The Election of the ‘World’s Coolest Dictator’
It’s election season—not only in the US, but also in other countries in the Americas, with El Salvador the latest to have the population mobilize and vote for their next President.
The result? The re-election of the self-proclaimed, “world’s coolest dictator,” Nayib Bukele. On Monday, February 5, Bukele was officially elected for a second term. But even early Sunday, despite problems with vote recording, the win was guaranteed for the 42-year old tech-savvy leader, who identifies as a “philosopher king” on X. Bukele won re-election with 83% of the votes, the adoration by much of the population stemming from his effective but controversial crackdown on gang activity in his previous term as president, a trend he is sure to continue in his second term.
Nayib Bukele served as mayor of two Salvadoran towns, including the capital of San Salvador, before tackling the challenge of running for President. Bukele truly came to power following his expulsion from his former party (The New Ideas Party) in 2017, and became an outsider, winning the 2019 elections by pledging to purge El Salvador of corruption. Since his election in 2019, Bukele became known as a “disruptor and innovator,” adopting Bitcoin as the legal tender of the country in 2021, bringing El Salvador into a technology-focused era. However, economic and technological policies are not the reason for 80% of the population of 6.3 million Salvadorans choosing to cast their vote for Bukele.
To understand the appeal of Nayib Bukele, we must look back at the history of gang violence and homicides in the country. In 2015, El Salvador had 107 homicides per 100,000 people, a scale warranting the country the title of the “world’s murder capital.” Gangs had an unequal holding on the country. According to the UN Development Program, the total annual cost of gang violence equaled 16% of the country’s GDP. Barrio 18 and MS-13 are such gangs who have “tormented” communities for decades in campaigns of murder and rape, turf wars, and extortion. Before Bukele, previous leaders responded by forming pacts with gangs, or by implementing security policies that simply led to more violence. Citizens lived in fear for the safety of themselves and their loved ones.
With the election of Bukele, everything changed. Bukele declared a state of emergency in 2022 following a surge of gang violence and issued a subsequent state of exception that loosened criteria needed to make an arrest and a suspension of rights, including free speech and the right to protest. With these changes, El Salvador’s Justice and Security Minister Gustavo Villatora stated that El Salvador boasted the second lowest murder rate in the Americas, the title for the lowest rate being Canada. With this, Bukele declared himself a ‘harbinger of democracy,’ stating on Sunday that, as President, it is the “first time in history that El Salvador has democracy,” an untrue statement. Those tormented by gangs, from the residents to owners of small businesses, found comfort in Bukele and his “war on gangs” and restoration of security, and the hope for the safety of their future generations, as demonstrated by his landslide win.
In March 2022, the deadliest gang violence outbreak during Bukele’s presidency led Bukele to respond by introducing emergency powers, ultimately building a penitentiary complex that could hold 40,000 people, dubbed the “Terrorism Confinement Center”. In August 2023, Bukele deployed 10,000 troops to further reinforce the gang crackdown. The use of emergency powers by Bukele has led some to criticize the level of control he has over state institutions and the overall lack of checks and balances in El Salvador. Even his second term is considered breaking the one-term constitutional ban, but vice chancellor for social outreach at a local university, Omar Serrano, comments that the “unconstitutional” re-election doesn’t matter, with the “main pillar on which [Bukele] has built his popular backing is what the government has done on security.” In fact, Bukele boasted a 90% approval rating during his first term. Reduction of crime, rather than the checks and balances of their President, is what truly matters to the people of El Salvador.
Bukele’s actions have not gone without controversy, and protest. A year after Bukele announced the state of exception, families gathered in San Salvador’s center, demanding the release of their loved ones who were arbitrarily detained. With the state of exception, hearings for over 300 defendants occurred simultaneously, meaning legal decisions were not made for individual cases as much as for groups of people. Since March 2022, according to the Human Rights Watch, over 73,000 people have been arrested, around 1% of El Salvador’s population. This includes 2,800 minors detained, with permission granted for children as young as 12 to be imprisoned. According to Statista, as of January 2024, El Salvador is the country with the largest number of prisoners per 100,000 people, and conditions in the prisons are dismal, inhumane, and deadly. Prisoners have no hope for reintroduction to society, despite around 57,000 of those arrested and held in the mega prison still awaiting formal charges or a trial.
El Salvador, and many other countries in Latin America, face a dilemma. The debate: to allow an erosion of checks and balances and centralization of power that may lead to human rights abuses, or retreat from authoritarianism but have the country suffer under gang violence, murder, and fear. Throughout Latin America, we see the “Bukele Plan '' admired, trending with citizens and politicians from South and Central America, including Guatemala and Honduras, who wish to follow El Salvador's, or rather, Bukele’s, lead. Particularly, right-wing leaders find his policies admirable.
These policies come at the expense of some civil liberties, and the issue of mass incarceration of people, both innocent and guilty, that drives holes in families and can perpetuate the problems of inequality and poverty. While effective, Bukele fails to truly explore the corruption within the government that has allowed the gangs so much power for so long, as well as cutting the gangs off from the top, instead of the bottom. However, this is easier said than done, and as for now, a majority of Salvadorans are satisfied with the Bukele’s handling of crime and are willing to sacrifice some civil liberties for their personal security.