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Analysis
A voter casting a ballot in front of the Philippines flag.
The Philippines will hold midterm elections on May 12, with all 317 seats in the House of Representatives, half the 24-member Senate, and various provincial, city, and municipal positions up for grabs. The winners will take office on June 30, with terms of six years for the senators and three years for all other officeholders.
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. hopes to maintain his control of Congress as he seeks to advance his legislative agenda and expand his influence at the expense of former president Rodrigo Duterte’s political faction. In July, the new Senate will hold an impeachment trial for Vice President Sara Duterte-Carpio, who is the former president’s daughter and has repeatedly clashed with Marcos.
We asked Eurasia Group expert Peter Mumford what to watch for in this weekend’s vote.
What are the most important races?
The focus is really on the 12 Senate seats up for election; the House tends to align with the sitting president regardless of its composition. Marcos’s coalition currently consists of six parties in the Senate and nine in the House. Political parties have long been weak in the Philippines, so the concept of a “majority” is very fluid, especially in the Senate, which often acts independently of the president. Officially, the Senate is broken down into “majority bloc,” “minority bloc,” and independents – but “majority” refers to those senators who support the Senate president. This maps roughly, but not precisely, onto the coalition supporting Marcos (or not). There are members of the same party in both the majority and minority blocs, for example. It is therefore easier, but more subjective, to map out the senators who support Marcos and those who do not.
So, what are the stakes in the Senate races?
There are two main implications. First, and more significant for Marcos’s agenda, is whether Marcos retains majority support in the upper house; failure to do so would make it harder to pass proposed economic legislation, including a power sector overhaul aimed at lowering high electricity prices and modest revenue-raising measures designed to trim the large budget deficit and provide more resources for social spending priorities. Second, Duterte-Carpio’s political future is at stake following her impeachment by the House earlier this year on charges of high crimes related to death threats against the president and betrayal of public trust related to alleged misuse of intelligence funds (please see more below).
What are the most important issues for voters heading into these elections?
Surveys show that cost-of-living concerns are by far the biggest issue for voters. The Philippines has been grappling with relatively high inflation in recent years, with food prices a particular concern; price rises have slowed in recent months but that has not yet translated into shifts in public opinion. According to a recent poll, 79% of Filipinos disapprove of the administration’s efforts to control inflation, with just 3% approving. After cost-of-living, voters’ main concerns are pay, corruption, crime, and poverty.
How do the candidates propose to address these concerns?
They have made generic promises about tackling poverty but offered little in terms of specific measures. Philippine elections, especially those for congress, are primarily driven by the personalities and name recognition of the candidates. Many voters will be casting their ballots on the basis of who they know and like, rather than the policy or ideological views of the candidates. It’s worth noting that six of the top 12 candidates in polls are show business personalities; another popular figure is the former boxer Manny Pacquiao, a senator who is running for reelection.
How does the feud between the Marcos and Duterte clans play into election dynamics?
The battle for influence between the country’s two most powerful political dynasties sets the backdrop for the midterms. The upcoming polls will not have an impact on how long Marcos serves as president: He is bound by a single six-year term limit and is very unlikely to be impeached or removed by a coup before his terms ends in 2028. But the outcome of the upcoming Senate poll will determine whether Duterte-Carpio is removed from office and banned from running for public office again. Duterte-Carpio is the early favorite for the 2028 presidential election and the Marcos clan likely hopes she is prevented from running, making it easier for a member of the president’s family or another ally to succeed him.
Duterte-Carpio’s Senate trial is due to begin in late July. If two-thirds (16) of the senators vote against the vice president, she will be removed from office and probably barred from holding other government offices in the future (there is some debate about whether the latter would automatically apply if she is found guilty). She needs only nine senators to vote against or abstain. In addition, the outlook is complicated by the fact that some senators counted in the “pro-Marcos” majority, as they tend to support the administration’s bills, are actually closer to the Dutertes and will likely oppose her removal. That said, the president could press allies to vote against her.
Edited by Jonathan House, Senior Editor at Eurasia Group.
A cargo ship is loading and unloading foreign trade containers at Qingdao Port in Qingdao City, Shandong Province, China on May 7, 2025.
