El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele said Thursday that the Ministry of Culture would fire 300 employees who he alleged were promoting agendas “incompatible” with the government’s vision.
“In addition, we will save public funds in the process,” Bukele said in X. A “bitter medicine.”
Bukele did not provide further details. But last week he appointed Raúl Castillo, a former teacher, as culture minister, saying he wanted to “promote patriotic and family values.”
Ruling party lawmaker Alexia Rivas wrote on X shortly after Bukele’s post: “El Salvador is a pro-life and pro-traditional family and the 2030 agenda has no place here,” in apparent reference to the United Nations Sustainable Development Agenda, which includes provisions for a range of human rights.
“This is what the people asked for, this is the vision of our president and this is the path that officials must follow,” he said.
El Salvador maintains some of the harshest anti-abortion laws in the world, while earlier this month the Ministry of Culture canceled a performance by drag performers after receiving complaints from local conservative and religious groups.
Bukele took office in early June for a second term after winning a landslide re-election, promising to cure the Central American country’s “diseases” by prescribing “medicines” to fix the economy, pursuing what he described as a cure for the “cancer of the gangs” during his first term.
He has also gained enormous popularity for transforming security in a country that was once one of the most dangerous in the world, but his use of mass trials, a mega-prison and the suspension of civil rights have drawn criticism from human rights groups.
Bukele, a former marketing professional, has created a powerful communications operation that has allowed him to influence what Salvadorans read, see and hear about his government like no other previous leader in the nation of 6.5 million people in the era of Internet.
Critics say Bukele’s media giant is helping to undermine the country’s fragile democratic institutions.
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