He calls himself "the coolest dictator in the world", introduced Bitcoin as an official currency and above all made a name for himself as an uncompromising and very effective fighter in organized crime. Today, Naib Bukala is expected to be easily elected to his second term as president of El Salvador, but in the small Latin American country, there is also a growing fear of the end of democracy - and the continuation of the wholesale arrests of innocents.
Naiv Bokla (archive photo).
Has Palestinian roots, photo: Reuters
The reason?
The 42-year-old Bokla, the grandson of Christian Palestinian immigrants, was elected president in 2019 and was the first president who did not come from the two traditional parties.
Along with introducing Bitcoin as an official currency and bringing the Miss World pageant to the country, Bukala has made a name for himself as a president who does not intend to stop before constitutional limitations.
Thus, in January 2020, he entered the parliament surrounded by armed soldiers to "persuade" the legislators to approve a special expenditure for the purchase of weapons.
A year later, when his New Ideas party already had a majority in parliament, he fired the country's Supreme Court judges and the state attorney who had opposed his early reforms.
Gang members in the new mega-prison, built on the orders of Bokla, photo: AFP
Bokla's big test came in March 2022, when in one day the gang war claimed the lives of 62 citizens.
Bokla declared a state of emergency, assumed extensive powers and promised to end the gangs once and for all.
Later it will become clear that he carried and gave with the gangs he promised to exterminate, but the emergency powers were not canceled, and in fact they have already been extended 22 times.
Rights guaranteed by the constitution were suspended, and the police were given permission to detain a person for 15 days without trial and to wiretap phones without court approval.
The army went into action and the number of arrests soared.
Police officers patrol near one of the polling stations in San Salvador, photo: Reuters
The results were not long in coming - but so were the problems.
El Salvador lowered the murder rate from 103 cases per 100,000 people to 2.4, although international organizations doubt the figure.
On the other hand, it also became the country with the highest rate in the world - 2% - of citizens behind bars.
As of January, about 75 thousand Salvadorans were in prisons.
As part of eradicating crime, the government built a huge prison complex, intended for 40 thousand detainees and prisoners.
Street in San Salvador.
Security has improved, photo: Reuters
The problem is that, in view of the extensive powers, thousands of citizens are thrown into prison for no wrongdoing.
One of them is Maria (pseudonym).
In a conversation with the CNN network, she said that one day the police entered her house and said that she was suspected of being a member of a gang.
How did they know that?
"Someone tipped off the police."
"I told the police I was innocent and demanded explanations, but all they did was just put me in a cell," said Maria, who lost her brother in the gang wars.
Prisoners in the Salvadoran mega-prison, photo: AFP
Three days after the arrest, she was accused of membership in a criminal organization and thrown into a women's prison.
According to her, she was held with 250 women - in a cell that only had room for 20.
"Going to the shower involved undressing in front of everyone, while the food was of poor quality and full of insects," she said.
Delaying in the shower or avoiding eating was a sure route to being beaten.
From the moment of her arrest until her surprising release, she did not see a judge.
Her release papers stated that she had never been convicted.
Despite the injustice caused to her, Maria is still marked: she cannot leave El Salvador and is obliged to report to a police station every two weeks.
She also has trouble finding a job - because of her non-existent "criminal past".
A mural with the portrait of Bokla in San Salvador.
Gains enormous popularity, photo: E.P
Maria is far from alone.
Only last May the government of El Salvador released about 5,000 people after admitting that they had been arrested in vain.
In total, about 7,000 citizens were released from false arrests.
T-shirts with the image of Bokla in the market.
A local star, photo: Reuters
But judging by public opinion polls, a huge majority of citizens support Bokla's tough policies.
One of them is Jacqueline Selaya, whose niece was killed in a shootout between the gangs in 2017.
"We have security now," she told CNN.
"It's not perfect, but let's let the situation continue until those who caused the pain pay the price. I'll go to the polls and call on my neighbors and friends to vote for the president. Can you imagine what would happen if all the hateful people in prison got out? I'm thinking of my boys, 16 and 23, and the fact that they can go out at night, play football in the street with their friends without fear of being murdered or recruited into crime - there is no price for that."
Square in the center of San Salvador.
Security for freedom?, Photo: Reuters
Maria thinks otherwise.
"Some of the people who were arrested in vain will never be able to be freed. Sometimes I think about innocent people who ended up in a place they weren't supposed to be and died there."
"There are records of at least 200 cases of death in prison," Ana Maria Mendes-Dardon of WOLA (an American non-governmental organization for the promotion of human rights, democracy and justice in South America) told The Guardian. "What happens in prisons at some point moves to the streets." , added Jose Miguel Cruz, who investigates El Salvador's gangs. "We know that organized crime actually tends to reorganize and get stronger in prisons."
Meanwhile, pro-democracy activists in El Salvador fear for freedoms in the country.
They mention that Bokla's party also has a majority in the parliament where it has 84 seats, and now, due to a reform passed last year, it will be reduced to 60.
If that's not enough, Bokla's very running for another term - completely contrary to the constitution - was made possible thanks to judges appointed by the president to the Supreme Court.
And in between, the government reduced access to crime data and increased the pressure on journalists and human rights organizations.
"We are on the way to becoming a country with a hegemonic party, where the opposition serves as a decoration," Eduardo Escobar of the "Civil Action" organization told The Washington Post.
"The history of Latin America is full of examples of authoritarian leaders who used their initial popularity to chip away at the limits on their power," Juan Papier, HRW's Americas VP, told The Guardian. "Then when they were no longer popular, they managed to maintain the throne, to silence the criticism and suppress the demonstrations.
And the citizens have no way to fix it."
Were we wrong?
We will fix it!
If you found an error in the article, we would appreciate it if you shared it with us