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Food experts have many and varied expectations of the UN Food System Summit. It's hoped decisions made here will help the world get back on track for the Sustainable Development Goals 2030. Credit: Alison Kentish

By Alison Kentish
DOMINICA, Sep 20 2021 (IPS)

Dubbed ‘the People’s Summit, the United Nations Food Systems Summit (UNFSS) hopes to put the world back on a path to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030, through food systems overhauling. From the tempered to the extremely optimistic, experts in various food system sectors share their expectations of transformation.

The world has been lagging on ambitious climate, biodiversity and sustainable development goals, but the UNFSS is hoping that commitments to transform global food systems will get the world back on track to meeting the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030.

The inaugural UNFSS will take place virtually during the UN General Assembly High-Level Week, under the leadership of UN Secretary-General António Guterres.

It promises to bring together the public and private sectors, non-governmental organisations, farmers groups, indigenous leaders, youth representatives and researchers to outline a clear path to ensure that the world’s food production and distribution are safe, healthy, sustainable and equitable.

Learning from the lessons of the COVID-19 pandemic, the summit also hopes to make food production and distribution more resilient to vulnerabilities, stress and shocks.

Experts in sustainability and various food system sectors have been speaking about their expectations and hopes for a summit that is built on solutions to some of the world’s most pressing issues such as land degradation, inequality, rising hunger, and obesity.

Panellists at a Barilla Center for Food and Nutrition (BCFN) ‘Fixing the Business of Food’ webinar held on September 16, 2021, were asked how optimistic they were, on a scale of 1 to 10, of real food systems transformation in the next 12 months, triggered by the private sector.

“I am going to give a full 10,” said Viktoria de Bourbon de Parme, Head of Food Processing at the World Benchmarking Alliance. “I am super optimistic,” she added. “I think we are there. Momentum is there, and it is going to happen.”

Executive Director of Food and Nature at the World Business Council for Sustainable Development Diane Holdorf is similarly optimistic.

“I would say an 8 out of 10, but I do have to preface this by saying that systems change is complex. With individual leading companies demonstrating what is possible and bringing others along, we are going to see for sure actual system changes,” she said.

Not all experts are optimistic that the UNFSS will bring about the urgent changes required for food systems transformation.

IPS spoke with Million Belay, the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA) head, about his expectations for the summit.

Belay, who is also an advisory board member for BCFN and a food systems researcher, said that he and alliance members disagree with the summit’s agenda and structure. The alliance represents farmers, pastoralists, hunter/gatherers, faith-based organisations, indigenous peoples and women’s groups,

“The pre-summit has happened in Rome. During that presummit, we had our own summit, organised by civil society mechanisms, and it was clear that farmers, fisherfolk, indigenous people, local groups, and women’s organisations were all saying no, the UNFFS summit does not represent us. There is no reason to be part of that,” Belay said.

Belay believes that the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) should have been responsible for organising the Summit.

“This is a space where the civil society in general and the civil society mechanism and governments come together to negotiate about food-related issues, so the agenda should have been set there,” he said, adding that, “the UNFSS has set up a scientific body as part of the structure, but we already have a scientific body in the CFS, that is called the High-Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition. It is a scientific body, and you can say that we need to beef up this body, but they have established a totally different scientific body.”

While expectations from the summit differ, the experts are unanimous in their view that the world is in urgent need of radical change in how food is grown, sold and distributed to tackle food insecurity, land degradation and rising poverty.

“(The Summit) is one step on a very, very long journey. Perhaps more than ever, as the UN General Assembly opens, we feel the weight and burdens of non-sustainability in the world,” said Jeffrey Sachs, Director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University.

Sachs says the transformation to sustainable development will demand deep energy and fiscal policy change.

With land-use accounting for about 30 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions and ensuing issues like deforestation and loss of habitat, he is calling for fundamental change in land-use policies across the globe, adding that current, unsustainable use is a ‘massive contributor to crises the board.’

Another aspect of the complex global food system that requires urgent attention is the need for healthy diets.

