This editorial was originally published in Spanish by Noticias UCA, a publication of the Central American University.
Like an oil spill, government secrecy spreads over everything, covering up even the most innocuous information. Military secrecy is a bulwark that protects the army, the police, and intelligence agencies from the curious. The Salvadoran Ministry of Health has withheld virtually all institutional information, including epidemiological statistics—a tool fundamental to the control of epidemic diseases. The Ministry of Agriculture hides its activities and expenses as if it were a private corporation. And so on. Information concerning the executive branch is so sensitive it is protected as a state secret. And when this information is unearthed, negligence, embezzlement, and corruption inevitably appear.
Thus, secrecy has its raison d'etre: it conceals the incompetence and corruption of the executive branch. President Nayib Bukele directly administers access to information concerning his administration. The citizenry has access only to what has been deemed appropriate, and the appropriateness is dictated by the public relations narrative of the Presidential House. The information is administered in doses, as if adult citizens were underage minors, and the citizenry is thus made dependent on the President, and in this way, is infantilized. Government secrecy tries to prevent citizens from thinking for themselves, and from losing confidence in the president’s performance. It seeks total subordination, for the purposes of manipulation. Secrecy is a useful tool to condition a large part of the citizenry not to believe in anyone but Nayib Bukele.
The arguments used to justify government secrecy are increasingly extravagant, to the point of being ridiculous. The recent situation with the Minister of Finance is a good example of such presidential absurdity. This curious official reacted in anger when the Corte de Cuentas (the court that regulates and audits El Salvador’s public sector institutions and agencies) revealed that the government treasury had funds sufficient to pay off its debts to local municipalities. This information, in the minister’s judgement, discredited and disparaged the ministry. And, the minister added by way of explanation, the “situation with the government’s coffers is very complicated”—an affirmation that neither contradicts the findings of the audit nor explains the government’s financial accounts. The issue is not whether there are sufficient funds in the treasury, but that the court released this information without authorization from the president. As a result, the head of the Central Reserve Bank was fired and the former finance minister resigned before he could be fired.
In El Salvador, government ministers and other high level officials do not enjoy the freedom to think and act on their own. They are directly dependent on the orders of the president. They think, speak, and do as they are ordered—a fact naively betrayed by their swift responses to presidential tweets. They give appearances of being hard and diligent workers. In reality, they are media figures, performing on a stage—the people, merely the backdrop. They are all disposable. What matters is their loyalty to the president, not their skills or expertise. Those running for Congress will simply be replaced by others who will likewise obey the president without question. No other qualification is required, since the president determines what, when, and how everything is done.
Allegedly, this way of governing is more effective than working as a team. But however much centralization exalts the president as the nation’s diligent provider, it has the distinct disadvantage of assigning him the burden of the nation’s failures as well. Setbacks are to be expected, since it is humanly impossible for the Presidential House to single handedly direct the day-to-day operations of the executive branch. The effects of publicity and advertising are no substitute for real results. They may distract people for a while, but then reality inexorably imposes itself. When the narrative fails to deliver what it promised, favorable opinions become unfavorable, and the charm of dependency is broken. The resounding electoral failures of Trump and Bolsonaro are warning signs that cannot be ignored.
Free and independent information is a threat to the presidential narrative. This is why the president, who identifies with the people but never mixes with or listens to them, sees it as a direct attack against his power. As a consequence, to contradict the leader is to attack the people. President Bukele hides behind the people, using them as a shield at the service of his personal ambitions. He is served by the people, but he does not serve them. A sign at one of the increasingly frequent street protests captured Bukele perfectly: “Nayib ama tanto a los pobres que los multiplica” — “Nayib loves the poor so much he makes more of them.” The Presidential House undermines these messages, claiming they are marred by electoral bias. Since June of last year, the president has been operating in an electoral atmosphere that prevents him from recognizing the warning signs.
Accurate information and an independent press call the official narrative into question, and the president’s successful management of government hinges on this narrative. The irrationality and aggressiveness of the president’s reactions reveal the power of critical thinking and freedom of opinion. They are reactions fueled by the insecurity of those who know that they govern via mass-mediated fictions. It is a fear that the winds of freedom, which grow more turbulent each day, will one day blow down the house of cards that was so hard and so costly to build. In short, it is the president’s great weakness.
*Rodolfo Cardenal is the director of the Monseñor Romero Center at the Central American University (UCA) in San Salvador.
