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Bukele's Anti-Corruption Smokescreen
Tuesday, April 30, 2024
El Faro Editorial Board
Leer en español
Salvadoran police have announced the arrest of presidential commissioner Cristian Flores Sandoval on charges of corruption. According to the Attorney General’s Office, Flores offered state contracts in exchange for money. President Nayib Bukele, in the middle of his presidential “leave of absence” until June 1, wrote on X that the commissioner was neither the first nor the last official to face accountability for acts of corruption. Media outlets around the world, including the L.A. Times, Deutsche Welle, and France 24, reported the commissioner’s arrest and the president’s words. The trick worked.
Spanish newspaper El Mundo was even more generous, arguing in an article on the incident that the war against corruption announced by Bukele had “paid off” with the arrest of Flores.
His prosecution is good news for the country, assuming that the Attorney General’s Office can prove the accusations of corruption leveled against the now ex-commissioner. If he did in fact orchestrate a corruption scheme, his arrest is a positive step and he should face justice for his abuse of power. Corruption is, and has long been, one of El Salvador’s biggest problems.
A real fight against corruption, however, must begin with the fundamentals: a robust rule of law, judicial independence, and government transparency, which is to say, precisely those mechanisms that Bukele and his loyalists have spent the past five years destroying. What we are witnessing is not a fight against corruption.
If Bukele, his attorney general, and his police had fighting corruption on their agenda, the government would be purged from bottom to top. On the contrary, the function of El Salvador’s top prosecutor is to protect the corrupt and enable corruption for the home team. Commissioner Cristian Flores Sandoval has not been arrested for corruption.
More:
https://elfaro.net/en/202404/opinion/27318/bukele-rsquo-s-anti-corruption-smokescreen