It has been one year since Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele began his second term , which has been widely regarded as unconstitutional by legal experts, human rights organizations, and grassroots leaders. A cornerstone of the country’s constitutional framework since 1841 explicitly prohibits consecutive re-election. However, in 2021, Bukele replaced the Constitutional Court with loyalists, who later issued a ruling allowing presidential re-election – despite widespread condemnation.
Yet, in an effort to fight off critics, Bukele’s administration, which has been run under an almost perpetual state of emergency, has continually highlighted the decrease in homicides in the Central American country.
The figure has become his letter of introduction: In 2019, the year he assumed the presidency, 2,390 murders were reported, while by 2024, 114 were registered. An astronomical reduction of more than 95%. A figure that, notably, has been the main driver of support for Bukele both inside and outside El Salvador.
From security to scarcity
However, Bukele’s government has failed to diminish other serious problems, such as poverty. According to World Bank figures, poverty in El Salvador increased from 26.8% in 2019 to 30.3% in 2023. As such, Bukele’s economic program in 2025 is projected to be one aligned with the interests of international financial agencies like the International Monetary Fund, with which the government of San Salvador signed an Extended Fund Facility agreement to support Bukele’s tax and fiscal adjustment.
Based on these developments, several analysts warn that poverty figures may continue to rise over the next few years.
According to another World Bank report, the incomes of the most impoverished social classes fell by 10% in the 2019-2024 period, especially in rural areas of the country. Likewise, remittances sent by migrants decreased. It is estimated that one in four Salvadorans is poor, which leads to the conclusion that, although the reduction of insecurity and violence ostensibly opens economic opportunities, vast segments of Salvadoran society has not benefited from them.
All in all, the Salvadoran economy does not seem to be progressing as well as its security indices. While in 2023 the economy grew by 3.5%, in 2024 growth slowed to 2.6%, implying a deceleration, mainly caused by the reduction of public investment after the fiscal adjustment, as well as significant natural disasters.
The announcement of the decrease in spending and public investment could further complicate this situation towards 2026 – not to mention the country’s large public debt, which reached 88.9% of GDP.
Human rights violations and US ties
Meanwhile, several international human rights organizations have spoken out against actions that, according to them, violate human rights. El Salvador has been at the center of international controversy after the Trump administration – an important ally of the Central American government – deported more than 200 Venezuelans to El Salvador, reportedly paying the Bukele regime to detain “illegal migrants”.
These people were held in the notorious prisons built by the Bukele, without a trial or a final sentence. To this day these Venezuelans remain incarcerated, in violation of several international treaties on migration and deportation, and in spite petitions lodged by the Venezuelan government for their release and return to Venezuela. Thus, Bukele has proven to be a close ally of the United States, even risking prosecution in international courts to satisfy Trump’s anti-immigration project.
Read more: CECOT: Bukele’s mega prison where “the only way out is in a coffin”
Severe criticism from the opposition
The Salvadoran’s head of state’s way of exercising power has provoked sharp criticism from human rights organizations, opposition leaders, presidents of other countries, and more. Critics see in Bukele’s iron-fist approach a sort of absolute justification to, on the one hand, carry out his will regardless of the consequences, and, on the other hand, persecute any opponent who disagrees with his project – particularly those on the left.
95% of the 115 people detained for political reasons are associated with the left and critical of the government, according to Lourdes Palacios, former congresswoman and current member of the Committee of Relatives of Political Prisoners of El Salvador (COFAPPES).
Salomón Alfaro, spokesperson for the Popular Resistance and Rebellion Bloc said: “These six years of President Bukele’s government have been characterized by intolerance, egocentrism, lust for power, corruption, reduction and dismantling of the rule of law, pacts with gangs, unfulfilled promises, increased poverty, criminalization and persecution of human rights defenders, trade unionists and community leaders.”
Regarding the recent imprisonment of human rights defender Ruth López and Bukele’s plan to tax NGOs, Amnesty International issued a statement: “The authorities must back down in their effort to silence and stigmatize human rights organizations and desist from limiting the space in which all people can freely express their opinions, using all legal mechanisms at their disposal to prevent the approval and implementation of any law that would be a tool to dismantle, silence and punish civil society organizations.”
Bukele’s disregard for human rights and international treaties has earned him numerous opponents, alongside several powerful sympathizers. His support from the US and other far-right leaders may explain why he seems to care little about the criticism he receives from international human rights organizations. “I don’t care if they call me a dictator,” said the Salvadoran President.
He added that terms such as human rights, democracy, transparency, etc., are used to keep people in submission and to keep people subdued: “Sadly we are witnesses of how our brother countries still believe in these international organizations, still believe in these treaties that are supposed to help our human rights and some politicians in the region (Latin America) unfortunately lend themselves to this game.”
Bukele also stated: “What they, the defenders of democracy and the rule of law, really want is for us to be incapable of punishing murderers in the name of a supposed ideal of human rights that is nothing more than the rights of criminals.”
Between political cynicism and collective popularity
Nayib Bukele has come to embody a historical paradigm in Latin America. He has presented himself as a messianic figure capable of single-handedly saving the nation from the crime and insecurity that have long destabilized the region.
The entry of national gangs into the powerful international drug trafficking business has not only boosted the actions of these groups, but drug trafficking has become one of the economic pillars of the world. It is estimated that drug trafficking is a business worth some 320 billion dollars a year (tax-free), equivalent to the GDP of a South American country like Ecuador multiplied by ten.
The countries in the region, then, are in a serious predicament, because drug trafficking has not only become a regulating agent of national economies but has also managed to take root in society through the recruitment of hundreds of thousands of people from different social classes, especially young people from popular sectors. As such, trying to dismantle the drug trafficking business implies an international, multidimensional, and titanic undertaking.
Despite its centrality, Bukele is widely seen as a president who appears indifferent to the role drug trafficking plays in fueling the national economy, and this attitude has helped build his image of courage and determination.
The recent revelation from a Salvadoran gang leader named Carlos Cartagena, who claims that in 2014 the then-candidate for mayor of the capital, Nayib Bukele, made a pact with his organization, has had little impact. Bukele is a politician who fully embodies the Machiavellian slogan: “the end justifies the means”. And people seem to be living in times of political Machiavellianism.
It is unlikely that Bukele will face significant political challenges in the coming months. The combination of political cynicism and the tough-on-crime approach seems to weigh more heavily on the population’s perception than the increase in poverty or the economic slowdown. Today, it would seem that many people draw the connection between government and security, but not between government and poverty alleviation, which leads us to think that politics is once again crawling into the deep hole of neoliberal conservatism and away from any vision of economic development and social uplift.
