(CNN Spanish) — Nayib Bukele begins his second five-year term this Saturday with demands to promote measures that alleviate the high cost of living and promote employment, after the reduction in the levels of violence achieved in his first period at the head of El Salvador.
“These days everything has become more expensive,” Miguel López tells CNN, while selling vegetables on the streets of Santa Tecla, a district 10 km from San Salvador, the capital.
López says that the high prices of the basic basket hit his pocket twice, he has to pay more when he buys his food and because his clients buy less and less vegetables from him. “There are people who don’t like the price, but you have to accommodate because there is no other. “This is the life we lead,” he adds.
A family in the urban area needed on average, until April 2024, US$255.89 to acquire the basic basket, according to the National Statistics and Census Office of the Ministry of Economy.
The Center for Consumer Defense, an independent organization dedicated to monitoring the market, indicates that the basic urban food basket has increased by US$55.55 and the rural basket by US$41.33 from January 2021 to March 2024, therefore which proposes to President Nayib Bukele to install the National Minimum Wage Council to evaluate the 25% increase in the minimum wage.
Since 2021, the minimum wage is US$365 per month for the commerce, service, industry and other agribusiness sectors; US$359 per month for the textile sector and US$243 for agricultural activities, according to the Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare of El Salvador.
What they ask for on the streets
On the streets there are those who ask that in his second term Bukele promote measures to reduce the high cost of living and improve the family economy.
“One has to buy less or stop buying some products that are used to feed the family,” Mirna Vásquez tells CNN. “What we do there is juggle the money to see how we can afford it and make ends meet,” adds July de Fuentes.
Bukele, who swept the February elections with more than 84% of the votes, recognizes the concern of many about the high cost of living and has already announced that in his second presidential term he will promote what he calls economic takeoff, once the gangs are under control, which he compares to a cancer that had the country plunged into a crisis.
“If we have already overcome our cancer with metastasis, which was the gangs, now we only have to recover and be the person we always wanted to be, that we never could because unfortunately we were importing violence, listening to recipes from abroad,” said Bukele on the 4th. February at a press conference.
Bukele does not accept the criticism from Human Rights defenders and international organizations that have asked for the exception regime to be repealed, a measure that has kept some Constitutional rights suspended for just over two years.
Organizations such as Amnesty International warn that the prolonged state of emergency has generated a human rights crisis and warn that “a policy of torture in the prison system” could be perpetuated.
However, the Bukele Government responds that the emergency regime has allowed the levels of violence to be drastically reduced.
More terms for Bukele, according to Citizen Action
Social organizations such as Acción Ciudadana, a non-profit association specialized in social oversight, warn that Bukele’s second term may not be his last, since Nuevas Ideas maintains absolute control of the Legislative Assembly and may reform the Constitution to enable him to compete for another or more periods.
“The limit is going to be the imagination that they have, that is going to be the limit. This means, they can establish indefinite reelection, for example, they can extend the term of officials,” Eduardo Escobar, executive director of Acción Ciudadana, tells CNN.
At the end of April, in the last plenary session, the Legislative Assembly approved a new procedure that will make it easier for current deputies to reform the Constitution. To do so, they must still ratify those changes.
However, Bukele said last February that he considers that a constitutional reform is not necessary for indefinite reelection.
Bukele will assume his second term on June 1, after winning the elections in February by a large majority. He was able to run as a candidate despite the fact that the Constitution prohibited it, following a ruling by a new Constitutional Chamber, appointed by the Assembly with a pro-government majority.
