El Salvador, like several countries in Central America and the world, is in a situation bordering on tragedy when facing a pandemic under the immense structural failures resulting from centuries of environmental and human exploitation. Few alternatives remain when there have been dictatorial regimes, civil war, and the opening of representative party democracy – either democratic citizen participation or a return to dictatorship.
The Salvadoran political crisis before the pandemic
El Salvador has important historical records pertaining to the evolution towards a relatively nascent democracy. Only in 1992 did a 12-year civil war end, the ideological spectrum for party representation in free elections open, and a harsh chapter of social and criminal amnesties and economic liberalism begin, that affected the majority of the population with separate processes of privatization.
The establishment of criminal groups and corruption networks occurred, as well as having forced migration as the last expression of the search for survival and dignity. All this and more has happened with political parties representing the civil war, which for 30 years held executive power, without being able to solve the main structural problems of the country: poverty and inequality, environmental degradation, violence, and disrespect for human rights among others. This drain, and other factors of incidence, generated the alternation in power with the presidential victory of Nayib Bukele in June 2019.
