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Comparing Nayib Bukele and Lopez Obrador

 There was a pretty extensive article this morning by Ione Grillo on Nayib Bukele, El Satvador’s New Strongman.  Kind of sounds alot like AMLO in terms of 1) forming a new political party; 2) achieving majority status for himself and his party in the legislature; 3) upending the previous two party system (Arena and the FMLN) in a way analogous to AMLO in Mexico routing the PRI and the PAN while essentially transforming a large chunk of the PRD into Morena; 4) intimidating the opposition and the media (declaring, for example, that the critical publication, El Faro is engaged in money laundering; 5) violating the constitution in order to dismiss unfriendly judges from the constitution and get rid of a less than friendly Attorney General (again, AMLO did the same in Mexico having his party unconstitutionally extend the term of a friendly justice). In both Mexico and the El Salvador:  the populist logic is the same:  the leader represents the people and in the name of the people, he has the prerogative to restructure the state as he sees fit - after all, this is what the people voted for, says Bukele in response to his domestic and foreign critics (particularly the Biden administration).  One difference between AMLO and Bukele is that Bukele has been successful in reducing the murder rate in El Salvador from the 100 per 100,000 to 50 per 100,000 - a significant drop, which might be attributed to Bukele’s investment in more intensive policiing and his capacity to neogotiate truces between rival gangs.  One point that distinguishes Mexico and El Salvador, though, is the wealth and power of the criminal gang.  Mexico’s cartels are rich and powerful and have made deep inroads into the Mexican state and into the Mexican bourgeoisie. 

El Salvador’s criminal gangs have a more modest history as refugees to the United States, who developed a gang culture in U.S. cities - principally Los Angeles - and then imported that culture back to El Salvador after they were deported as part of the U.S.’s hardline war on crime, drugs and immigration.  Gang culture found a fertile ground for its development in post-conflict El Salvador and spread rapidly through the urban areas.  While different gangs are linked to the narco-trafficking, their primary revenue stream comes from extorting small businesses and people attempting to survive in the informal sector of the economy.  This is one of the reasons why El Salvador has become an increasingly unlivable place.  Other reasons are tied to crop failures associated with climate change, which are driving more rural and urban migration and exposing more vulnerable people to gang culture.  Grillo does not spend much time decrying El Salvador’s model of development.  With regard to the Biden administration, he argues that forieign aid should be channelled through the non governmental organizations rather than more corrupt government agencies. 

Bukele seems to enjoy the same kind of popularity that AMLO does.  He engages in a performative politics that aligns him with a certain type of anti-elitist government sentiment.  The key point about this is that it is directed more against the political class and elements of educated civil society intent upon constructing a democratic political culture - all of which can be denounced as contrary to sentiments and interests of the people.  What one has in each country is a populist that is willing to collaborate with the economic oligarchy - and do nothing to undermine its interests - while attacking the old political class and mobilizing some resources for the purposes of patronage.  As with the rise of populism in other countries around the world, what this is indicative of is exhaustion of neoliberal democracy and the emergence of authoritarian populism as the political model that is most compatible with the deepening of neoliberalism in the region.


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