“About half the world does not have a healthy diet. Of the 8 billion people on the planet, roughly 1 billion live in extreme hunger. Another 2 billion live with one or more micronutrient deficiencies, anaemia, vitamin deficiencies or omega-three fatty acid deficiencies, which are absolutely debilitating for health. Another billion people are obese,” Sachs said.

This week’s UNFSS hopes to get commitments from governments, the private sector, farmers and indigenous groups to work together and change global food production and consumption.

By tackling the food crisis, organisers hope to address the climate, biodiversity, and hunger crises.

 

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By Nick Nisbett, Lesli Hoey and Jose Graziano da Silva
BRIGHTON, UK, Sep 20 2021 (IPS)

COVID-19 has exposed numerous fractures in global food systems that leave millions at risk of food insecurity. Like the numerous political failures in dealing with COVID, the repercussions of food system failings are experienced by rich and poor countries alike, with the poorest and most marginalised paying the greatest price.

To be clear, while the numbers of those who are undernourished remain shamefully high, this is a food crisis that is not just about hunger or famine. There is also a silent and growing crisis of an estimated 38.9 million children worldwide affected by overweight and in too many cases, these children grow into adults facing unhealthy eating and chronic diseases associated with obesity (diabetes, heart disease and some cancers etc.).

Alongside these dual burdens of malnutrition, there is a third crisis – climate change – which the food and agriculture is a major contributor to as well as being vulnerable to its impacts, and therefore further threatening food security.

The United Nations (UN) Food Systems Summit on 23 September 2021 was conceived (in the jargon of the UN) to develop equitable, healthy and sustainable responses to ensure that “no one is left behind” as we “build back better” from COVID-19.

Forty one thousand people have taken part in Summit dialogues but the process has been marred by continual criticism, particularly for its inadequate attention to human rights, the sovereignty of indigenous peoples over their own food systems, and worker rights across the food system.

More than anything, criticism of the Summit has focused on its inclusion of ‘Big Food’, including names such as PepsiCo who were invited to ‘fireside chats’ as part of the Pre-Summit in Rome.

Of course, food companies are an essential part of the food system. Indeed, had the Summit engaged first in a root cause analysis of the problems that have contributed to the syndemic (synergistic epidemic) – of undernutrition, obesity and climate change – all issues the Summit portends to address – corporate concentration, negligence and unbridled power would have been identified as the primary cause of policy inertia.

There is no doubt that corporations will need to radically transform as part of the changes advocated by the Summit. But they won’t do that on their own and they certainly won’t do that as part of cosy fireside chats.

Yes, this will take dialogue, but the record on this to date is poor. In many global and national spaces, rather than be “part of the conversation”, there is widely documented academic evidence of big food companies trying to shape the outcomes in their interest: towards voluntary measures and empty promises, away from the regulation (such as front of packet labels) and taxation (such as soda taxes) which have been shown to be most effective in minimising the damage from unhealthy, highly and ultraprocessed foods.

Discussion of such issues, alongside such products’ environmental impacts, have been minimised as part of the Summit process. Was that to avoid Big Food’s’ discomfort at discussing the most unhealthy and unsustainable foods?

UN organisations and their staff are well aware of such issues but have been pressured to “come to the table” with companies they know are more interested in driving shareholder value than contributing to sustainability and public health.

Such companies have a history of unethical marketing of unhealthy foods to children, or persuading poor mothers not to breastfeed. Fortunately, there are conflict of interest rules and protocols that exist to protect the day to day work of UN organisations so that they can fulfil their public mandate without such unethical interference.

As part of our own contribution to the Summit planning and to help it overcome such criticisms, two of us led an ad-hoc committee focused on the Summit’s own ‘principles of engagement’. We also wrote to the UN Secretary General and the Summit leadership to suggest that the Summit simply follow the UN’s own conflict of interest rules and be transparent about who was involved in shaping Summit processes and why.

Our letter was initially signed by 100 individuals and international organisations across five continents, ranging from dietary disease activists in Ghana to organisations such as Save the Children and researchers at the International Food Policy Research Institute.

