This week, as preparations for the Miss Universe 2023 competition began in El Salvador, social media was ablaze with video montages of sash-clad pageant contestants touring the country’s beaches, taking photos in front of fireworks, and exploring downtown San Salvador.
“El Salvador is changing, as President [Nayib] Bukele said,” Miss Universe 2022 R’Bonney Gabriel stated in a speech in front of the competitors this year. “We hope to shed light on this country for the benefit of the rest of the world while we are here.”
The competition on Saturday night is the most recent event that Bukele has promoted in an attempt to improve the image of his violently unstable country.
However, critics and experts claim that the populist leader is also using these demonstrations as a diversion from violations of human rights in his anti-gang campaign and actions to quell criticism. Critics and constitutionalists caution that he is gradually weakening the fragile democracy in the nation.
Bukele is in a pivotal position with the Miss Universe pageant, since it occurs just months before a presidential election in February. Despite El Salvador’s constitution’s explicit term restrictions, Bukele is seeking reelection, a move that has infuriated observers both domestically and abroad.
Tiziano Breda, a Central America specialist at Italy’s Instituto Affari Internazionali, said, “You give the public something to showcase to divert attention from the fact that you’re doing it while eroding the rule of law and democratic checks and balances in the country.”
The Associated Press sent a formal request for comment to Bukele’s administration, but they received no response.
With his election in 2019, Bukele has drastically altered the 6.5 million-person nation. His battle against El Salvador’s gangs, who have terrorized a large portion of the nation for decades, has been the most noteworthy.
Bukele banned several constitutional rights in the wake of a gang violence outbreak last year, and since then, he has imprisoned almost 72,000 people without following the proper legal procedures. In addition, he has targeted human rights organizations, labor unions, journalists, and other dissident voices while assembling a sophisticated propaganda apparatus for the regime.
The majority of Salvadorans gave Bukele tremendous support because to the dramatic drop in violence that followed the onslaught on gangs, and surveys indicate that he will easily win reelection.
On the other hand, observers caution that Bukele’s rise to power and violations of human rights should raise concerns.
“Significant human rights issues” were highlighted in a 2022 report released by the U.S. State Department. Earlier this month, a number of individuals and opposition groups filed petitions with the Supreme Electoral Tribunal in an attempt to have Bukele’s reelection bid invalidated.
Bukele, who previously referred to himself as the “coolest dictator in the world” on social media, has accepted the criticism. He makes audacious gestures seem like a hallmark of his leadership, ignoring critics at times and accusing foreign governments of dishonesty at others.
He declared that cryptocurrencies will become El Salvador’s official currency in a taped speech that was broadcast during a bitcoin conference in Miami in 2021. El Salvador was the first country to follow suit shortly after. At the time, there were concerns expressed, and last year’s sharp decline in the value of cryptocurrencies only stoked them. Although the government has not disclosed all of its assets, experts think they are still significantly undervalued.
Bukele turned to new endeavors and persisted in his forward motion.
He hosted the 2023 Central American and Caribbean Games, which soon earned the moniker “sportswashing”—the practice of using athletics to deflect criticism or enhance one’s reputation. He also organized international surfing contests.
“When a government hosts a major international event successfully, it can gain the confidence to act almost arbitrarily. Canadian sports historian Alan McDougall told AP earlier this year that “sport is a bit of a shortcut way to win yourself, not even popularity, just an acceptance.”
Carefully staged spectacles are also used to introduce the public to domestic initiatives, such as the glittering national library and a new mega-prison for gang suspects that were unveiled last week. Drones that were part of the library event took to the skies above the nation’s capital and positioned themselves to resemble Bukele.
It seems that the president is making an effort to temper the Biden administration’s criticism. As part of efforts from the US government to get regional nations to take more action to restrict migration northward, El Salvador levied a substantial cost on African migrants connecting through its airport last month.
The U.S. and other regional actors have responded with what Breda, the Central American expert, called a “softer public denunciation.”
Now that Bukele is under fire for running for reelection, the Miss Universe pageant has practically stolen the show in the nation of Central America.
We are currently Latin America’s safest nation. “We are grateful to the Miss Universe Organization for their participation in this historic process,” Bukele stated in a video released earlier this year to announce the event. “Salvador is evolving.”
Influencers on social media are making comments on the participants’ wardrobe selections; others post images of rivals practicing yoga on the beach while wearing their pageant sashes or walking the red carpet in stylish gowns and heels.
As they stroll through the city center, contestants like Lisbeth Valverde Brenes, representing Costa Rica, perform Bukele’s song to local content makers and compliment El Salvador’s security while tagging it with the phrase, “I’ll have to come back.”
In addition, Bukele’s favorite social media platform, Instagram, contains pictures of him and his fans celebrating his reelection campaign interspersed with recordings of the pageant.
His detractors are retaliating.
The rights organization Movement for Victims of the State of Emergency declared that it will stage a demonstration on the day that the Miss Universe competition comes to an end. The group declared, “El Salvador isn’t a country of marvels; Bukele has turned it into a prison.”
The expert, Breda, warns that there are two sides to this.
“For Salvadorans, who view their nation as a tourist destination, this is a means of reestablishing their sense of national identity. That seems like an excellent idea, he added.
“I don’t know if that’s a net positive overall,” he continued, “if that comes at the expense of democracy, the dismantling of checks and balances.”
Source: Los Angeles Times.