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Mr. Bukele is embarking on a second five-year term in which his power will be paramount, parliament a rubber stamp for executive policy and the opposition party a shadowy figure. And Salvadorans are overjoyed. Bukele has the highest approval rating of any world leader, winning Sunday’s presidential vote by nearly 90%.
His surprising popularity hinges on one important issue. Since he was elected president in 2019, Bukele has led a sweeping crackdown on gangs and cartels that have proliferated over the years through networks across El Salvador and the region. His tough approach has lowered the country’s murder rate, once among the world’s highest, and brought some security to El Salvador’s neighborhoods. It also motivated politicians across Latin America, especially on the right, to try to replicate the Bukele model.
But critics say it goes too far. The country’s parliament gave Mr. Bukele emergency powers for two years to carry out the fight against crime. “The Bukele government has used emergency powers to imprison more than 72,000 suspects, giving El Salvador one of the highest lockdown rates in the world,” my colleague Mary Beth Sheridan explained last year. . “They face mass trials against up to 900 defendants. Human rights groups say many were arbitrarily arrested. The government has acknowledged some mistakes and released about 7,000 people. ”
Bukele, 42, ridiculed his critics, including Biden administration officials.said the 2021 court ruling that paved the way for Bukele’s second term “undermines democracy.” Quiet and irreverent, Bukele, now known as X, jokingly changed his bio to “World’s Coolest Dictator” on Twitter.
The majority of Salvadorans appeared unmoved, drawn instead by the populist promise inherent in Bukele’s pitch to break from a failed status quo that permeates stagnation, corruption and poverty. “This is the first time in a country where there is only one political party in a fully democratic system,” Bukele jubilantly told a cheering crowd on Sunday night, adding that “the entire opposition has been crushed together.” .
It’s almost undeniable. “El Salvador’s traditional parties of the left and right, which created the vacuum that Bukele first filled in 2019, remain in disarray,” the Associated Press noted. “The conservative Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA) and the left-wing Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) alternately held power for nearly 30 years, but were completely discredited by their own corruption and incompetence.”
El Salvador’s president has cast the election as a referendum on his conduct in a society scarred by decades of violence. “Why is there so much attention on a small country in (Latin) America?” Bukele told his supporters. “They are afraid of the power of example.”
Bukele’s background on X makes no mention of him being a dictator. Now he simply calls himself the “Philosopher King.”
Mr. Boucle’s success in El Salvador reflects a continuum of politics that goes beyond the small Central American nation. Democracies in both developing and developed countries are facing historic challenges. Opinion polls show growing apathy among voters, especially young people, and growing disillusionment with the very ideals of liberal democracy.
“There is a growing rejection of basic principles of democracy and human rights, and support for authoritarian populism is growing among people who feel that concepts such as democracy, human rights, and due process are useless.” said Tyler Mathias, Americas researcher at Human Rights Watch. he told the Associated Press.
For this reason, Bukele A cause well-known among the American right-wing. “The American liberal media… can not understand “Society may be better off by enforcing strict authority, counterintuitively more free and liberal,” the American Conservative Party declared, while Bukele offered “a proven alternative to the liberal model of governance.” “We offer a successful alternative,” he added.
However, Bukele’s road ahead will not be a smooth one. Although his anti-gang initiatives are extremely popular, his country’s economic situation remains difficult. Inflation is a serious problem, and El Salvador continues to have high poverty and unemployment rates. Bukele’s bizarre, high-profile attempt to make Bitcoin legal tender in El Salvador has done little to address deeper problems.
“Showmanship is no substitute for governance, and there will inevitably be increased pressure on Mr. Bouclet to address the economic situation in his second term,” said Kristin Wade, a political scientist specializing in Latin America at the University of Washington. is writing. “With food insecurity rising and exports declining, Bukele will have to address the country’s socio-economic ills with policies that have proven more effective than his stalled Bitcoin initiative.”
“If prices continue to rise and the government fails to respond, Bukele’s five years of high popularity could end in his second term,” said Valeria Vázquez, senior Central America analyst at consultancy Control Risks. He told America’s Quarterly. “However, given the decline of political opposition and the country’s checks and balances, it is unlikely that any serious challenges will emerge.”
In fact, there is one overwhelming reality in El Salvador. “Bukele’s model is this,” anthropologist Juan Martínez d’Aubuisson, who has studied gangs in El Salvador, told Sheridan. “Concentrate all power in one man.”
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