The urgency of the meeting — coming just weeks after reciprocal tariffs took effect in April — suggests the Trump administration is eager to de-escalate as economic costs mount. China is scoping out whether Washington is really ready to negotiate, and is framing the talks as US-initiated so they can engage without appearing to be yielding to US pressure.
Trade impacts are already visible. In the first quarter, the US share of Chinese exports dropped to a two-decade low, while American retailers warn of holiday shortages and rising prices. China, meanwhile, saw factory output shrink in April and is racing to secure new markets.
Each side comes to the table with firm goals. Washington wants to shrink China’s trade surplus and curb practices it sees as unfair, including industrial subsidies, tech restrictions, and IP theft. Beijing also wants tariffs reduced — but not at the expense of overhauling its economic model.
This weekend’s discussion is expected to be exploratory, not revolutionary. Progress, Eurasia Group China expert Lauren Gloudeman says, would be if “the meeting yields any plans to meet again.”
“All fronts, all the time”: an interview on Trump, Canada, and Carney with the Hon. Jean Charest
Former Quebec Premier Jean Charest.
Donald Trump’s return to the White House has upended the long-standing and close US-Canada friendship in ways that were once unthinkable. But how exactly should Ottawa deal with the “America First” president? Is all of the upheaval merely a readjustment, or is the relationship fundamentally different now?
Few people are better positioned to assess the situation than the Hon. Jean Charest, former premier of Quebec, former federal cabinet minister and Progressive Conservative leader, and one of Canada’s most expert voices on international affairs and trade.
GZERO’s Tasha Kheiriddin sat down with Charest this week to learn what he thinks of what has transpired and how the two countries should move forward. Their conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Q: Let’s talk about the recent meeting between Mark Carney and Donald Trump.Was it a win for Canada?
A: A win. Carney’s reply on the 51st state was a very well-thought-out response, as was saying, “Some things are not for sale, like the White House where we are now.” They got the tone right, they got the message right, and the level of seduction was just right without being too strong. And then they could get on with business.
Q: As you know from experience, relationships between Canada and the US are critical. How can Carney keep it in a positive place?
A: The key for Mr. Carney will be to seek out and identify the things that he can help Mr. Trump accomplish. What are his objectives? Be helpful for him, not confrontational.
Q: Let’s talk about the renegotiation of CUSMA, or USMCA. Trump said, “It will happen” but was vague about the time frame. Should Canada push for a faster renegotiation, or just focus on the tariffs?
A: I would do both. I’ll share an anecdote with you. I was on the set of CNN in Washington a few days after April 2. I crossed paths with Howard Lutnick, whom I didn’t know. We introduced each other and it’s kind of a one-, two-minute conversation where you just say hello. But three times he mentioned CUSMA, three times. So that’s obviously what they have in mind.
Why? Because it’s something you can work off, as opposed to reinventing it. But there’s a technical part to renegotiating CUSMA, a consultation process within Congress, 240 days. And so that’s a process that we should initiate as rapidly as possible.
In the meantime, we need to undo the tariffs on aluminum and steel. And that’ll take some time. The issue on steel is China, their overproduction and flooding the markets. And that reverberates all the way into the Canadian market and then the American market.
Q: Where do you think Congress will land on tariffs, and how important do you think voices from industry will be, from both sides of the border?
A: We should be on all fronts, all the time. Full press. There are no small rooms, there are no people we’re talking to who are not important. Governors, mayors, business people, congressmen, senators. This will break the logjam, if there is a concert of people who have had contact with Canadians and are able to repeat our lines.
And Trump may be sanctioned by the markets if he doesn’t change course. If we can offer him an off-ramp that would allow him to signal to the markets that we are moving ahead, that would reassure them.
Q: Let’s talk about China. We know that Trump is focused on China in his trade war. But Canada has issues with China, which has tariffed our canola and seafood. How should Canada act to protect our industries but not jeopardize our relationship with the US?
A: I think the short-term threat is that the Americans conclude a trade deal at the expense of Canada, which they’ve done before. We’re also anticipating that the Americans will want to include restrictions on dealing with China in their trade deals.
