The mayor of San Salvador, who is seeking re-election, outlines some of his main ideas if he is re-elected. However, it regrets the systematic blockade by the central government. “Still, let’s get to the top,” he says with a bit of optimism.
The mayor of the capital denounces government blockades and a use of state resources to make propaganda in favor of New Ideas. These abuses, he says, were not even seen in the governments of the FMLN, a party he describes as authoritarian and dictatorial. Despite this, he says he is optimistic that he will get re-election. He spoke to El Diari d’Avui:
Surveys show a tight situation. How do you see your current candidacy?
We are playing not only the mayoralty of San Salvador, but the defense of democracy. I see a use of state resources and institutions for electoral political propaganda purposes and attacking opponents in a way that had never been done before, not even with the Front governments, which is an authoritarian party, dictatorial, castrochavista. And yet we go up because the population values the work we have done. No matter how much they block us, we will respond with more work and more works.
What are the main challenges facing the City Council?
Financial blockages, not just the 9 months of Fucks they owe us, which in San Salvador means $ 5.5 million. We have been blocked from accessing financing, the Ministry of Finance does not give us the categorization that is a requirement for loans. The superintendent of the Financial System has threatened the banks to take away their license if they give loans to the Mayor. The Ministry of Labor has threatened to march on financial institutions and personally threaten directors of entities that gave us loans by suing them for money laundering.
They said they were going to be different. We never imagined the president was going to allow it.
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Do you think it’s a line of him attacking?
When they nominated a candidate, I asked him to quote Nayib (Bukele) and we talked. He received me at the Presidential House and I asked him if it would be a campaign against Mario Durán, against the government or against him. He told me he wouldn’t mess up. And so far he hasn’t messed up, but I didn’t think they were going to use state resources and institutions not only to promote their candidate but to block us and intimidate us. I asked Nayib if they were going to use the state institutions and he told me no, but in this it has not been fulfilled.
Do you think all this blockage happens without the president ordering or consenting?
The Minister of Labor has his economic interests. We dismantled his network of corruption in the City Council, receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars from ghost squares, undeserved overtime and others. The Minister of the Interior, Mario Durán, wants to reach the Mayor’s Office and has promised the Minister of Labor to return illegal privileges and more.
Unfortunately this has been allowed in the presidency and I thought they were different and would not lend themselves to that. Nayib told me that he was not going to allow state resources to be used for campaigning, but they did.
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In your spot, you appear with the president. What is the message if your government blocks you?
That we are willing to work together, put people first and set aside partisan or personal interests. Unfortunately, at least at election time, they think they hurt me but they hurt the population, how to fill the city with garbage and generate an environmental crisis in the midst of a pandemic just to win votes is inconceivable.
Do you trust these elections?
The fraud started 8 months ago. Since they stopped paying the Fucks, because they seek to drown the mayors financially. More than 200 mayors depend on the Fodes with more than 25% that serves for current expenses and salaries. Thousands of works have been stopped and it is outrageous to see the finance minister mocking that he will not pay for it after the election. It is outrageous that the Public Prosecutor’s Office has not acted in the face of these blatant violations of the law and the Constitution. They have not paid political debt so that only the pro-government party can campaign.
Why re-elect you?
Our work speaks for us, and it’s not Ernesto Muyshondt, it’s my team. We did territory work, not desk work. We have put people first and come to solve the problems that the main population centers have. We went through the pandemic and the electoral pandemic, but 83% support our management despite what we have faced.
What quality leaps has the capital made?
Management is not based on one person, but people. Our works don’t look so pretty in a spot but they solve problems. We’ve done over 700 tracks, and when you make a track in good condition, crime rates drop by up to four times. We have done emblematic works such as Cuscatlán Park, Hula Hula Park and the digital library. We have done six daily works that change the lives of the most vulnerable and needy people. We have not come to the communities just to ask for the vote, but the whole period of our management. We would have liked to make more tracks, the municipal hospital, a park in the Simón Bolívar square or the underground electrification in the Rubén Darío street. All this was stopped due to non-payment of the Fucks and other government blockades.
What do you offer for the next three years?
We will present in a few days our government plan with the 5 axes and that offers the continuity of what we have done in these two and a half years. A municipal government alone cannot transform the city, we need to unite the citizenry, the private sector, NGOs, international cooperation and the central government, if it allows it. And they allowed it until before the campaign, much more than what the FMLN did.
What is the risk of giving total control to a single party?
For a democracy to be healthy, there must be a balance of powers, restraints and counterweights. Total power corrupts anyone.
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Some see the lack of democracy as a non-immediate problem. Can you quantify how much the electoral use of state institutions has hit people?
Thousands of works have been stopped. Tens of thousands of municipal employees did not receive a salary in December or a bonus, there are mayors who have not received salaries since August. In addition, works for the most vulnerable families. I trusted Nayib, I thought he would do things right. But it has allowed so many things.
He has allowed the Minister of Labor, a proven criminal, to do the things he is doing. And I know he knows he’s a criminal, because he’s himself confirmed to me that he knows. That he has appointed him Minister of Labor, harassing companies as he does, goes back a long way. I hope you reflect and that we manage to maintain healthy brakes and counterweights in a democracy.
For this balance, the matches are still valuable. At the moment we do not see ARENA colors in your campaign. How do you relate to your party?
Our campaign is just beginning. I think the criticism of my party is obvious. ARENA must represent the great majorities and not small groups of power. But I am identified with the ARENA principles and their defense of freedoms, property, and republicanism. After the election, I will devote effort to the reforms the party needs.