Central America is a region of perpetual flux—not far enough north to be wholly subsumed by the United States’ sphere of influence, yet close enough to feel its gravitational pull. It is a land where the legacies of Spanish colonial rule persist, shaped by centuries of power grabs, betrayals, and the enduring figure of the caudillo. The term, rich with connotations, evokes images of tobacco-puffing, mustachioed military leaders, once the archetypal rulers of the region. These men, draped in the trappings of authority, once dominated the landscape, imposing their will with the force of arms and the aura of inevitability.
But Central America is nothing if not unpredictable. The 20th century saw the rise of left-leaning social reformers—figures who dared to challenge the heavily- influenced US political-industrial clique status quo with land redistribution schemes, unionization, that often provoked the ire of US interests. The region, always the pawn in larger geopolitical games, became a testing ground for the United States' Monroe Doctrine and its polymorphous interpretations: shifting from the Carrot and Stick policies to strategies of containment and isolation to abandonment, and then to the blame the victims and let tyrannical leadership go about its business in the latest foreign policy approach. In this crucible of conflicting ideologies, radical, fringe leftist, authoritarian right-wing and pragmatic movements emerged, fueling a cycle of revolution and repression, of stagnation and growth.
Out of this cauldron, where political mismanagement has been both the rule and the ruin, a new kind of leader has arisen—a figure born from the ashes of the past of a once radical left, yet one who has transcended those origins. Nayib Bukele is a man who cleverly managed to understand the intricate dance of power in Central America, a region where every move is watched, every decision weighed by forces both local and foreign. Disruptive and dynamic, Bukele is keenly aware of the region's deep-seated problems, and he has positioned himself as the architect of a new political order in El Salvador.
Bukele's rise — albeit a story of personal ambition — is the tale of a region struggling to redefine itself in the 21st century. He embodies a new synthesis—a leader who combines the iron-fisted control of the old caudillos with the savvy, media-driven approach of a modern populist. In doing so, he has become a figure both praised and feared, a man who sees in right-wing authoritarianism not a retreat to the past, but a path to stability in a world of uncertainty.
The Revolutionary Populist
To grasp the full measure of Nayib Bukele’s rise, one must begin with the bleak backdrop of El Salvador’s recent history—a nation marred by decades of violence, corruption, and the near-total collapse of public trust in its institutions. Bukele’s journey from the fringes of the radical left to the helm of a transformative, authoritarian regime is not just the story of a man, but of a country pushed to its limits.
El Salvador, once a battleground for Cold War proxies, had become a nation held hostage by its own demons. The civil war of the 1980s left a deep scar, but it was the rise of the maras, the brutal gangs that came to dominate every facet of Salvadoran life, that truly plunged the country into darkness. These criminal organizations—hardened by years of poverty, disenfranchisement, and deportations from the United States—had metastasized into a cancer that rotted the country from within. By the time Bukele entered the political arena, the maras were more than just gangs; they were parallel powers, ruling vast swathes of the country through fear and violence.
Born on July 24, 1981, when El Salvador was engulfed in one of the most brutal civil wars of Latin America’s Cold War years, Nayib Bukele's trajectory seems nothing short of paradoxical. It was a time when the region became a focal point of U.S. obsession. Under Ronald Reagan’s administration, El Salvador represented the frontline of the battle for the Western Hemisphere, a proxy war between the U.S.-backed right-wing government and leftist guerrilla forces. The country bled for twelve years, with 75,000 civilians dead, the vast majority at the hands of government-backed forces. Amidst this carnage, a quarter of the population fled to the United States. The seeds of corruption, violence, and civil unrest were planted deeply into the fabric of Salvadoran society.
Bukele, only ten years old when the 1992 peace accords were signed, came of age in a nation still haunted by the specter of civil war. His family had its own contradictions. His father, Armando Bukele, a Palestinian immigrant, straddled religious divides—he was a Muslim convert who became an imam, while his wife, Olga Ortez, remained Catholic, and her family represented a spectrum of Christian denominations. His father, a leftist businessman, was an outsider in Salvadoran high society, which typically leaned conservative. Bukele’s father supported the guerrilla movement, the Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional (FMLN), a group that would evolve from revolutionary force to political power.