The UN’s own Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food was an early supporter and 40 additional signatories were added recently when we re-opened the letter due to popular demand, including the American Heart Association and a co-author of this opinion article, the ex-Director of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (now Director General of Brazil’s Zero Hunger Institute).

But from the leadership of the summit itself, nothing in reply.

You may ask who cares about these UN summits, really? We do and everyone else should too. Such summits set the scene for national action, they define future funding patterns for UN and bilateral aid organisations, they spawn decades of debate on the issues raised, and, if not well conceived, they provide nice sounding cover for the status-quo.

Behind the multiple fights that have raged in the privileged world of these global debates, there are real issues that will play out in multiple ways in every country faced with the global food and climate emergencies and the inequities that caused them, made all the more raw by the COVID pandemic.

What we have seen ahead of this week’s Summit is a lot of “nutri-washing” and thousands of proposals reflecting the voices of well-nourished people and little (if any) proposals for putting an end to hunger and other forms of malnourishment as a political priority by governments around the world.

The final speech by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres could be a turning point to change this, but not if he chooses to paper over the sensitivities when addressing contentious issues, as UN leaders are wont to do.

If you haven’t yet, get involved, even after the Summit on 23rd September. This battle will rage on including in your own country as it faces up to these multiple food and climate crises and as policy makers face numerous influences over policy directions in response.

All future UN processes should be governed by a simple set of rules set by the precedent of past UN organisations and international summits where conflicts of interest have been taken seriously. This will set the standard for national debates across the world, which is where the real work begins.

Nick Nisbett is a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies; Lesli Hoey Associate Professor of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Michigan; and Jose Graziano da Silva is former Director General of FAO (UN Food and Agriculture Organization) and Director General of the Zero Hunger Institute. Nick Nisbett is based in Brighton, UK, Lesli Hoey in Michigan, USA and Jose Graziano da Silva in Campinas, SP Brazil.

Footnote: The UN Food Systems Summit, scheduled to take place on Thursday 23 September , will be a completely virtual event during the UN General Assembly High-level Week.

According to the UN, the Summit “will serve as a historic opportunity to empower all people to leverage the power of food systems to drive our recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic and get us back on track to achieve all 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030.”

 

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The Chichipicas spring is one of the San Huitzizilapan indigenous community's water sources, in the Lerma municipality, in the state of Mexico -adjacent to Mexico City-, where several community systems manage the resource. Credit: Emilio Godoy / IPS

By Emilio Godoy
LERMA/COYOTEPEC, Mexico, Sep 18 2021 (IPS)

In the San Lorenzo Huitzizilapan Otomí indigenous community, in the state of Mexico –adjacent to the country’s capital–, access to water has been based on collective work.

“Public services come from collective work. What we have done is based on tequio (free compulsory work in benefit of the community), cooperation. The community has always taken care of the forests and water,” Aurora Allende, a member of the sector’s Drinking Water System, told IPS.

In San Lorenzo Huitzizilapan, a town of 18,000 people in the municipality of Lerma – about 60 kilometres west of Mexico City – some 10 autonomous community water management groups are responsible for the water supply in their areas.

The first community system emerged in 1960 to meet local needs. “The water falls by gravity and we pipe it. The water runs through 200 drains that come from the hill, and there are two or three wells for the smaller neighbourhoods,” explained Allende, whose father started the first autonomous system in the community and who is a homemaker in addition to her community work.

The Drinking Water System serves some 150 families who pay about two dollars a month for the maintenance of the facilities.

Huitzizilapan, whose name means “river of hummingbirds” in Nahuatl and which owns about 4,000 hectares of land, half of it forests, is part of a strip of water factories that supply the Cutzamala System, the set of dams that supplies water to both the capital and the state of Mexico.

The Otomi people are one of Mexico’s 69 native groups, numbering some 17 million people, out of a total national population of 128 million. More than400 000 indigenous people belonging to five groups live in the state of Mexico.

Despite being guardians of the cultural and biological heritage of this Latin American country, they suffer discrimination and poverty. Almost 50 percent of the headwaters of Mexico’s watersheds are in areas inhabited by indigenous peoples and the regions with the highest rainfall are located in their territories.