We have to better identify what our core interests are with China. Now, that includes selling them goods and agricultural products and energy: natural gas, LNG, and oil. We are replacing the energy that the Americans are not selling to China with Trans Mountain. Their sales have gone down, ours have gone up radically. So, energy is the future in the relationship with China as far as I’m concerned.
Q: Let’s talk about the military. Trump praised Canada for ramping up our military commitments. What more should our government do?
A: I think one thing that Prime Minister Carney is intuitively right about is enlarging the discussion to cooperation, which includes NORAD. It isn’t just about buying equipment, it isn’t just about doing more, it’s also about cooperation that is fundamental to the security of the United States and Canada.
There are major procurement issues in terms of NORAD and modernizing. There’s a reinvestment that’s happening now that I think is covered at least at 90% by the Americans and 10% by us, which is not a very good story on the Canadian side. And then there’s spending 2% of GDP. Prime Minister Carney has accelerated the time frame to 2030 as opposed to 2032, which is fine. Trump is right about that.
Q: Fentanyl and border security came up as well. We are making progress on both fronts. How important do you think that will be going forward?
A: We have to tell our story. There’s an issue of proportionality on the border. Fentanyl is a horrible scourge on our society. But we are not the problem. And we’re not the problem on immigration, so we don’t want to become the problem. I think what we’re doing now pretty much covers it.
Q: During the recent election campaign, Carney said the relationship we had between Canada and the US is over. After the meeting this week, do you think that’s true? Or is it fundamentally changed?
A: I think most of us would prefer to say it’s fundamentally changed. The word over sounds pretty absolute.
Q: It does.
A: I mean, as any of us who’ve been in a relationship, if you tell your partner it’s over, you’re not going to be sleeping in the same bed anymore, living in the same house. So it’s not over. Whatever happens, we will continue to be each other’s biggest customers. But even when Mr. Trump leaves office, it would be a mistake for us to believe that we’re going to return to something “normal.” It’s fundamentally changed. I don’t think it’s over, but it won’t return to what it was before.A carnival float by artist Jacques Tilly depicting Russian President Vladimir Putin, U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping, at the traditional "Rosenmontag" Rose Monday carnival parade in Duesseldorf, Germany, March 3, 2025.
Chinese President Xi Jinpingarrived in Moscow on Wednesday for a four-day trip in which he’ll attend the Kremlin’s World War Two victory celebrations and aim to bolster his “no limits friendship” with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Russia-China ties have deepened significantly in recent years, as both leaders prefer a multipolar world to a US-dominated one, and they share an affection for authoritarian politics. They also enjoy a natural symbiosis: Russia sells natural resources, while China buys them. And since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Beijing has helped Putin to survive Western sanctions, supplying Moscow with banned technology and arms while buying Russian oil.
But the return of US President Donald Trump – who has upended global trade and sympathized with Russia’s views on Ukraine – makes things interesting.
Beijing, which has clashed with the European Union over trade and technology in recent years, is now keen to exploit European misgivings about Trump to repair its own ties with Brussels. But standing next to Putin, whom most European leaders see as an arch villain for his invasion of Ukraine, will make that harder.
Meanwhile, Putin has a balancing act of his own to consider. Trump offers the prospect of a major improvement in US-Russia relations, which could help Moscow financially. But the White House is also trying to isolate China economically, something Putin couldn’t possibly go along with right now. Is there a way to square that circle? Would he even want to try?
Viktor Orbán watching his party leave him behind.
For the past fifteen years, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has coasted from one election victory to another. Since returning to power in 2010, the self-proclaimed defender of “illiberal democracy” has transformed his country into an “electoral autocracy” – reshaping institutions, rewriting election laws, muzzling independent media, and stacking the courts – where elections are technically free but heavily tilted in his favor, the media landscape is dominated by government allies, and the ruling party – Fidesz – uses the machinery of the state to reward supporters and punish dissent.
All the while, Orbán has proudly cast himself as Europe’s chief populist troublemaker – a pro-Russian crusader against liberalism, immigration, and Brussels bureaucrats, Donald Trump’s man across the Atlantic, and a guy who relishes nothing more than jamming up the European Union’s gears.
