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Nayib Bukele, the President of El Salvador, addresses the Conservative Political Action Conference, CPAC 2024, at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center.
Small Country Big Story: El Salvador and the appeal of the "world's coolest dictator"
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.
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- El Salvador’s millennial strongman on track to be reelected ›
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U.S. President Donald Trump meets with El Salvador President Nayib Bukele in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., April 14, 2025.
El Salvador's Bukele refuses to return wrongly-deported Maryland man, and offers to jail US citizens too
The United States deported the wrong man — but El Salvador still won’t send him back.
El Salvador's popular strongman president Nayib Bukele on Monday visited the White House, where he told journalists it was “preposterous” to ask him to return Kilmar Abrego García, a Maryland resident whom the US mistakenly deported to El Salvador’s notorious CECOT prison in March as part of a broader expulsion there of 200 immigrants suspected of gang connections.
Abrego García came to the US from El Salvador illegally more than a decade ago but had since been granted a form of asylum. The Trump Administration has admitted an “administrative error”, but rebuffed a Supreme Court order to “facilitate” Abrego García’s, arguing that the courts have no say over the president’s foreign policy choices.
Could Bukele jail American citizens too? Bukele on Monday upped the ante, offering to jail even naturalized U.S. citizens who are convicted of violent crimes — for a fee. Trump, who heaped praise on Bukele, said his administration was studying the idea, adding, “If it’s a homegrown criminal, I have no problem.”
Immigration experts maintain that sending US citizens to foreign jails is unconstitutional. But the Trump administration has shown a willingness to test the bounds of executive authority, especially on immigration. Expect another potential showdown between the White House and the courts soon.
Meet María Corina Machado, the woman who scares Venezuela's dictator
Born and trained as an engineer, Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado has become a powerful symbol of resistance. Once a fringe opposition politician who shocked the nation by interrupting Hugo Chavez, she now leads the charge against the dictatorial regime of his successor, Nicolás Maduro. Although she has gone into hiding, she has not kept quiet. Through remote interviews and media outreach, she's rallied support for the opposition and praised right-leaning Latin American leaders like Argentina’s Javier Milei and El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele. She defended the Trump administration’s recent move to cancel oil and gas licenses that had allowed energy companies to operate in Venezuela.
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FILE PHOTO: El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele speaks during the inauguration of the 3 de Febrero hydroelectric power plant in San Luis de La Reina, El Salvador October 19, 2023.
El Salvador’s president gets “super” powers.
The authoritarian world’s hottest young thing – Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele – has won a Congressional supermajority.
Bukele, who won a landslide reelection last month, will control a staggering 54 of 60 seats in the Central American country’s legislature, empowering him to do … whatever he likes.
What might that be? Hard to say. He’s already jailed nearly 2% of the adult population as part of a ferocious crackdown on gang violence, and he already got a friendly court to rule he could flout term limits. His allies even openly say he aims to “dismantle” democracy.
And … his success at slashing the murder rate to pieces has made him incredibly popular. That’s true not only at home but also abroad, where some in other violence-wracked Latin American countries – Mexico, Colombia, Ecuador, Chile – are increasingly enamored of Bukele.
Not so fast, say experts. El Salvador is a tiny country (6 million people) whose gangs – fearsome as they are – pale in comparison to the size and firepower of the transnational cartels running amok elsewhere in the neighborhood. Bukele’s model plays well at home, but it might not – for now at least – export as well.
Soldiers keep watch in the militarized Litoral prison, part of the measures taken by Ecuador's President Daniel Noboa to crackdown on gangs, during a media tour in Guayaquil, Ecuador, Feb. 9, 2024.
Ecuador to vote on emergency measures amid spiraling violence
Ecuadorians will get their say on a slew of emergency measures meant to combat skyrocketing murders in their country — but they’ll have to wait more than two months.
A court has set April 21 as the date for a referendum on expanding the army’s powers, tightening control over guns and prisons, and raising penalties for trafficking.
President Daniel Noboa, the scion of a banana export dynasty who was elected last November, called for the vote as he battles an unprecedented surge of violence in the once-peaceful country. The cause? Record global demand for cocaine is driving a war among drug cartels for control over Ecuador’s ports.
Last year Ecuador’s homicide rate surpassed 40 per 100,000 inhabitants, more than quadruple the mark in 2020. In recent months, several prominent politicians, including a presidential candidate, have been gunned down. In January, armed men stormed a live television broadcast.
Strongman, but by the book: Noboa’s consultative approach contrasts with the authoritarian (and so far successful) tack of Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele. But it’s a gamble: If civil liberties concerns cause Ecuadorans to vote “no” on some questions, Noboa’s hands could be tied (at least partly) while the violence rages.
El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele, who is running for reelection, greets people, on the day of the presidential and parliamentary elections in San Salvador, El Salvador, February 4, 2024.
Crime fighter cruises to victory in El Salvador
Salvadorans voted overwhelmingly on Sunday to reelect President Nayib Bukele, the self-styled “world’s coolest dictator” – even though the constitution says he can’t serve a second term. Provisional results show he won 83% of the vote.
Bukele came to power five years ago promising to clean up rampant crime and corruption that had turned El Salvador into a lawless state. Today, 75,000 people, or 1.7% of the country’s adult population, are in jail, which is the highest incarceration rate in the world.
Despite criticism for his authoritarian methods, and accusations that his government colludes with the very gangs he vowed to stamp out, Bukele remains wildly popular. Pre-election polls had his main rivals receiving barely 12% of the vote between them.
Bukele's second term faces challenges, however, as poverty remains high and the IMF describes the country’s fiscal situation as "fragile." Since 2019, extreme poverty has doubled and almost half the population is food insecure. Bukele’s economic reforms have been unorthodox: In 2021, the government declared Bitcoin legal tender, attracting attention but also criticism for its volatility. Today, Bukele says El Salvador’s investments in the cryptocurrency are in the black, but it remains to be seen if he has as much success tackling poverty as he did crime.