The 1992 National Water Law does not recognise the rights of native inhabitants and allows the government’s National Water Commission (Conagua) to grant water permits throughout the country to anyone who applies for them. In 2012, a constitutional amendment recognised the human right to water. However, approval of a new law to implement the constitutional reform is still pending.

In addition, water faces the three horsemen of the apocalypse: the effects of the climate crisis, such as drought; overexploitation; and pollution.

Native peoples suffer from restrictions on new uses of water, put in place by Conagua with the argument that there are water shortages. Today, at least nine of these measures apply in eight of Mexico’s 31 states and the federal district of Mexico City.

Autonomous initiatives have become a mechanism for organising and defending access to water, despite the fact that they are not recognised by law, although they are not prohibited either. But there is no estimate of how many operate in the country nor has there been an assessment of how they function.

But for Conagua and the state-owned Federal Electricity Commission, these systems are a nuisance, because they fall outside the jurisdiction of the former and, for the latter, electricity to operate wells serves as a means of pressure to promote the municipalisation of the service, due to the costs paid by the independent systems.

Aurora Allende, seen here outside the gate of one of the local waster plants, is an autonomous water management system member in the San Lorenzo Huitzizilapan indigenous community, in central Mexico. Credit: Emilio Godoy / IPS

Struggles over water

The water issue is a reflection of how native groups are treated in Mexico, because Conagua has granted individuals, companies and municipalities more than 29,000 concessions for the use of water in their territories, covering about 35 billion cubic meters.

For that reason, water is a recurring source of political, social and environmental conflicts in this country with the second-largest population and economy in Latin America and the third largest area, as indicated by recent reports.

Mexico faces a high risk of water stress, surpassed in the region only by Chile, according to the Aqueduct Water Risk Atlas developed by the Aqueduct Alliance, made up of governments, companies and foundations. In 2021, the country has been suffering from a severe drought that has had a major impact on agriculture, livestock and water availability in urban centres.

The 2015 report “Conflicts among Indigenous Peoples and Communities of Mexico” prepared by the official National Institute of Indigenous Peoples and seen by IPS, documents 246 disputes over agrarian issues, mining projects and violations of indigenous rights.

Of these, 16 involve water issues, such as the construction of thermoelectric plants, aqueducts and hydroelectric dams.

In the Coyotepec municipality, in the state of Mexico -adjacent to the capital of the country-, the official National Water Commission manages 11 wells to supply the resource on site. Community liquid management systems pose a challenge for the authorities to control the water. Credit: Emilio Godoy / IPS

The 2019 “Report on Violations of the Human Rights to Drinking Water and Sanitation in Mexico,” drawn up by a collective of NGOs, provides a more detailed picture of conflicts over water, outlining 72 cases of violations of the right to water in 16 states.

The municipality of Coyotepec, also in the state of Mexico, illustrates like few others the struggle for water.

In June 2013, the municipal government tried unsuccessfully to take control of the water service, a move that was opposed by the public. The local water supply was managed by the autonomous Coyotepec Drinking Water Administration (AAPCOY), founded in 1963 to provide water to the town of about 41,000 people.

In May 2016, local residents prevented a municipal consultation because they considered it was rigged and aimed at approving the transfer of water to nearby real estate projects.

“The conflict persists. The state government saw that we were winning the battle and forcibly removed us. We oppose municipalisation, because it is the door to the privatisation of the service. They want to take control of our water,” a retired accountant who is a member of the June 9 Popular Front in Defence of Natural Resources of Coyotepec told IPS.

In Coyotepec, which means “place of coyotes” in Nahuatl, located about 40 kilometres north of Mexico City, AAPCOY serves some 12,000 members, who pay about 2.50 dollars a month, and is complemented by two other water systems. For its part, Conagua manages 11 wells and a pumping plant.

In San Lorenzo Huitzizilapan, Coyotepec and other localities with a majority indigenous population, there were violations of rights to water availability, physical and economic accessibility, water quality, as well as access to information and participation, accountability and justice, according to organisations that defend the right to water.

