The political scene of The Savior is at a crossroads. Co-opted by the transcendence of the current president Nayib Bukelewho achieved international significance and was in charge of personifying the scope of his economic and punitive policy, the ruling party did not attempt to build a successor in the face of the elections -which will take place in February 2024-, but it will test the scope of the Constitution of that country.
Nayib Bukele He became president in 2019 and could not be re-elected for a second term by the provision of the Constitution of El Salvadorwhich allows a single government of five years. However, a failure of the Supreme Court enabled him to apply and it was the president himself who assured that “we are going to register before October 24 or the 24th itself.” The game of him, New ideasalready presented the legislative candidacies last Friday.
Opposition lawyers pointed out that the ruling of the Supreme Court violates at least four articles of the Constitutionamong them article 88 of the Magna Cartawhich indicates that “the alternation in the exercise of Presidency of the Republic It is essential for the maintenance of the established form of government and political system. Violation of this rule requires the insurrection”.
The presidential election and Congress will be held on February 4while those of municipal councils and Parlacen will be carried out on March 3rd of 2024. Bukele He has already received support for his re-election from the allied parties in the Congress.
For their part, some of the traditional parties of The Savior already presented presidential formulas. The former deputy Manuel Flores will be the candidate of Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN)while the businessman Joel Sanchez will compete for SAND and the former military Luis Parada will be the representative of Our time. In the polls, no space would exceed 5% of votes.
Former minister of El Salvador spoke about the effects of dollarization in that country
The economist and former Minister of Finance of The Savior, Manuel Hindsconfirmed that he was contacted by the economic team of the presidential candidate for Freedom Advances, Javier Milei. In this framework, he detailed the impact that the dollarization had in his country.
In statements to Radio Miter about if any economist close to Milei had communicated with him to talk about dollarization, Hinds replied: “Yes it’s correct. Two in the same meeting where they asked me questions about how certain things were done in dollarization. Let’s say, how do you take into account international reserves? How do you think about the exchange rate? In other words, a series of questions, in addition to the fact that they asked me what the environment was like and everything else that is surrounded and how we made sure that the banks were on time with everything that had to be done. That kind of technical questions”.
Regarding how the dollarization in El Salvador, responded: “Well, you have to know exactly what dollarization achieves for you. To begin with, in El Salvador the interest rate was twenty percent, even though our inflation was two percent a year. AND We just dollarized, the interest rate dropped to six percent and the term [del crédito] to buy a house went from five years to twenty-five or thirty years, which is what they lend you in El Salvador. Right now, if you want, you’re going to live in El Salvador, buy a house and they’ll lend you six percent for twenty-five years, almost like in the US”.
Regarding prices, he stated: “In inflation, we have been one of the two or three countries with the lowest rate in the entire region. The countries that compete with us are Ecuador, Panama, Chile and Mexico now… But we have not had higher inflation. We’ve had a communist government that came up and said they were going to confiscate everything and everything. In Latin America, you can imagine that in any country that happens this, a horrible monetary crisis comes, people withdraw all the money and the interest rate goes to hell. Not in El Salvador.”
In another part of the interview, the former Minister of Finance referred to the indices of poverty after dollarization: “The truth is that It fell, but it did not fall due to dollarization. He came down for other reasons, because there were many people who were living in the United States and he sent more things… growth It is more related to what I am going to tell you: us at the same time “We completely liberalized the current account, the capital account and lowered rates.”. In this way, he pointed out that “a textile industry was developed in El Salvador that is now the largest exports.” He also appreciated: “Before we depended, like almost the rest of Latin America, on primary products. Now primary products, which is coffee, represent 10% of our exports. “90% of our exports are industrial”.
Source: Ambito