For Bukele, the contradictions of his upbringing would shape his political character. He dropped out of law school, entered his father’s advertising business, and took over as CEO. His advertising ventures were closely tied to his father’s political alliances, with the FMLN providing steady contracts. By his 30s, Bukele had managed to leverage his family’s connections into his first political role—mayor of Nuevo Cuscatlán, a sleepy town that served as his testing ground. From there, he ascended to mayor of San Salvador, where he introduced sweeping urban renewal projects. Yet, beneath the surface of his “new ideas” politics, his governance was marked by irregularities, nepotism, and an iron-fisted dismissal of critics.
As the mayor of San Salvador, Bukele distinguished himself with bold initiatives aimed at revitalizing the city, but it was his dealings with the maras that began to hint at a deeper transformation. Bukele, ever the pragmatist, recognized that the conventional tools of governance—negotiation, appeasement, social programs—were insufficient in the face of such entrenched criminal power. It was here that his shift began, as he increasingly leaned on the police and military to restore order, prioritizing security over civil liberties.
When Bukele ran for president in 2019, he did so as a man unshackled by the constraints of party politics. He positioned himself as an outsider, running on the promise of a new era for El Salvador—one that would break with the corruption and incompetence of the past. His campaign, fueled by social media and a savvy understanding of public sentiment, resonated deeply with a population that had grown weary of empty promises. The people wanted change, and Bukele promised to deliver it, by any means necessary.
His electoral victory was nothing short of a landslide, but it was what came next that truly defined Bukele’s presidency. Faced with a recalcitrant opposition in the Legislative Assembly, Bukele made a move that shocked the world: he marched into Congress flanked by armed soldiers, a display of power that left no doubt about his intentions. Bukele’s message was clear—he would not be constrained by the old rules, and he would use every tool at his disposal to bend the government to his will.
Order Through Fear: How Bukele Took on the Gangs and Won
In El Salvador, where violence ruled the streets and extortion suffocated the economy, Nayib Bukele made his most audacious and consequential move yet: a ruthless war against the Barrio 18 and MS-13, the gangs that had dominated the country’s life for decades.
The origins of MS-13 and Barrio 18 lie not in the streets of San Salvador but in the sprawling urban jungles of the western United States—similar to the origins of the -so-called- Sinaloa Cartel, which the US agencies claim to be a Made in Mexico organization, when, in fact it was founded by Antonio “Niko” Cruz Vázquez and Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada in Los Angeles, Made in the USA—, in the same vein where , where displaced Salvadoran refugees, fleeing a brutal civil war in the 1980s, found themselves on the fringes of American society. Among them were teens, uprooted and angry, who turned to crime as a way of survival in a city already grappling with a deeply entrenched gang culture. As the Clinton administration cracked down on crime in the ‘90s, thousands of these young Salvadorans were deported back to their homeland—a homeland that had no idea who these new arrivals were, or the chaos they would unleash.
By 2015, El Salvador had become a veritable battleground. Sixty thousand gang members roamed the streets, holding the country hostage with fear and violence. The Central Reserve Bank estimated that seventy percent of businesses were being extorted, leading to annual losses in the billions. The homicide rate rivaled the bloodshed of the civil war itself. Families lived in terror, crossing the street or making eye contact with the wrong person could end your life in an instant.
Successive governments tried to curb the violence with brute force—mano dura, they called it, the iron fist. But these efforts, though popular, failed to bring the gangs to heel. In 2012, the government took a different approach, striking a controversial deal with the gangs, temporarily reducing the homicide rate but inciting public outrage. Negotiators were prosecuted. The truce crumbled. The violence resumed, fiercer than before.
Enter Nayib Bukele.
Bukele, ever the outsider, seized upon the frustrations of a population weary of living in fear. His campaign promised safety and security, a clean break from the failed policies of the past. His pitch was simple: eliminate the gangs. Where previous administrations had faltered, Bukele would succeed—with an authoritarian edge that would leave no room for negotiation. And he wasted no time proving it.