His nationalist-populist model inspired imitators and admirers across the West. Where many right-wing populists have flamed out, Orbán has endured, winning elections (four in a row, to be precise) and accumulating more power along the way.
But now, Orbán’s veneer of invincibility is cracking. Suddenly, the world’s most durable populist and Trump’s best friend in Europe looks more vulnerable than ever.
Cracks in the crown
At home, the Hungarian prime minister is facing a newly energized political opposition led by a former protégé-turned-rival named Peter Magyar, who’s managed to do what no other challenger has: unite Hungary’s fragmented anti-Orbán forces. Recent polls show Magyar's center-right Tisza Party holding a commanding double-digit lead over Orbán’s Fidesz among committed voters. Whether or not it’ll hold until the elections in early 2026, that’s no small advantage in a country where the ruling party has rewritten the electoral rules in its favor.
Magyar’s appeal lies in his hybrid message: anti-corruption and pro-transparency, but also nationalist and socially conservative enough to peel away disillusioned Fidesz voters. His rise has upended Orbán’s usual playbook, which relied on a splintered opposition and a monopoly on patriotic rhetoric.
Now, for the first time in years, Orbán is worried, and he’s throwing every goodie he can think of at voters – tax breaks for mothers, higher allowances for families, VAT refunds for retirees, price caps on groceries – in a bid to shore up support and stem Magyar’s rise.
But while these giveaways may buy him some political breathing room, they are also blowing a hole in Hungary’s budget just as the economy is faltering. Growth has been stalled since the end of 2022, the budget deficit is ballooning at 4.9% of GDP, and Orbán’s long-running feud with Brussels means billions in EU recovery funds are likely to remain frozen this year.
Then there’s the Trump factor. Orbán likes to boast about his closeness with the US president. He was the first European leader to endorse Trump in 2016 and again in 2024. But that friendship is becoming less useful.
Unless the EU manages to negotiate a trade deal with Washington, Trump’s punitive new tariffs would hit Hungary’s growth engine especially hard, affecting demand from Europe (particularly Germany) and products ranging from lithium-ion batteries (which make up almost 20% of the country's US exports) to electronic, manufactured goods, and even high-quality wines. Orbán has downplayed the damage, insisting Trump’s tariffs are no big deal – and even floating the fantasy that he could leverage his closeness with Trump to strike his own bilateral deal … despite the tiny issue that EU countries have no capacity to bypass the bloc’s common trade policy.
The White House has also made it clear it’s not inclined to give its pal a pass, especially given the growing suspicion with which defense and trade hawks within the administration view Orbán’s pro-China orientation. In fact, Washington is pushing Budapest to ramp up defense spending to 5% of GDP, buy more weapons and LNG from the US, and distance itself from Beijing at a time when economic conditions are making Hungary more financially dependent on China.
And so, Viktor Orbán is boxed in: squeezed by a surging domestic challenger, trapped by an overextended fiscal policy, cut off from EU funds, and now caught in the undertow of his ally’s protectionist turn in Washington.
Don’t call it a comeback
You might think this spells good news for Europe. Facing his most difficult year since first coming to power, the bloc’s preeminent internal antagonist will have a more limited ability to hijack the EU agenda or undermine European unity on Russia sanctions and Ukraine support in concert with Trump. Sure, if you’re laying odds, it’s still Orbán’s election to lose … but Hungary’s at least in play now. It’s welcome news for Brussels.
Some have gone further, though, pointing to recent centrist electoral wins against right-wing populists with explicitly Trumpian politics in Canada and Australia as evidence of a broader anti-Trump effect being in full swing. If Trump’s disruptive return to the spotlight is causing voters to “rally around the flag” of stability, then perhaps Orbán’s troubles are a sign that Europe is finally sobering up from its populist binge – that the chaos and corruption of his and Trump’s style has worn thin, and European voters are turning back toward sanity and moderation.
But that reading overlooks the fact that the anti-Trump bump isn't holding in Europe. If anything, the tide of right-wing populism on the continent is accelerating.
