The Dictator Undressed
Óscar Martínez of El Faro profiles Nayib Bukele
Óscar Martínez, editor-in-chief of El Faro, does not like Salvadoran president Nayib Bukele. He opens his new book, Bukele, el rey desnudo (Bukele, the Naked Emperor) with the statement:
To begin with, let’s not beat around the bush: I consider Bukele a dictator.
And for good reason, since the Bukele regime has forced Martínez to flee El Salvador and live and work in exile for a year and counting. It is safe to assume that Bukele does not like the Salvadoran journalist either, since Martínez and the team of journalists at El Faro have spent years documenting and exposing the Bukele regime for making secret deals with gangs, corruption and abuse of power.
The fruits of those years of investigating Bukele are on display in this short book by one of El Salvador’s most prominent investigative journalists. At times sarcastic, and always to the point, Martínez proceeds to lay out the facts which show that the emperor is wearing no clothes.
In seven chapters, he describes Bukele’s consolidation to himself of all the powers of the Salvadoran state, cheered on by a public which appears (at least on the surface) to both adore and fear the president. He describes Bukele’s ridiculousness, as when he tried to make Bitcoin the coin of the realm in El Salvador, and portrays Bukele’s cruelty evident in the arrest, imprisonment and death of his childhood friend and national security advisor, Alejandro Muyshondt. Martinez also describes Bukele’s ability to change the narrative, as when he marched with armed troops into the Legislative Assembly to demand it approve a loan for public security expenses. That incursion into the legislature made everyone stop talking about the potable water crisis in the capital region that Bukele’s government had handled badly.
Bukele’s reign in El Salvador is clothed for the world’s eyes through skilled self-promotion, well-staged video productions, and an army of social media endorsers. Martínez encourages his readers to look behind those trappings to see the naked exercise of power by this ruler.
Bukele, el rey desnudo is available in Spanish at Amazon and other online booksellers.
Two chapters of the book are available online in English translation:
The Influencer President — about Bukele’s international fame spread by social media and influencers.
Bukele’s Wrath — about the imprisonment and death of Alejandro Muyshondt, an insider who made the fatal mistake of disclosing to the public corruption within Nuevas Ideas.
Martinez has also done a round of media interviews in connection with the book. Here are two you can watch on Youtube: