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Political will, the key to new governance: Nayib Bukele case

2019-09-18T01:43:32.715Z


[OPINION] Geovanny Vicente Romero: We should not confuse governance with governance, since this first constitutes the power that a legitimate government has to respond to demands ...


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(Credit: MARVIN RECINOS / AFP / Getty Images)

Editor's Note: Geovanny Vicente Romero is a lawyer and political scientist, with experience as a professor and advisor of public policy and governance. He is a political strategist and government communication consultant. He is currently completing a master's degree in Political Communication and Governance at George Washington University. He is the founder of the Center for Public Policy, Development and Leadership RD (CPDL-RD). The opinions expressed in this column are exclusive to the author.

(CNN Spanish) - Twenty - four hours in the Presidential Palace took the new president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, to make a decision that would not only mark the beginning of his Government but also heal wounds that do not end healing for the Salvadoran people , but now they hurt less when they look back and feel that, at least symbolically, someone received their deserved for their actions against humanity. On his first day as president, Bukele gave the order to remove the name of Domingo Monterrosa, the soldier behind the Mozote Massacre, from a barracks.

This small gesture, which in no way solves the economic or security situation of Salvadorans, has an immense symbolism because it marks the break with a style of governance that turned its back on the people and receives the birth of a governance paradigm based on putting the Heard the needs of the population and let their voices reach the top of the chain of command. This small gesture can be seen as populism by some or as restorative justice by others, but in the worst case the reality is that previous governments had the opportunity to vindicate the victims of Mozote and did not. Whatever the reasons for the decision, the decision was finally made. That small gesture of hearing the claim of the victims of the Civil War was the premonition of the political will that this new Government would have.

In these times when the only permanent thing is change, reinvention and innovation, the dialectic of the leaderships acquires another dimension with a more accelerated impulse that propitiates the space for outsiders or for the advent of those who, although they are not 'outsiders' are 'anti-system' and come into conflict with the 'establishment' as if they were opposite poles. In the United States, Donald Trump won against all odds and in Brazil a very similar situation develops with Jair Bolsonaro.

MIRA : The first 100 days of Bukele in El Salvador

In the case of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele broke with all the schemes, starting of course with bipartisanship and demonstrating that at the end of the tunnel there is always another way to go. Three decades of political hegemony were left behind in the Central American country. But it was not easy because, to achieve this, Bukele came to enroll in three political parties in just one year, as traditional forces managed to block who had become a phenomenon as mayor of San Salvador.

In 2017, Nayib is expelled from the official Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) party. Bukele tried to establish his New Ideas party, ending up joining the Democratic Change that would soon be closed, until culminating in the Grand Alliance for National Unity (WINS) with which he effectively wins. All this in a year, demonstrating that he had to overcome many stones that the political status quo had put in his way.

The next barrier Bukele managed to tear down was that of youth, the old model that bets everything on experience. Bukele continues to demonstrate that the experience is not always wise and that youth does not always come with a guarantee of immaturity. With only 38 years Bukele became the youngest and coolest president in Latin America making it clear that tie is not synonymous with seriousness and that joviality is not an antonym of responsibility. By his very own style, you very respectfully do not know if he is a rock star that is ruling the country or if he is a member of the Harley Davison club that directs the destiny of his caravan, but what you do know is that when it comes to fulfilling Its constitutional functions are not played with games.

Bukele applies a well-known technique in mediation and negotiation processes: "be gentle with people and hard on the problem." This president, who on his Twitter profile came to define himself as the “most handsome and cool president in the world” - in reference to his daughter, now only says Dad of Layla - showed his firmness when in his first weeks of government he launched a ambitious plan known as the Territorial Control Plan in order to attack organized crime, reduce homicide deaths and achieve what he called the rescue of the streets for citizenship.

To implement this plan only a presidential order was required, only the political will of the authorities that assumed a commitment to their nation on June 1, 2019 was required. As for criminological theories of crime fighting, Bukele did not discover ' the water powder ', only did what others did not, being able to do it. His strategy was to directly attack gang financiers to leave them without resources to operate while warning of zero contemplations and advising young people to leave gangs. Frequently, through his Twitter account, with great satisfaction he shares the homicide figure as a daily bulletin: "We can confirm that we have closed the day with 0 homicides throughout the national territory."

MIRA : Bukele orders a state of emergency to be lifted in penal centers after homicide leave

For the February 3, 2019 elections, I had to go to El Salvador for a week, as the international electoral observer of a multilateral agency. Soyapango, a municipality half an hour from the capital, was my center of operations. There I did not have a single mishap, but in the atmosphere you could notice the tense atmosphere with which people lived when going out to the streets, and I remember very well how they advised me about the streets that I should not penetrate. Soyapango is part of the Territorial Control Plan and I hope that all its streets are already free for the healthy circulation of citizenship.

El Salvador is not a rich country. In fact, an important part of the Gross Domestic Product comes from remittances since many emigrate fleeing violence, a problem that the new government attacks from the root. In 2017, only Haiti (32.4%) exceeded El Salvador (20%) in remittances in the hemisphere, according to the World Bank. Nayib Bukele is not doing more than his predecessors because he suddenly discovered a magic bar that solves everything. You are simply doing more with the same and distributing better. This is a managerial quality that he had already shown when he was the mayor of Nuevo Cuscatlán, a small municipality in the department of La Libertad.

In my opinion, the key to doing more with less is to reduce corruption and resources begin to flow. One of the phrases that Nayib Bukele popularized during his campaign was "return the stolen" and I jokingly remember that on election day I came to see ballots in which voters wrote this phrase, a sample of the Nayib Bukele phenomenon. I am glad to know that the will to solve the problems continues to manifest itself with the announcement of the creation of the International Commission to combat Corruption and Impunity in El Salvador (CICIES).

In Nuevo Cuscatlán, Bukele became a national phenomenon with the results of its programs and scholarships for young people with limited resources, being this incubator as an expert in the management of social networks and their best school as a politician. Small municipality, governed with big vision, platform that catapulted it to the mayor of San Salvador.

MIRA : Nayib Bukele bets on an anti-corruption commission in El Salvador

In governance and democracy in general, the majority must be aware that someday it will be a minority and this happened with the breakdown of bipartisanship in El Salvador. We should not confuse governance with governance, since this first constitutes the power that a legitimate government has to respond to the demands of its citizenship, while governance recognizes that the Government lacks the resources to respond to all demands and therefore, it is necessary to establish alliances with different sectors, such as the private one of course.

An important element that is transversal to both governance and governance is the will, this being the human capacity to decide what is desired and what is not. Nayib has demonstrated political will in his first 100 days of government, we cannot know how his five years will end but we do know that his legacy is working. Meanwhile, it is the Latin American government closest to the people in terms of political communication. You do not need a large number of followers or a verified account for Nayib to answer a tweet and in that same way he orders the solution to the expressed concern, committing his ministers to act immediately.

Last March, in Mexico, during the Durango Democracy Project 2019 conference, I had to share the stage with my friend Salvadoran Vice President Félix Ulloa (then elected), and I remember how now the masterful way in which he defined - announced - a model of Government Human and close to people. Until today his words continue to resonate in my memory, I don't know how this can change tomorrow.

Nayib Bukele

Source: cnnespanol

All news articles on 2019-09-18

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