Take Romania. George Simion, an ultranationalist firebrand with a MAGA streak, is now the favorite to beat Bucharest’s pro-Western centrist mayor, Nicușor Dan, in the May 18 presidential runoff election following the collapse of the country’s pro-EU governing coalition yesterday. Simion outperformed expectations in the first-round vote last Sunday after openly embracing Trump-style politics, railing against the EU, and even welcoming American CPAC chair Matt Schlapp to the campaign trail. He is campaigning alongside Calin Georgescu, another far-right candidate whose first-round presidential election win last November was annulled by Romania’s top court due to likely Russian interference. (A massive online influence campaign tied to the Kremlin seems to have helped Simion, too.)
Across the English Channel, Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party delivered a political gut-punch to the mainstream last Friday, flipping a historically safe Labor parliamentary seat in a by-election and racking up wins in local council elections. The Labor-Tory duopoly that’s dominated British politics for over a century suddenly looks wobbly – and Farage, a leading Brexit advocate and perennial Trump ally, is at the center of the storm.
Even in places where centrists are supposed to be on solid ground, the far right is gaining. In Poland, the ruling Law and Justice party is leaning into its Trump ties to boost its presidential hopeful, Karol Nawrocki. Recent polling shows Nawrocki closing in on centrist opponent Rafał Trzaskowski ahead of elections on May 18. He flew to Washington last week to meet with Trump-affiliated figures, hoping to ride the same anti-establishment wave to victory.
Meanwhile, in Germany, center-right leader Friedrich Merz squeaked into the chancellorship on a second vote after an embarrassing initial flop yesterday. With the hard-right, MAGA-endorsed Alternative für Deutschland continuing to rise, the conservative chancellor once viewed as the establishment’s answer to the populist surge now leads a wounded and weakened “grand coalition” that feels anything but grand.
All of which is to say: Orbán may be stumbling, but his current woes are less a sign of waning populism or an anti-Trump backlash across Europe than a story of one populist’s bad bets coming due. We could be entering a world where Budapest becomes less of a thorn in Brussels’ side than before. But if European centrists think that’ll be the end of their troubles, they’re in for a rude awakening. Far-right European populism is not going anywhere.
US Vice President and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris speaks alongside President Joe Biden about lowering costs for Americans at an event at Prince George's Community College in Upper Marlboro, Maryland, on August 15, 2024.
If anyone thinks the Democratic Party has a plan for combating US President Donald Trump or winning future elections, they should think again.
“The Dem messaging has been all over the place,” says Sarah Matthews, who served as deputy press secretary during Trump’s first administration but resigned after the storming of the US Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Last year, she endorsed former Vice President Kamala Harris.
Matthews isn’t alone in her critique of the Democrats. Several Democratic strategists who spoke to GZERO scoffed when asked if the party has a unified approach. It’s a stark contrast from eight years ago, when Democrats were united behind halting Trump’s agenda, eventually leading to a stomping victory in the 2018 House elections with a campaign centered on protecting the Affordable Care Act.
Today’s Democratic Party is devoid of leadership and strategy, with no clear plan for how to take on the president or win future elections. Gone are the days when Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), the former House speaker, publicly tussled with Trump in the White House – and won. With no clear path forward, the Dems risk further fragmentation as they desperately try to regain their footing ahead of the 2026 midterms and beyond.
Winging it
Just over 100 days into Trump’s second term, the only left-leaning party that seems united against him is based in Canada. Meanwhile, the Democrats’ defense has been disjointed. Some are focusing on the economy, others are criticizing Trump for challenging the legal authorities, while others are just echoing former President Joe Biden’s warnings about Trump’s alleged threat to democracy – as if that worked last year.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), two darlings of the American left, have toured the country in recent weeks to tout an economic-focused message aimed at wooing working-class voters. Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD)has zeroed in on due process by flying to El Salvador to advocate for a deported man from Maryland, while Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) is using every platform possible to argue that Trump is undermining democracy.
Some Democratic missives are even in direct conflict with one another. Matthews points to California Gov. Gavin Newsom “trying to cater a little bit to the MAGA crowd” by interviewing conservative activists on his new podcast. Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez, meanwhile, are painting the president and his close allies as an oligarchy.
For Jeff Weaver, who was Sanders’ campaign manager for the senator’s 2016 presidential run, the disjointed communication is just the tip of the iceberg. He argues that Democrats have been papering over their cracks for some time, noting that they’ve hemorrhaged support from its base of working-class voters. Two-thirds of non-college-educated voters went for Trump last year, per NBC News exit polls, whereas they split their vote 12 years ago. People of color each shifted markedly toward the Republicans, too, Weaver notes. A major change in message and leadership, he says, is long overdue.
“In all likelihood, Joe Biden would not have become president in 2020 if not for COVID, the performance of ‘22 was not that overwhelming, frankly,” Weaver told GZERO. “[Democrats] fooled themselves into believing that they had a strong base of support, particularly among working-class people.”
The leadership vacuum creates an opening
The Democratic Party hasn’t had such an absence of leadership since the turn of the century and the end of Bill Clinton’s presidency. Former President Barack Obama emerged from that drought and led the country for eight years, Biden for another four. When Democrats didn’t control the White House, Pelosi – the top House Democrat for two decades – filled the void. With the former speaker no longer leading her caucus and Trump back in charge, an abundance of other Democrats – from Sanders to Newsom – have tried to carry the torch. As yet, none have emerged as the clear leader.
But Democratic pollster Zac McCrary isn’t too worried about this just yet.
“You have to let 1,000 flowers bloom,” says McCrary. “The direction of the Democratic Party is more open-ended than it has been, is more up for grabs than it has been in a generation.”
“I think it’s a good thing coming after an election where Democrats lost all three legs of the stool in terms of both chambers of Congress and the presidency,” he adds.
Party strategists agree that a party leader won’t emerge until the 2028 presidential primaries begin. In the meantime, they say, Democrats can battle test their messages – and their strategies – to see which ones land.
An easier target for Democrats will be the midterm elections, which are 18 months away. The party in power has historically performed poorly, as opposition voters are more motivated to go to the polls. The midterms are also a referendum on the president, and Trump had the lowest 100-day approval rating in 80 years. Potentially adding fuel to the fire: The US economy looks headed for recession, thanks in no small part to Trump’s widespread tariffs.
Trump’s recent own goal on trade policy and his firing-cum-reshuffle of former National Security Adviser Michael Waltz have finally given the Democrats an opening.Rep. Derek Tran (D-CA), one of the Democrats’ rare success stories in 2024 who flipped a Republican-held House seat, acknowledged that the Trump administration’s swift actions early in the term forced Democrats on defense. But now Tran believes it is time to flip the script and go on the offensive against any ineptitude by the administration.
“[Waltz] is one of the rotten apples in the barrel,” the first-term congressman said, before calling for the firing of Defense Sec. Pete Hegseth, who shared US war plans on multiple Signal chats.
“He’s putting a lot of soldiers’ lives at risk,” Tran said of Hegseth. “The incompetency in this administration has to stop.”
Some are eyeing the bigger prize
Though most Democrats – including Tran – are focused on the midterms, a handful are looking beyond 2026. Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear and former Commerce Sec. Gina Raimondo are openly flirting with a run for the White House in 2028. Maryland Gov. Wes Moore and Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker are taking trips to states that hold early primary elections. Former Transportation Sec. Pete Buttigieg has been rampaging through podcast interviews and is heading to Iowa – where he stunned the political world by winning the 2020 caucuses – next week.
Yet these potential 2028 candidates still come from the mainstream of the party, at a time when the Democratic brand is toxic — a CNN poll in March found the party’s favorability rating was just 29%, the lowest rate since the survey began. As such, some Democratic strategists – including Matthews, the former Republican – want to see more from Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez, and their message of economic populism.
“People are even underestimating AOC right now because I do think that there is an appetite for that kind of populist message,” Matthews said. “It does seem like that would be the smart move for the Democrats to lean more into that.”
Nayib Bukele, the President of El Salvador, addresses the Conservative Political Action Conference, CPAC 2024, at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center.
Nayib Bukele, the millennial strongman president of El Salvador, has many admirers. At least 1 million of them now follow an Instagram “fan” account dedicated to him. The account, @Bukele2024, regularly posts videos of Salvadoran gang members in prison, their heads shaven and their faces crawling with tattoos, crouching or cowering half-naked in the cells or yards of El Salvador’s maximum security facilities.