In 2019, as President, Bukele unveiled his Plan Control Territorial, a blueprint for an unrelenting crackdown on the Maras. He flooded the streets with a heavily militarized police presence, brought in troops, and declared a state of emergency in the prisons. No longer would rival gang members be separated; they would be thrown together in the same overcrowded cells, a calculated move to break their internal hierarchies. These were not measures taken with a soft touch—there were no silk gloves here, only brute force.
His iron-fisted approach resonated. Crime plummeted. Salvadorans, many of whom had grown accustomed to daily violence, felt an unfamiliar sense of relief. Business owners, long strangled by extortion, could finally breathe. Bukele’s aggressive strategy had worked where diplomacy had failed. He had brought the gangs to their knees, or so it seemed.
But behind the curtain, darker dealings lurked. U.S. officials and local media accused Bukele’s government of striking covert deals with the very gangs he claimed to be eradicating. According to reports, Bukele’s administration had brokered a truce with MS-13 and Barrio 18 in exchange for reducing violence, offering financial incentives to keep the murder rate low. For Bukele, the optics were everything. The perception of order, even if built on shaky ground, solidified his image as the savior of a broken nation. He denied the allegations, but the rumors persisted.
Criticism poured in from international watchdogs and human rights groups, who decried the brutality of Bukele’s tactics. The state of emergency allowed for sweeping mass arrests, with tens of thousands thrown in jail, often without due process. Detractors warned that Bukele’s war on the Maras was nothing more than a power grab, an authoritarian mask worn under the guise of public safety. But Bukele’s supporters, undeterred, pointed to the results. Streets once ruled by fear were now safe. Murders had fallen to historic lows. The economy was rebounding.
Critics were quick to decry his actions as authoritarian, a dangerous step toward dictatorship. But for many Salvadorans, Bukele’s show of force was not a cause for alarm; it was a sign that, at last, they had a leader who was willing to do what it took to reclaim their country from the grip of chaos. The maras had terrorized El Salvador for too long, and Bukele’s iron fist—however unsettling—promised something that had eluded the nation for years: security.
Bukele’s crackdown on the maras was swift and brutal. Under his presidency, the police and military were granted unprecedented powers, leading to mass arrests and a dramatic reduction in crime. The streets of San Salvador, once synonymous with danger, began to feel safe again. The numbers spoke for themselves—homicides plummeted, extortion rackets were dismantled, and for the first time in years, ordinary Salvadorans could walk their neighborhoods without fear.
On February 9, 2020, eight months into Bukele’s presidency, a crowd of demonstrators, transported in government vehicles and buses driven by soldiers, gathered outside the National Assembly. Their protest was staged against the Assembly’s refusal to approve funding for a key aspect of Bukele’s security budget. Shortly after 4 p.m., a caravan of black S.U.V.s rolled in, and Bukele emerged, cutting a dramatic figure as he strode to a stage set up at the edge of an alley leading to the Assembly chamber. The crowd roared, a carefully choreographed display of allegiance. “Wait here,” he told them, before walking inside, flanked by armed soldiers in combat fatigues.
Inside, Bukele called a symbolic session to order, with soldiers fanning out across the gallery in a display of military might. “I think it’s clear who’s in control of the situation,” he declared into a microphone before pausing to bow his head in prayer, a gesture that added a theatrical air to the already tense moment. When he returned to the stage, soldiers with rifles drawn stood by his side. In Central America, the image of a head of state breaching the legislative branch with the military at his back was unmistakable in its message: Bukele was consolidating power in a move that harkened back to the region’s darker chapters of military rule.
Just weeks later, El Salvador’s first Covid-19 case was detected. On March 21st, Bukele declared a state of exception, imposing stringent national quarantine measures. Violators were detained and sent to “containment centers,” ostensibly for testing but, in practice, these facilities became de-facto jails. By the early months of the pandemic, ten thousand people had been detained, many held for longer than a month. The Supreme Court declared Bukele’s measures unconstitutional twice, but the President shrugged off these rulings, publicly accusing the judges of endangering public health. “If I really were a dictator, I would shoot all of them,” he quipped, in a remark that revealed both his authoritarian bent and his flair for the dramatic.
