Conservative El Salvador President Nayib Bukele called a meeting for all of his executive branch officials on Monday to surprise them with the fact that they will be investigated by the Attorney General for bribery.
Bukele opened by saying: “Everyone here is from the executive branch I oversee except for one person: the Attorney General.”
“He is not from the executive branch, but he is here for one reason: I want to ask him publicly to investigate everyone sitting here. Retroactively and in the future. I imagine there should be no problem with that.”
The camera panned to the executive branch, showing some with stunned looks on their faces and others with smirks.
One thing that he fears, Bukele said, is “leaving a bad legacy.” He said he fears this over death.
“There are some presidents in prison and some on the run, but most are remembered as criminals,” he said. “That’s not how I want to be remembered.”
He called out the former President of El Salvador, Jose Napoleon Duarte, Bukele who he said was not a thief himself but “surrounded himself with thieves.”
“There was a time when he offered hope for the Salvadoran people. But even if it was true he did not steal, then he was foolish, because he was the people’s hope,” Bukele stated. “He didn’t touch a cent and still stained his legacy by surrounding himself with thieves.”
“That won’t happen to me,” he said, adding that he wants to be remembered as the president who put thieves in prison.
“There are a couple who are already there,” he ended.
People on social media overwhelmingly applauded the president, who was re-elected in a landslide victory in February, largely due to his mass incarceration of gang members.
“Imagine doing that in the US. 90% would be in prison,” a social media user said.