The gushing comments under these videos come largely from Salvadorans, more than 90% of whom currently support Bukele, who is now in his second term.
But many also come from outside the country.
“Excellent, we need a president like that in Argentina [heart],” says one.
“Mexico needs this kind of government!” reads another.
“Congratulations from Brazil!”
Bukele’s popularity at home – and his rising appeal abroad – come from a single, once-unimaginable achievement: Making El Salvador Safe Again.
As countries throughout the region grapple with high crime rates, the example of small El Salvador is having a big impact on Latin American politics.
What did he do? When Bukele took office in 2019, the tiny country of barely 6 million people was overrun by violence. Powerful gangs like MS-13 and The 18th Street Gang – both born in US prisons more than half a century ago – left hundreds of people dead every year as they warred over territory, extorted businesses, intimidated lawmakers, and kidnapped people for ransom.
Since then, the homicide rate has fallen from 36 per 10,000 people to fewer than two. El Salvador was once the most dangerous place on earth. It is now one of the safest.
How did he do it? At first, the gangs did it for him, reaching truces that had already started to bring down the murder rate when he took office. But after those deals collapsed, Bukele ripped off the gloves – he declared a state of emergency and unleashed a crackdown that has jailed more than 80,000 people.
El Salvador’s incarceration rate is now the highest in the world. Three out of every 100 Salvadoran men are currently in prisons like the ones shown on @bukele2024.
Human rights groups say his mano dura (strong hand) approach has been a disaster, rife with arbitrary detentions and allegations of torture and deadly abuse. To date, more than 8,000 people have been released after wrongful incarceration – watchdogs say that’s a fraction of those jailed without cause.
Bukele, who describes himself as “the world’s coolest dictator” has also chipped away at democratic checks and balances. In 2020, the army marched into Congress in order to intimidate lawmakers into passing a Bukele-backed stricter crime bill.
A year later, hand-picked justices ruled that he could skirt term limits and run for reelection. Last year, he won by more than 70 points, delivering his New Ideas party a supermajority in Congress to boot.
The region has taken notice. In Ecuador, where cartel violence has soared in recent years, President Daniel Noboa won reelection in a landslide last month after seeing moderate success with a state of emergency modeled on Bukele’s.
In Chile, where crime is a top concern for voters, Bukele is viewed positively by 80% of Chileans surveyed, and nearly half say they want a president like him in their own country. Polls show he is currently the most popular Latin American leader in Colombia and also in Peru where more than half a dozen new parties have named themselves after the Salvadoran president.
Why the love for Bukele? Concern about crime and violence is rising across Latin America. While the causes differ from country to country, the lingering economic dislocations of the pandemic, combined with surging Andean cocaine production and the social tensions generated by the mass exodus of Venezuelans over the past decade, have led to upticks in crime, both real and perceived.
A survey released last year by Latinobarometro showed that a third of people across the region said they or a relative had been the victim of violent crime over the previous year, the highest mark in nearly a decade.
But can Bukelismo really work elsewhere? Experts say El Salvador’s experience is unique and hard to replicate. It is a tiny country where the gangs, despite their ferocity, are nowhere near as powerful, entrenched, widely dispersed or well-armed as the transnational cartels that fuel violence elsewhere in the region, according to Risa Grais-Targow, a Latin America expert at Eurasia Group who travels often to El Salvador. Plus they are much easier to find than narcos.
“They all have tattoos on their faces,” she says, “There’s really no mystery about who these people are.”
Still, even if Bukelismo can’t be replicated in practice, it can be copied in politics. Over the next 18 months, four of the region’s biggest economies are heading into elections. Chile will choose a president later this year, while Brazil, Colombia, and Peru will all follow suit in 2026.
All three are currently governed by left-leaning politicians, but the right is surging ahead of next year’s vote, Risa says, in part because of the perception that their hardline policies will help to deal with crime.
“I think this Bukele message is going to be really popular or really forceful,” says Grais-Targow. “And so we are going to see a lot of Bukele copycats.
- El Salvador’s president gets “super” powers. ›
- The Salvador of El Salvador? ›
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