SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) — Hours after a “cordial” meeting with El Salvador President Nayib Bukele, White House Special Envoy Ricardo Zúñiga told Salvadorans that he conveyed a message of concern over the country’s direction.
Zúñiga’s visit came less than two weeks after El Salvador’s newly elected Legislative Assembly was seated and promptly cleared out all members of the constitutional chamber of the Supreme Court. The judges had been an obstacle to Bukele, but his party’s new supermajority gave it power to choose justices and replace the attorney general on May 1.
Zúñiga expressed opposition to that process in a television interview on Wednesday: “I think it is important to say that we do not agree with the decision by the Legislative Assembly to remove the five judges and the attorney general. For us it would be best to return to the situation that existed until April 30.”
Zúñiga, who was tapped by President Joe Biden to focus on the Northern Triangle countries of El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala, said on the morning news show “Frente a Frente” that the U.S. government believes the move violated El Salvador’s constitution.
Critics have expressed growing concern that Bukele is using his popularity to consolidate power and weaken El Salvador’s other democratic institutions.
The Associated Press