Seeking a remedy, indigenous peoples have sought legal protections that denounce the breach of the International Labour Organisation’s Convention 169 on Indigenous and Tribal Peoples and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples of 2007, which recognise native territory and the right to water.

Claudia Gómez, a non-governmental Lawyers Collective member, and Wilfrido Gómez, the head of Social Data Ibero at the private Iberoamerican University, agree that legal questions are at the root of the problem.

“There are not enough legal mechanisms to guarantee the protection of water as part of indigenous territory,” Claudia Gómez told IPS. “Neither the Water Law nor the constitution has adequately regulated water for the people. There is a battle to gain recognition for native practices and use of water.”

Wilfrido Gómez (no relation) said that “if water is available and if they meet certain legal requirements, companies are given concessions, but for the communities it is more complicated. Control over water is gained by whoever has the money to obtain permits. One implication is the widespread dispossession of land and water, which go together.”

Due to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the urgent need for clean water, the U.N. Department of Economic and Social Affairs urged governments in its 2020 report “Indigenous Peoples and the COVID-19 Pandemic: Considerations” to improve access to and management of water and sanitation, especially for indigenous people in remote villages, and said this should include “relevant indigenous practices, such as watershed management.”

Despite this situation, Mexico’s National Indigenous Peoples Program 2018-2024 does not mention water once.

Community water rights advocate Sergio Velázquez is fighting for the continuity of an independent water management system in the municipality of Coyotepec, in central Mexico, which has brought him up against pressure from the city council for control of the resource in the municipality. Photo: Emilio Godoy / IPS

Caught between risks and promises

The solution seems to lie in a new water law, which has been held up in the Chamber of Deputies. The lower house of Congress has received at least six initiatives, including the first in the country developed by organisations defending the human right to water, indigenous peoples, agricultural producers and academics.

After seven years of forums and workshops, the citizens’ initiative was built on 12 consensuses.

These include respect for the water rights of local communities, a ban on water permits for toxic mining and fracking endeavours, an end to the hoarding of water permits, prevention of the privatisation of water services, a guarantee of full access to information and sufficient public funds for water supply.

Allende said “all they want is our water and our forests. There are projects for bottling plants and real estate developments in the highlands. They’re doing everything they can to have access to that area. There is a threat of urbanisation; we are afraid that they will enter our territory.” She lamented that they receive no compensation for taking care of the forest and the water.

Claudia Gómez and Wilfrido Gómez advocate the approval of the citizens’ initiative.

“We believe that the approval of a new law that recognises the rights of indigenous peoples and local communities is necessary. There should be conservation and care policies, so that there is no shortage of water in other regions. Therefore, we ask for consensual regional plans, which are achieved through planning by region or basin, and thus priorities are selected,” said the lawyer.

Wilfrido Gómez stressed that the citizens’ initiative provides tools for controlling water concessions. “Very soon there will come a time when there will be no access to water and there will be no guarantees for the right to it. Today, Conagua has no legal tools to deny or withdraw concessions,” he explained.

In Coyotepec, the solution lies in new elections to lead AAPCOY and “oust the usurpers”, in Velázquez’ words, although it is also necessary for the beneficiaries to pay on time for the service, one of the shortcomings of the system.

“Thus, we could return to representative management that guarantees the right to water,” said the activist.

The project for this report was the winner of the Journalistic Research Grants on community water management in Mexico, a Fundación Avina, Cántaro Azul and Fondo para la Paz initiative. But this resulting content is solely the responsibility of IPS.

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"Resistance and Popular Rebellion" reads a banner held by demonstrators in San Salvador in a Wednesday, Sept. 15 protest against measures they consider authoritarian adopted by the government of President Nayib Bukele. The latest was the replacement of the constitutional court judges by the ruling party, which paves the way for Bukele to seek immediate reelection, banned up to now in El Salvador. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala/IPS

By Edgardo Ayala
SAN SALVADOR, Sep 17 2021 (IPS)

The president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, has been widely criticised for his authoritarian tendencies, but has said that the changes he plans will be long-term – which to his critics means a further undercutting of the weak democratic institutions that he has already begun to dismantle.

The president gave the commemoration of the bicentennial of Central America’s independence on Wednesday, Sept. 15, a symbolic touch and pledged that his government would not reverse the changes put into motion.

“This country has suffered so much that it cannot be transformed overnight; important changes, real and worthwhile changes, take time, they are not immediate, they are made step by step”, said Bukele, in a nationwide address broadcast on radio and television on Wednesday night.

The opposition, however, sees the changes as an attack on democracy in this Central American nation of 6.7 million people.

Bukele for president in 2024?

Perhaps the most abrupt change pushed through by the Bukele administration since it took office in June 2019 was the removal of the five judges in the Supreme Court’s constitutional chamber.

They were removed on May 1 when the new legislature, controlled by the lawmakers of Nuevas Ideas, Bukele’s party – who now hold 56 of the 84 seats – was installed.

The governing party’s majority allowed the president to appoint like-minded judges to the constitutional chamber, whose first move was to strike down the legal obstacle to consecutive presidential reelection."Apparently we are in democracy, but the president's actions run counter to democracy, he is dismantling the state's institutionality, and is thus attacking the rights of the entire population." -- Loyda Robles

That opened the door for the president to run again at the end of his current five-year term, in 2024, which was prohibited by the constitution until just two weeks ago.

Bukele, a 40-year-old of Palestinian descent from a wealthy business family, first emerged in politics as a popular mayor of San Salvador from 2015 to 2018. He is described by observers as a millennial populist who uses social media to communicate with the public, often announcing his decisions via Twitter.

The constitutional chamber ruled that the country’s president can serve two consecutive terms in office, whereas according to a 2014 ruling by the same court a president could only run for office again after two terms served by other leaders, based on an interpretation of article 152 of the constitution.

But the new constitutional court judges named by the legislature on May 1 reinterpreted this controversial and confusing article of the constitution and ruled on Sept. 3 that presidents can stand for a consecutive term if they step down six months before the election.

The legal ruling, which drew fire from the opposition and global rights watchdogs, thus makes it possible for Bukele to seek a second term in 2024.

President Nayib Bukele gave a carefully staged speech to the country on the night of Sept. 15, addressing public authorities, as well as civilian and military representatives. CREDIT: Presidency of El Salvador

Manual for Latin American authoritarianism

The Salvadoran president is apparently following, virtually letter by letter, the manual used by other Latin American populist presidents with an authoritarian bent, whether on the right or the left, who, by means of rulings handed down by judges under their control, have overturned laws and perpetuated themselves in power.

“If the people grant power, and the people demand these changes, it would be no less than a betrayal not to make them,” the president said in his speech before civilian and military leaders.

The president now controls the three branches of government, with no checks against his style of government where everything revolves around him, a millennial who usually wears a backwards baseball cap and is intolerant of criticism, whether from the media, international organisations, the U.S. government or other countries.

On the morning of Wednesday Sept. 15, thousands of people marched through the streets of the Salvadoran capital to protest the president’s increasing authoritarianism, in the most massive demonstration against Bukele since he came to power.

“I’m marching to defend our rights and to protest against President Bukele’s abuses,” a trans woman who preferred to remain anonymous told IPS.

Bukele won a landslide victory in February 2019 as an anti-establishment candidate riding the wave of voter frustration and disappointment with the right-wing Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA), in power from 1989 to 2009, and the left-wing Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), which governed from 2009 to 2019.

Holding a sign reading “This government turned out to be more fake than my eyelashes,” a young trans woman participates in the march called by social organisations on Sept. 15 to protest against President Nayib Bukele and his style of government that, since June 2019, has been dismantling democratic institutions in this Central American nation. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala/IPS

His party then swept the legislative elections in May 2021 and now, having replaced the members of the constitutional court, Bukele pulls the strings of an important segment of the country’s justice system.

He also controls the Attorney General’s Office, after the governing party’s legislative majority removed then Attorney General Raúl Melara on May 1, replacing him with the pro-Bukele Rodolfo Delgado.

