APOPA, El Salvador — Victor Barahona was grateful when troopers began rounding up gang members who had lengthy terrorized this working-class metropolis. Now not would his grandchildren go drug offers or be startled from sleep by the crack of gunfire.
However when El Salvador’s army began hauling away neighbors Barahona knew had no connection to the gangs, he spoke out, criticizing the arrests on his neighborhood radio program.
Quickly after, police rapped on his door. Barahona mentioned he was handcuffed and despatched to jail, with no entry to legal professionals, no contact with household and no clear sense of the costs towards him.
He recollects seeing inmates being tortured and guards hauling useless our bodies from cells whereas he lived on meager parts of noodles and beans. He would later lodge a grievance with the United Nations Fee on Human Rights.
When he was launched virtually a yr later — 70 kilos lighter, and with no rationalization — Barahona was alarmed to see that President Nayib Bukele was profitable world reward for bringing peace and prosperity to El Salvador, together with his iron-fist safety technique heralded by American conservatives akin to President Trump.
Troopers patrol a neighborhood in Apopa through the implementation of a army siege to fight gangs on Oct. 11, 2023, in El Salvador.
(Camilo Freedman / For The Occasions)
A 43-year-old former adman first elected in a landslide in 2019, Bukele has been largely profitable in rebranding El Salvador from a poor backwater affected by murderous gangs into an progressive and secure nation that he compares to Singapore. In prolific social media posts, he presents himself like a tech CEO: a disrupter-in-chief keen to interrupt norms and create what he phrases a “new history.”
However for all his fashionable trappings — his embrace of Bitcoin, TikTok and slick promotional movies — Bukele’s critics say he’s simply following the playbook of earlier Latin American strongmen, together with the army leaders who dominated El Salvador as a dictatorship from 1931 till the early Nineteen Eighties.
Bukele jails opponents, fires judges and has been been implicated in corruption. He pushed for a court docket choice that paved the best way for his reelection though the nation’s structure prohibits it. Final week, he launched a crackdown on nonprofits, calling for 30% of their donations to be taxed.
“He’s not a divergence,” mentioned Noah Bullock, the director of Cristosal, a human rights group. “He governs in the same way as past dictators and uses the same instruments of power. It’s a regime that tortures and kills and disseminates fear.”
There may be little doubt that Bukele’s mass arrests beginning in 2022 helped dismantle the gangs that when held this nation in a chokehold. And for that, most Salvadorans are grateful.
However as a part of his safety push — which included asking Salvadorans to denounce suspected “terrorists” by way of an nameless tip line — tens of 1000’s of harmless folks had been wrongfully detained, human rights teams say.
A girl stacks a shelf as demonstrators march to protest towards the continuing state of emergency on Jan. 12, 2025, in San Salvador, El Salvador.
(Camilo Freedman / For The Occasions)
Whereas polls present that the majority Salvadorans help Bukele, in addition they present {that a} majority worry retribution in the event that they categorical their views.
“We used to be afraid of the gangs,” Barahona mentioned as he walked by way of Apopa, the place rifle-toting troopers are posted each few blocks. “Now,” he mentioned, “we’re afraid of the state.”
Favourite of the American proper
An increasing number of, Bukele’s El Salvador is a mannequin for the American proper.
He acquired a rock-star welcome on the 2024 Conservative Political Motion Convention outdoors Washington, the place members chanted his title and he warned U.S. leaders to struggle “dark forces … taking over your country.”
“The people of El Salvador have woken up,” he mentioned. “And so can you.”
Marco Rubio, Matt Gaetz and Donald Trump Jr. have made pilgrimage to El Salvador, and Republican commentator Tucker Carlson mentioned Bukele “may have the blueprint for saving the world.” Elon Musk insists that El Salvador’s crackdown “needs to happen and will happen in America.”
President Trump appears keen to copy many Bukele methods. An ongoing state of emergency declared by Bukele has suspended civil liberties, together with due course of. The White Home introduced it’s “actively looking at” suspending habeas corpus, the constitutional proper for folks to problem their detention by the federal government.
In March, the Trump administration paid Bukele tens of millions of {dollars} to accommodate a whole bunch of American deportees in one in every of its notorious prisons. Trump and Bukele have refused to adjust to a U.S. Supreme Courtroom order to facilitate the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who the U.S. acknowledges was improperly deported.
President Donald Trump shakes palms with Nayib Bukele, El Salvador’s president, throughout a gathering within the Oval Workplace of the White Home on April 14, 2025.
(Al Drago / The Washington Put up by way of Getty Pictures)
Trump and Bukele share a disregard for democratic norms, with Bukele describing himself as a “philosopher king” and “world’s coolest dictator.” Trump says he has not dominated out in search of a prohibited third time period and posted a quote on-line attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte: “He who saves his Country does not violate any Law.”
Their affinity was clear at their assembly final month within the Oval Workplace. Sitting subsequent to Trump, Bukele acknowledged that whereas 1000’s of prisoners in El Salvador might have had their rights violated, “I like to say that we actually liberated millions.”
“Who gave him that line?” Trump responded. “Do you think I can use that?”
“Mr. President, you have 350 million people to liberate,” Bukele mentioned. “But to liberate 350 million people, you have to imprison some. That’s the way it works, right?”
Attracting funding, silencing critics
San Salvador, a lush metropolis that lies within the shadow of a dormant volcano, has been buzzing in recent times with the clatter of development.
