INTERNATIONAL: El Salvador's congress has granted President Nayib Bukele request to declare a state of emergency early Sunday amid a wave of gang-related killings over the weekend, after national police reported 76 murders in the past two days, a record in the central American nation's recent history.
Fourteen people were killed Friday and 62 people have died Saturday, a scale of violence that has not been seen for years. By comparison, there were 79 homicides in the entire month of February.
Bukele has announced the request Saturday in his social media accounts, and congress has approved it early Sunday. The decree would suspend constitutional guarantees of freedom of assembly and loosen arrest rules for as much as thirty days, but could be extended.
The homicides have appeared linked to the country's notorious street gangs, who effectively control many neighbourhoods in the capital. The National Police has reported they has captured five leaders of the Mara Salvatrucha or MS-13, who they claimed have ordered the weekend killings.
Bukele has announced the request in his social media accounts, and taunted those who opposed the measure, saying: Is the opposition coming out to defend the gang members?
While Bukele has tried to project a tough attitude on crime, the country's enormously powerful street gangs have proved a double-edged sword for him.
We must remind the people of El Salvador that what is happening now is due to the negligence of those who protected criminals," the conservative Arena party has said in a statement.
That was an apparent reference to a December report by the US Treasury Department that said Bukele's government secretly negotiated a truce with leaders of the gangs. That contradicted Bukele's denials and raised tensions between the two nations.
The US government alleges Bukele's government bought the gangs' support with financial benefits and privileges for their imprisoned leaders including prostitutes and cellphones.
The explosive accusations cuts to the heart of one of Bukele's most highly touted successes in office: a plunge in the country's homicide rate.
The president has responded sarcastically via Twitter to the accusations. Cellphones and prostitutes in the prisons? Money to the gangs? When did that happen? Didn't they even check the date? How can they put out a such an obvious lie without anyone questioning them?
The US Agency for International Development announced it would shift aid from government agencies in El Salvador to non-governmental organisations.
El Salvador's new attorney general in June announced the government was cancelling the Organisation of American States' anti-corruption mission in the Central American country.
Bukele enjoys extremely high popularity. He has stepped into a political vacuum left by discredited traditional parties from the left and right.