“Apparently we are in democracy, but the president’s actions run counter to democracy, he is dismantling the state’s institutionality, and is thus attacking the rights of the entire population,” lawyer Loyda Robles, of the Foundation for Studies for the Application of Law (FESPAD), told IPS.

She added that there were warning signs that El Salvador could be heading towards an even more authoritarian, dictatorial, Nicaragua-style regime.

The president of that country, Daniel Ortega, has already served three consecutive terms since his return to power in 2007, and is heading for a fourth term in 2022. To this end, the judiciary, under his control, has imprisoned almost a dozen opposition candidates who could challenge him at the polls.

Slippery slope of anti-democratic measures

Emboldened by his overwhelming triumph in the 2019 presidential elections, Bukele has taken a series of steps that have angered opposition sectors, because they believe that he intends to undermine all checks and balances and govern at will.

In addition to the removal of the constitutional court judges and the attorney general, the legislature passed a decree on Aug. 31 that forced some 200 judges to retire.

The government claims it is purging corrupt judges, who do exist. However, the process has not been based on investigations but on an across-the-board decision to make retirement mandatory for all judges over the age of 60 or who have worked for 30 years.

Some analysts have interpreted the move as a purge within the judicial system in order to later fill the vacuum with judges aligned with Bukelismo.

The government denies this charge and says the aim is to make way for young lawyers, arguing that judges in El Salvador do not hold lifetime positions.

But all of these moves have set off alarm bells both inside and outside El Salvador.

Demonstrators in Francisco Morazán square, in the historic center of San Salvador, who came out to protest on Sept. 15 against the increasingly authoritarian moves by Nayib Bukele’s government, in the most massive demonstration against the president since he came to power, called by social organisations on the country’s Independence Day. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala/IPS

However, analyst Dagoberto Gutiérrez told IPS that the struggle between Bukele and his opponents is rooted in a silent struggle between two economic groups: the traditional oligarchy that has pulled the strings of the country’s politics, and new small, medium and even large businesspeople aligned with the president.

Gutiérrez, a former guerrilla commander now close to the president, said the opposition is demanding independence of powers that has actually never existed in the country, since the oligarchy always put in place officials who would maintain the status quo.

That “democracy” touted by the oligarchy, with its fallacies and abuses, is being taken up by another political project, that of Bukele, who stressed that the extent of the transformations he has planned “is yet to be seen.”

For the time being, according to the constitutional court’s recent ruling, Bukele can, if he wishes, seek reelection at the end of his current term. But he would not be able to run for a third consecutive term.

However, lawyer Tahnya Pastor remarked to IPS: “Who can assure us that in the future, by means of another legal precedent, they won’t pull another reelection out of their sleeve? This doubt remains, obviously.”

She added that when all the warning signs are analysed, “we can conclude that we are heading towards the ultimate concentration of power, and history has shown that no concentration of power is good.”

But like Gutiérrez, Pastor criticised the opposition because in the past they have also manipulated, for their own political interests, the same institutions over which they are now crying foul.

“The constitution has indeed been reformed in the past depending on the makeup of the constitutional court, and the jurisprudence has responded to partisan political interests,” she said.

Bukele seems to be confident that, despite the criticism, his policies and vision are welcomed by the majority of Salvadorans, who continue to support him.

According to a survey by the José Simeón Caña Central American University carried out in June, during Bukele’s second year in office, nine out of 10 respondents said the president represented a positive change for the country.

He obtained an overall high score of 8.1, and those surveyed identified the government’s good management of the Covid-19 pandemic as its main achievement.

Not everyone shares this enthusiasm for Bukele, obviously, nor does all the criticism come from academic, political or activist circles.

“It’s not good for someone to govern as he pleases, that’s how things were done when there were kings, but we are no longer in those times,” Hernán Campos, a farmer from the Cangrejera canton in the municipality and department of La Libertad, in the central part of the country, told IPS.

Africa's women's basketballers start the continental championships on Saturday under the shadow of a major sexual abuse scandal.