The nation’s essential hospital is getting a facelift, and crews are renovating colonial buildings. A brand new library donated by China looms over the central sq., the place kids splash in a fountain and boleros play from audio system hidden amongst bushes.
Bukele has promoted the adjustments right here and alongside the Pacific Coast, now a browsing mecca, as proof that El Salvador is flourishing. Final yr, the nation welcomed a report 3.9 million vacationers, together with cryptocurrency evangelists drawn by Bukele’s short-lived experiment in making Bitcoin authorized tender.
However whereas he has spent large on beauty adjustments, Bukele has slashed budgets for well being and training. Dozens of faculties and neighborhood clinics have been shuttered.
Ivan Solano Leiva, the director of El Salvador’s medical affiliation, mentioned Bukele has emphasised “constructing an image” over assembly fundamental wants. As Bukele touted the acquisition of state-of-the artwork hospital gear, wait instances to see specialists lengthened, Solano mentioned, and docs have been pressured to not write prescriptions due to drug shortages.
“What’s the point of having the latest technology if I don’t have enough staff to operate it?” he mentioned.
However behind TikToks touting enhancements lie bleak statistics.
The poverty fee rose from 26.8% in 2019 to 30.3% in 2023. The nation has the bottom ranges of financial development and overseas funding in of all of Central America, worse even than close by Nicaragua, a dictatorship that has been pummeled by U.S. sanctions.
Whereas Bukele can declare some spectacular tasks, like a towering new Google workplace in San Salvador, the shaky rule of legislation has spooked different buyers, mentioned an adviser to overseas firms who spoke on the situation of anonymity: “They feel too much risk.”
The perils for companies had been clear this month, after a freeway renovation disrupted site visitors and Bukele declared on X that transportation can be free nationwide.
When some bus firms did not comply, Bukele ordered the arrests of 16 firm homeowners on costs of sabotage. They continue to be in jail.
On a latest scorching afternoon, Erica Mendoza, 42, was ready for a bus along with her disabled husband. Mendoza, who earns about $8 a day, mentioned she was grateful for the assistance with bus fare, and mentioned she didn’t count on Bukele to unravel El Salvador’s long-standing financial issues over night time.
“If there’s money we eat, if there’s not, we don’t,” she mentioned. “This is life and we’re used to it.”
Accusations of corruption
As a substitute of residing within the nationwide palace, Bukele lives in a contemporary residence in a luxurious compound known as Los Sueños: The Desires.
In recent times, his authorities has purchased up a number of heaps within the neighborhood to construct what authorities officers say shall be a brand new presidential residence.
Enrique Anaya, a constitutional legal professional who has criticized Bukele’s mass firings of judges and suspension of rights, mentioned it’s clear that “his mission is clearly to stay in power as long as possible and to make himself scandalously rich.”
A latest investigation by the journalist Jaime Quintanilla revealed that Bukele and his household bought 34 properties valued at greater than $9 million throughout his first presidential time period.
Bukele, who ran as an anti-corruption crusader, vowing to interrupt with previous leaders on the left and proper implicated in graft, has denied insinuations that he has enriched himself in workplace, calling critics “imbeciles.”
However for some, the case is one other instance of the broad hole between the picture of El Salvador that Bukele is promoting and actuality.
The is critical proof that Bukele’s greatest accomplishment of all — decreasing crime in El Salvador — wasn’t simply the results of his punishing safety technique.
Journalists and U.S. officers say that in Bukele’s first time period, his administration negotiated with gangs to deliver down killings and generate votes for his celebration.
In 2021, the U.S. Treasury Division slapped sanctions towards Bukele’s vice minister of justice and a prime presidential aide for chopping offers with leaders of the MS-13 and Barrio 18 gangs.
It’s unclear whether or not on a regular basis Salvadorans care how precisely peace was achieved.
Andrés Hernández, 50, was pressured to desert his residence in Apopa 15 years in the past as a result of the gangs had been making an attempt to recruit his younger son. “We suffered so much,” he mentioned. “Finally, we can breathe.”
Hernández mentioned he hopes to vote for Bukele for a 3rd time period. “I want him to stay — forever.”
Juan Meléndez, director of the Netherlands Institute for Multiparty Democracy in El Salvador, mentioned a lot of his compatriots appear “open to exchanging their rights for security.” It’s one thing he attributes to the nation’s lengthy historical past of authoritarian rule. Democracy, he mentioned, was an summary idea to many Salvadorans, whereas safer streets was a concrete profit.
In the meantime, about 110,000 folks, almost 2% of El Salvador’s inhabitants, languish in jail. One in all them is René Mauricio Tadeo Serrano, 37, who was arrested in 2022 whereas working at a manufacturing facility within the coastal province of Libertad.
It has been almost three years since his mom, María Serrano, 60, has heard from him. She has diabetes however walks the streets every day seeking work laundering clothes to pay for the $150 month-to-month package deal members of the family should purchase so their family members in jail can have fundamental gadgets like bathroom paper and cleaning soap. On a latest morning, Serrano stood outdoors the prosecutor’s workplace begging for data on her son’s case, alongside dozens of different moms whose kids have disappeared.
She thinks it’s solely a matter of time earlier than extra folks see the price of Bukele’s rule. “It’s a lie that we’re free in El Salvador,” she mentioned. “The people who are in favor of him haven’t had their hearts broken yet.”