Bukele then issued direct commands to the military and police to make more arrests, flouting the Supreme Court’s authority. “The inflection point was the pandemic,” a former government official said, pointing to the moment when Bukele seized upon the public’s focus on survival to quietly tighten his grip on power. As the infection rate in El Salvador remained relatively low compared to neighboring countries, Bukele capitalized on his success, building a gleaming new Covid hospital in June, touted as the largest in Latin America. His handling of the pandemic, framed as decisive and effective, only bolstered his popularity.
The following February, legislative elections solidified Bukele’s dominance. His Nuevas Ideas party won a supermajority, claiming fifty-six of the eighty-four seats in the National Assembly. The new legislators—a mix of true believers and opportunists—were united in their loyalty to Bukele. Their first order of business was a swift, decisive purge. The Supreme Court magistrates who had opposed Bukele’s pandemic measures were summarily dismissed, along with the Attorney General. It was a midnight session that left little room for doubt: any checks on Bukele’s power were being systematically dismantled.
In a characteristic move, Bukele turned this controversy to his advantage. He shifted his communications strategy, tweeting increasingly in English to reach an international audience. “We found that my social media presence served as a window for investors, investment funds, banks, important figures, and politicians,” he said, framing himself as a modern leader, fluent in the language of the digital age. His online engagement with the global elite contrasted sharply with the sanctions being drawn up by the Biden Administration, aimed at members of his government for corruption and gang conspiracy. Yet, Bukele continued his parallel track of influence-building abroad. When he decided to give a high-profile interview in 2021, it wasn’t to Salvadoran media or even CNN—it was to Tucker Carlson. Bukele’s sights were set beyond El Salvador’s borders, and his cultivation of a global, right-leaning audience reflected his ambition to redefine his country’s image and his own place in the world.
Bukelenomics: Crypto-fueled
But Bukele’s vision extended beyond mere security. He saw in El Salvador the potential for something greater—a nation that could rise from the ashes of its troubled past and claim a place on the global stage. His decision to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender was as audacious as it was controversial, a move that attracted both international praise and skepticism. To Bukele, Bitcoin represented a break from the traditional financial systems that had long kept countries like El Salvador in a state of dependency. It was a bold gamble, but one that aligned perfectly with his ethos of disruption and innovation.
The global right took notice. Here was a leader who, unlike so many others, was unafraid to wield power unapologetically. Bukele’s rejection of the soft-handed liberalism that had failed to solve El Salvador’s problems resonated with those who believed in the virtues of strong, decisive leadership. His willingness to use the tools of the state—police, military, and even cryptocurrency—to achieve tangible results was seen as a model for a new kind of governance, one that prioritized outcomes over process.
Of course, Bukele’s methods have not been without controversy. His approach has drawn fierce criticism from human rights organizations and international observers who warn of the dangers of unchecked power. Yet, for many Salvadorans, these concerns are secondary to the reality that their lives have improved. Crime is down, the economy shows signs of recovery, and the country, long a byword for instability, is experiencing something akin to hope.
The President of El Salvador goes at great lengths to brand himself as edgy, he put the thugs and criminals in jail, bawled at reporters, and human rights advocates without hesitating. His strong iron fist made El Salvador safer than Canada, according to Time magazine, his political opponents, immobilized, intimidated and reduced to near zero, and his co-opting of the press and institutions could care less to the average Salvadorian who can now enjoy a night stroll without the fear of being stabbed for a pair of Nikes.
In the final analysis, Bukele’s populism is revolutionary not because it breaks with the past, but because it redefines what leadership can look like in a country that has known only hardship. It is a populism that is not afraid to be authoritarian when necessary, that sees strength not as a vice, but as a virtue. In Bukele, El Salvador has found a leader who understands that the path to progress is not always paved with good intentions, but with the hard, unyielding will to do what must be done.
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