Informal vendors are not welcome in the revitalization of the Historic Center of San Salvador

It was four in the afternoon of December 6 when the whistle of a metropolitan agent – a lucky municipal police – sounded in the Historic Center of San Salvador, and lidia, without hesitation, quickly took the bundo of pants that he sells for earn a living and fled.

The merchant was in the new area of ​​at least 4.12 kilometers where it is now forbidden to sell without permission. The area includes the main squares of the Salvadoran capital, the National Palace, the New Library, the Antigua Churches and the Magic Christmas Villa, the most busy sites in the Historic Center of the city.

The eviction of thousands of informal vendors in San Salvador began with the now president Nayib Bukele as mayor of the capital in 2015, when he began his plan of “”Revitalization of the Historic Center”, And has continued until today in the hands of Mario Duran, Aliador Aliado and member of the ruling party New Ideas.

The change consisted first to evict the stationary sellers, who built with sheet and wood the stalls located in the main streets. Followed by the walkers, who carried their sale in tow or in Cartón.

Once achieved, the government began to remodel the squares near the main buildings. He also drew cyclevias, pedestrian accesses and extended sidewalks.

But the other face of that reorganization exposes the economic vulnerability in which there are about 20,000 families that achieved daily livelihoods in those streets, and for whom there are now few alternatives.

“He saw how they are, right?” Lidia asked when stopping a few meters ahead, relieved, because this time the municipal police only made a warning and did not confiscate the merchandise.

“Last time I took the last pants that I was, they were already the last,” he stressed panting. “You can’t with this,” he complained. The name of the seller and that of other sellers interviewed for this report were changed to protect their identities.

An informal economy center

The center of San Salvador is the city where the Salvadoran working class has concentrated for decades, and where history and informal economy lived over time.

But the city now does not stop rebuilding, from the squares to the revitalization of large buildings, such as the National Palace that was renovated to The possession of the second mandate of Nayib Bukele In June 2024. or the National Library, A millionaire work of 54 million dollars donated by China.

According to economist Rafael Lemus, the change in the area can be analyzed from two phases: one that the Salvadoran population can already visit the main places of the Historic Center of San Salvador in another environment, with better conditions. The other is that informal vendors have no place in that new scenario, which opens a new economic crack.

“To the extent that you get these people out of the historic center, you took your way of economic life and then send them a situation of extreme poverty,” he told the Voice of America.

Extreme poverty in El Salvador, which translates into the inability to buy a single basic basket equivalent to $ 250 per month, increased by 2023, from 578,801 people in 2022, to 588,917 in 2023. In macros numbers, at least one 10 % of the Salvadoran population lives today in extreme poverty.

Likewise, the informal employment rate is not very encouraging: according to data from the International Labor Organization (ILO), six out of ten people in El Salvador work in the informal trade.

Jorge is part of those figures: he sells in the streets of the Historic Center of San Salvador since he was a child. Today, with 40 years, he announces his sale with stealth, because he fears that the municipal police seize the calendars year 2025 who have the price of 1 dollar each.

“The people here lived from the newspaper, daily loans. It looks pretty as they say, and the opinion of each one is respected, but how many people have become unemployed, ”he lamented.

Before Bukele, both right -wing and left governments tried to reorder the center of San Salvador, but were not successful because the sellers organized protests that paralyzed the evictions.

Today, those protests remained in history because they say that with The exception regimeimposed in El Salvador since March 2022 to combat gangs, the protest is no longer an option.

The only way to sell in the area is now risking the confiscation of merchandise or the imposition of fines that can amount to $ 200.

“If you see us with sales they take them away. They cannot be claimed because they take us prisoners, and the alternative they have given us is not viable because it is not sold. The sale is here where all the people are happening,” he added.

A new center

Before the presidency of Bukele, the Historic Center of San Salvador was known as the place where you could buy cheap, sacrificing easy access to some historical spaces.

Today, that same space has changed face and the million -dollar investments are more than ever noticed, from the National Library even exclusive businesses in old buildings.

Some premises that previously sold used clothes or basic grains, are now restaurants, large stores and hotels.

To achieve this, there was not only a rearrangement plan promoted by the Municipality and the Bukele Government, but also by Congress, dominated 90 % by the ruling party, approved in 2023 the Law of Creation of the Authority of the Historic Center of San Salvadorto grant the Executive the power to decide on the management of the area.

According to the law, it seeks to “protect, preserve and regulate a delimited area of ​​the Historic Center of San Salvador, declaring it cultural, tourist and development zone for promotion activities and capital investment.”

To promote the area, in addition, it was approved by exempting the payment of income tax on investments in construction, remodeling, improvement, expansion, recovery and conservation of real estate ”for a period of 10 years. They have a minimum 25 square meters. These investors are also exempt from paying municipal taxes.

“This will not only bring more cleaning, order and security, but will reveal much of our history and our culture,” Bukele justified in his X account Before the evictions continued by the current Mayor Mario Durán, whom he congratulated in the publication.

According to the president, the change “will energize the economy, tourism … and allow millions of investment in public and private works, which will at the same time generate thousands of direct and indirect jobs.”

One of the investors in the area is his brother Karim Bukele who confirmed in their networks The purchase of a building in the area valued at 1.3 million dollars.

The new center is already appreciated by tourists such as Sonia Cabrera, who took her sister resident in the United States to visit San Salvador.

“You go to developed countries and you don’t find a Relax as we had here (in the historic center of San Salvador). We have to understand, as the president says, that we have to evolve, “he told the Voa.

What options have the evicted?

In San Salvador there are at least 23 markets that have been offered by the Municipality to relocate the evicted sellers of the Historic Center.

Not all markets are coveted by vendors, because there is not enough influx of people, they say.

Although some have already been included in the census of evicted vendors, they have not yet been called to relocate them, they denounce.

The Voice of America He made a request to the International Press Department to learn about the options that the Government offers informal vendors to integrate trade in San Salvador, but at the time of publication of this article there has been no response.

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