicist by background.
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when I lived in El Salvador,
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in San Salvador, I lived across the street from his Yamaha
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dealership. So he is a businessman by background,
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but his primary business has always been publicity.
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So he was always very good at pr and especially at social
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media and he uses social media,
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especially Twitter, also Facebook to reach voters directly without going through
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the media. And I wanted to ask,
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Bianca, you were recently in El Salvador.
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did you feel that residents actually support Bukele?
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Yes, absolutely. It is true and obvious that Bukele is
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enjoying overwhelming support in El Salvador and outside of El Salvador
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However, there is this discomfort in some of these very same
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communities that used to be victims of the gangs where they're starting
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to see how the state of exception is affecting them directly and
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how they starting to feel powerless when they cannot defend themselves when
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they're accused of being gang members and they're brought to jail sometimes
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for months. And what happens to anyone who is critical
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of Bukele and his policies like the press community.
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Well, it depends like the professor said,
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Bukele has a contentious relationship with journalists.
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I collaborated for this story with the independent newspaper,
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El Faro. El Faro does not have a good relationship with
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Bukele right now. What we're seeing is that these journalists have
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become the target of attacks by the president.
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He will either mock them,
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he will not provide them interviews to be questioned for his
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policies. And there is a concern that as Bukele remains in
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power, that people who are critical of the government will
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have less and less space to voice those opinions you mentioned right
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now, he's a president.
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However, I've seen that he called himself the world's coolest dictator
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is that doesn't connect at least to my mind in my mind
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Like what does he mean by that?
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Well, Bukele has been accused of becoming a dictator and
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those accusations come from the fact that he now controls all three
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branches of government his party has control of the legislature
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But also when his party you know,
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became had so many members in the legislature,
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they started replacing judges.
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So the concern here is that he has consolidated power in a
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democracy is being dismantled.
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And I wanted to ask Professor,
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what are some challenges that El Salvador and its people continue
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that is entirely based on his security policy,
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which has involved locking up 75,000 people arbitrarily without charge.
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And and basically flooding the streets with with police
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He has been far less capable when it comes to steward
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of the economy. Salvadorans have been seeing inflation go up
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prices rise. The country is deeply in debt and the government
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is reliant on foreign financing which is say loans from abroad to
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continue operating. So I think we will see how long the
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president's popularity can, can last based purely on security
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a lot there, but I feel like going scratching the surface
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but we want to thank you for your time.
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We'll obviously follow this closely and hopefully we can have you both
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back soon. But before we let you go,
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where can people find you on social or you know,
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any websites, blogs,
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stuff like that? Well,
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tiktok on social media as my name Bianca Rolo Bianca Gura.
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So you can find me there and I'm primarily on Twitter
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also blue sky at MP A ARLB er GM PBG,
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right. Well, there you have it guys,
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make sure to check them out and obviously,
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keep following with us and we hope we see you guys soon
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Thank you for your time.
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Thank you very much.
Series