What is known about Bukele’s war against corruption in El Salvador for which he will build a new prison

To the war against gangs promoted in El Salvador by Nayib Bukelenow the fight against government corruption will be added, as announced this Tuesday by the president himself during a cabinet meeting.

In the meeting with all the members of his Executive, in addition to announcing that he will step aside from his position for six months to be able to compete in the 2024 presidential elections, Bukele said that he is worried about leaving a bad legacy and asked Attorney General Rodolfo Delgado, also present, to investigate all government officials.

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“There are some fugitive presidents, but most are remembered as thieves. So, I don’t steal because I don’t want to be remembered as the thief or the corrupt,” Bukele said.

“But I am not going to be the president who did not steal, but surrounded himself with thieves. I hope they remember me as the president who didn’t steal and who didn’t let anyone steal. And whoever steals, he put in prison. There are already a couple who are in jail (…) We are already about to start the construction of the CECOC, Corruption Confinement Center. “It’s no joke,” said the president.

CECOT and now, CECOC

At the moment there is not much information about the prison facilities that, according to Bukele, will begin to be built soon.

The Salvadoran president announced that it will be called Corruption Confinement Center and will be close to the Terrorism Confinement Center (Cecot).

El Cecot, a megaprison inaugurated in early 2023 and which, according to the Salvadoran government, houses exclusively gang members, has been described as “the largest in America.”

It is in a rural area near Tecoluca, in the department of San Vicente, about 74 kilometers southeast of the country’s capital, San Salvador.

Some of the more than 70,000 people detained since the emergency regime was imposed in March 2022 are imprisoned there. The government assures that they are members of gangs or have links with them, although human rights and civil society organizations report arrests. arbitrary and violation of due process.

It is not the first time that Bukele talks about a prison for politicians who commit crimes.

He already referred to her on June 1 when he declared “war on corruption”after considering that it is an “endemic evil” that, “like gangs, has tentacles at all levels of the State.”

“Just as we deploy security forces and round up gang members until we take them to jail, we will also pursue white-collar criminals, wherever they come from”he stated during his speech to the nation upon completing his fourth year in power.

“We will also build a prison for the corrupt. We will seize everything they have and make them return what was stolen,” he assured.

He also said that, while he was saying those words, the Attorney General’s Office (FGR) was carrying out the search and seizure of all the properties of the former president Alfredo Cristiani, who governed the Central American country between 1989 and 1994.

A series of accusations for alleged corruption already weighed on Cristiani, among them that five months before leaving the government, the Presidential House would have issued 106 checks in his name for a total amount of US$5.5 million whose destination is unknown, as revealed. the newspaper El Faro in an investigation.

Three days after his arrest, the FGR formally accused him of having participated in the massacre of six Jesuit priests and their two collaborators perpetrated by an elite army commando in 1989.

However, analysts and members of civil society organizations questioned Bukele’s new “war” against corruption, ensuring that it could be used to arrest political rivals of the president a few months before the elections.

Accusations against current officials

Bukele’s critics denounce that, although he came to power in 2019 waving the flag of the fight against corruption, in the time he has led the government he has dismantled institutions that guarantee transparency and oversight in the country, in addition to attacking the balance of powers of the State.

As an example of this they put the dismissal in 2021 of Attorney General Raúl Melara.

The Legislative Assembly, controlled by his Nuevas Ideas party, dismissed him in May 2021 under the argument that his independence and impartiality were in question, due to his alleged links with the opposition Arena party, something that Melara denied.

However, until then FGR headed by Melara had also carried out a criminal investigation against several government officials.

For months, prosecutors tapped phones, conducted physical surveillance, seized documents, took photographs and interviewed witnesses.

The investigations were not only focused on alleged negotiations with gangs, but also on alleged irregular purchases during the pandemic linked to the Ministries of Health and Agriculture.

After Melara’s dismissal, the research baptized as “Cathedral” It was left in the hands of Rodolfo Delgado, the new attorney general appointed by the Assembly controlled by the ruling party.

Initial reports on cost overruns during the pandemic had been compiled by Bukele’s then-main anti-corruption body, the International Commission Against Impunity in El Salvador (Cicies).

However, in June 2021 Bukele announced the breaking of his agreement with the Organization of American States (OAS) for the existence of Ciciesarguing that that body could not be trusted, since it had hired a former mayor of San Salvador who was being investigated as an advisor.

“We have decided that we are going to break our agreement with Cicies because it is absurd that we try to combat impunity with precisely the people who are promoting impunity in El Salvador,” said the president in a press conference on June 5, 2021.

Likewise, so far in his administration more than a dozen officials from his government have been accused of alleged acts of corruption by the United States Department of Stateincluding his press secretary, his legal secretary, the Minister of Labor, one of his former Ministers of Agriculture and his former Minister of Justice.

In July 2021, the US included Chief of Staff Carolina Recinos on the Engel list, which contains the names of Central American officials suspected of corruption or undermining democracy.

The report accuses Recinos of having engaged in “significant corruption through the misappropriation of public funds for personal benefit” and claims that it also participated in a money laundering scheme.

Last June, the Government Ethics Court (TEG) ordered Recinos to reimburse US$25,000 and fined her US$2,300 for the “violation of ethical duty” in the management of funds intended for scholarships.

On the other hand, the Washington Office for Latin American Affairs (Wola, for its acronym in English) and other organizations have denounced that during the emergency regime that is still in force in El Salvador “they have eliminated legal controls on administrative processes for the use of public funds and State contractingas well as the right to access public information.”

Perhaps to silence these accusations, Bukele announced this Tuesday that although he is about to leave office, he is going to “increase oversight of the work of the government and its portfolios”.

“From here only two go to re-election, it’s not that if the president goes, we all go. If the ones who go to re-election are the two of us (him and the current vice president Félix Ulloa). All the others are not going to re-election, no one will vote for you (…) Those who continue will be because they have been outstanding in their positions,” he said during the cabinet meeting.

And he later addressed the attorney general: “I want to publicly ask that we investigate everyone who is here, backwards and forwards.”