GLOBAL PERSPECTIVES

El Salvador's Combative New President Faces a Perilous Balancing Act

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Lino Miani
Board of Contributors

Jul 1, 2019 | 09:15 GMT

Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele is seen during his inauguration ceremony in San Salvador, El Salvador, on June 1, 2019.

Lacking a legislative majority, and without the support of El Salvador's entrenched elites or the army, new Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele will need to operate in a cooperative manner. So far, he has shown little inclination to do so.

(OSCAR RIVERA/AFP/Getty Images)

Highlights

  • El Salvador's new president, Nayib Bukele, represents a break with the past. Changing the balance of Salvadoran politics will require a delicate touch.
  • Lacking a legislative majority, and without the support of El Salvador's entrenched elites or the army, Bukele will need to operate in a cooperative manner. So far, he is showing little inclination to do so.
  • Though he's burned a few bridges at home, aligning with the right foreign backers might allow Bukele to attract enough investment and maintain enough security to address El Salvador's fiscal and political concerns, but this is far from assured.

With a style and pedigree different from that of his modern predecessors, El Salvador's new president came out swinging against the status quo almost as soon as his inauguration ended on June 1. Nayib Bukele's supporters see his willingness to break with politics as usual as a sign that El Salvador may finally shake off the lingering vestiges of its 1980-1992 civil war. Until now, every Salvadoran president has been associated with one of the main protagonists in that brutal conflict, the leftist Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front or the conservative Nationalist Republican Alliance. Part of Bukele's appeal is that he represents a break with the past, but change will come at a price in one of the world's most violent countries. Unbalancing power dynamics too quickly in El Salvador could provoke a violent and destabilizing response....

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