The most typical dictator in the world

How President Salvadora embodies all the main trends of modern authoritarianism

President Salvador Nayba Buyro is called “the first mileryl dictator” (but he is not alone: ​​say, Kim Jong-un is also millennial). In his profile on Twitter at one time it was : "The most cool dictator in the world." The right, especially in the USA, admire his achievements in the fight against crime. For the left, he personifies a global turn to the right authoritarianism. An example of a booklet is interesting even to those who are far from Latin American policy: it somehow happened that it can be shown on it all the main trends that political researchers observe in different autocracies around the world.

What did Nayb Bookel do

By 2019, when the book became the president of Salvador, it was one of the most dysfunctional countries in the world. The small state in Central America was “famous” mainly for violent crime and the largest number of murders in the world ( at the peak , in 2015, 105 per 100 thousand population). More than a third of the country lived in the United States in the position of labor migrants, transfers from them made up the most important article of national income.

Political life was characterized by a fierce confrontation of two parties: the right nationalist Republican Union and the Left Front of the National Liberation named after Farabundo Marty.

The father of the book was a major businessman and a long -term sponsor of the National Liberation Front. Book-Jr. inherited this commitment. He was engaged in business - mainly advertising, but also growing coffee and other things. As soon as he had passed 30, he joined the front, with his support he was elected mayor of the small city of Nuevo-Cuscatlan, and then the capital of the country, San Salvador. In the fifth year of his political career, in 2017, he founded his own party “New Ideas”, and at the seventh became president.

First of all, the president of the book took up the fight against crime. He even attracted the army to this. Against the Salvador criminal groups, military operations were arranged, and the whole regions of cities from their power were armed with force. The country was built the largest prison in the world - for 40 thousand prisoners, and this despite the fact that the entire population of Salvador is about 6.5 million people. According to Amnesty International, as of mid -2022, in conclusion, there were 2% of all adult Salvadors - and in torture conditions.

The indicators of violent crime have decreased significantly. However, critics of the book indicate that they were reduced before his coming to power. In addition to demonstrative power operations, apparently, there were backstage agreements with criminal groups ( 1 , 2 , 3 ), which included the release of some odious criminal authorities.

Another measure that became famous for the book in its first time is the announcement of bitcoin by a legal payment tool. Salvador has no national currency since 2001 - it has been replaced by an American dollar. Since 2021, Bitcoin became the second official currency. The state holds more than $ 100 million in it and persuades citizens to switch to cryptocurrency settlements. So far, for the most part unsuccessfully.

Since the book came to power, his rating of approval never fell below 80%. Salvador has a clear economic revival and construction boom. And accusations of massive violations of human rights, the persecution of the opposition and independent journalists cannot shake the popularity of the book.

Erosion of democracy

It has long been noticed: in the 21st century, new autocracies rarely arise as a result of revolutions, coups, puts in and other things. The basic scenario is completely different: a popular politician wins the election - and then gradually disassembles a system of checks and counterweights, consolidates power and turns into an autocrat.

With the book, everything was just like that. In the 2019 elections, he positioned himself as an outsider, an alternative to two parties, who dominated Salvador politics for three decades and were equally tired of voters. And scored 53% of the vote.

When the parliament at the beginning of 2020 did not want to approve his decision to borrow $ 109 million to re -equip the police, he convened an extraordinary session - and came to it with 40 armed soldiers. The quorum did not get together then and they still did not make the decision. But this effect was: the bookly acquired a reputation as a decisive leader and became even more popular among those who are tired of political maneuvers and intrigues.

In 2021, the batch of the book “New Ideas” received the absolute majority in parliament - and first of all, it dismissed five judges of the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court. Following this, the new composition of the Supreme Court recognized the right to run for a second term for the book. The Constitution does not directly prohibit this, but contains one confused passage, which was previously interpreted as a ban on holding the position of president for two consecutive terms.

In 2023, he reduced the number of municipalities from 262 to 44, and the number of places in parliament is from 84 to 60, thereby significantly facilitating control over legislative power and local self-government.

Finally, in the 2024th book, he won his second presidential election, gaining more than 84% of the vote. In Salvador there is no such force that could seriously confront him.

Politics without ideology

Books positions itself not as left or right, but as a pragmatist. However, he admits that he is more inclined to the right, since the left movement throughout the world, in his opinion, has lost the strength and clear vision of the future.

Even when he was in the left front of national liberation, some single -party people accused him - a millionaire - of hypocrisy. And in February 2024, shortly after his re-election, the book played at the CPAC , the largest annual conference of American conservatives, and the audience welcomed him “like a rock star” .

El Faro, the largest Salvador independent publication, explains the position of the booklet simply: its ideology is opportunism. He once supported LGBTK+, but when it turned out that this did not guarantee him support for the left movement, he “turned” into the believing and social conservative - and found support for the religious and conservative majority of the Salvadors. Once he ardently defended the principle of separation of powers, but as soon as he himself was headed by the state, as this principle “suddenly” turned out to be an unbearable restriction of popular will.

Critics call the ideological mobility of an unprincipled book. Supporters insist that this is freedom from outdated dogmas.

Populism and the cult of personality

The word "populism" has long become a political curse. If some content remains in it, then this is the opposition to institutionalism.

Very coarsening, institutionalism is a belief in the system: in the separation of powers, into drawings and counterweights, in regular procedures, in laws, rules and norms. Safety, well -being and progress are carried out not by the will of specific people, but due to the functioning of the system. Public requests, whether it is a decrease in prices, the creation of jobs, the fight against crime or the protection of “traditional values”, turn to the system. A specific official, up to the head of state, to whom such a request is personally addressed, is nothing more than a function in the system. He, as it were, does not have a person, no beliefs and addictions - there is only the powers and competence or incompetence.

The book is on the contrary. The system is corrupt, its only goal is to maintain the status quo. All rules and procedures created rich and influential for themselves - and set them up so as to remain rich and influential. Therefore, it is pointless to demand justice from the system. The guarantor of the common good is not a system, but a specific person who can properly direct this system.

The Salvador scientist and Columonist Oscar Picardo states that the President’s personality cult replaces ideology to the regime of the book and his party, and the only significant political conviction is the loyalty to him and the willingness to share any representations that he expresses.

PODIRONIA and trolling

After the updated Supreme Court in September 2021 allowed the booklet to run for a second term in a row, protests began in Salvador. They were not numerous. The president was called a dictator. He in response changed his bio on Twitter to the "most cool dictator in the world." Just a couple of days - but the world press, of course, managed to notice it. Now the booklet is presented on Twitter by the “king-philosopher”-this is a reference no less to Plato .

Observers, describing such escapades, pay attention to the fact that the booklet used to work in advertising - and now uses these skills to build his own image. Although actually it is not necessary to be an advertiser. It is enough to be a person born in 1981, who spent most of the conscious life on the Internet and for whom the culture of social networks, blogs, imageboards and comments are native.

The book has bad relations with the press. She always calls him an autocrat and prefers to ask not about success, but about human rights. But the president has more than seven million followers on Twitter (more than the population of Salvador) - and there is every opportunity to build relations with the public on their own conditions. He rarely gives an interview and only foreign publications. Because he prefers not to answer questions and objections, but to monologize.

"Jellyfish"