Nayib Bukele claims landslide victory and says Spanish democracy is a colonial fraud in impassioned speech to supporters

Nayib Bukele claims landslide victory and says Spanish democracy is a colonial fraud in impassioned speech to supporters

Nayib Bukele, El Salvador’s millennial president, attacked Spanish colonialism and imperialism in a fiery victory speech after he won a landslide victory.

Amid claims he is turning the country into a dictatorship, he boasted to flag-waving crowds below the presidential palace that El Salvador would be the first country with “a one-party system in a democracy”.

“The entire opposition together was pulverised,” Mr Bukele, who once styled himself the “world’s coolest dictator”, told the cheering masses.

The baseball cap-wearing Mr Bukele, 42, has become vastly popular for his war on gangs, but he has also been accused of stifling the courts and silencing opposition.

In his speech he said a Spanish journalist had recently asked him why he wants to dismantle democracy.

    • ralphio@lemmy.worldEnglish
      401·
      10 months ago

      He’s not a dictator yet, but he’ll have the opportunity to rewrite the constitution with the numbers his party will get in the next election. He seems to have signalled this is what he plans to do. Given his economic policies and the fact that he runs a police state (even if it was temporarily needed to get rid of gangs I doubt it will stop), he looks a lot like Pinochet which gives some people pause.

      That said it’s up to the people of El Salvador to decide if it’s worth the risk to hand one party all the power.

      Edit: current election not next election

      • bigFab@lemmy.worldEnglish
        111·
        10 months ago

        Imagine the opposition was inviting gang leaders to decide what to do with the country.

        That’s what happened and it’s documented in video.

        Why would anybody vote for them?

    • PatFusty@lemm.eeEnglish
      81·
      10 months ago

      Bunch of people in this comment thread have no idea what they are talking about. I have family in various parts of el Salvador and ever since bukele came into office politics is all they fucking talk about. It’s actually quite annoying but the people there absolutely love him and his party. Maybe I am biased as I also have family that hold positions in nuevas ideas. Either way I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a Salvadorean that didn’t love the direction the country is going.

    • Nix@merv.newsEnglish
      74·
      10 months ago

      You can deny it. He has been arresting thousands of people with zero evidence they are involved in gangs. Police have quotas on how many “gang members” they have to arrest to make him look good so they arrest random people to fulfill the quotas.

      He’s a fascist and the fact he gets so much support because he’s “arresting the criminals” with so little pushback is scary

      Here’s a story on it by a really great journalist https://youtu.be/jQcTYgOuEzA

    • Semi-Hemi-Demigod@kbin.social
      623·
      10 months ago

      People on this site insist that we need to eliminate the Republican Party in the US, effectively making it a one-party system in a democracy.

      Doesn’t sound so bad now, does it?

      • bostonbananarama@lemmy.worldEnglish
        13·
        10 months ago

        Multi-party, new party…maybe…but single party, I’m not sure I’ve heard anyone advocate for that, certainly not a lot of people.

      • isles@lemmy.worldEnglish
        6·
        10 months ago

        We don’t need to eliminate the Republican party, we just need to let it eliminate itself from a plethora of choice.