The Bukele Model Means Security Without Liberty

"They were delicious," said a woman about the pupusas she received after casting her vote in El Salvador's recent presidential election. The stuffed corn tortillas, the country's best-known dish, were handed out courtesy of the federal government and its incumbent President Nayib Bukele, who was running for reelection despite a constitutional ban on serving consecutive terms. Giving out food at polling stations might qualify as illegal voter interference. Bukele was undeterred.

Bukele ended up winning 85 percent of the popular vote, and his New Ideas party held on to its majority control in Congress. The 42-year-old president called the landslide victory "a record in the entire democratic history of the world."

"This will be the first time where one party rules a country in a completely democratic system," he told a crowd of thousands who had gathered in San Salvador's central square on election day. "The entire opposition has been pulverized." 

El Salvador is the smallest country in Central America with a population of about 6.3 million, but Bukele has made himself one of the best-known political leaders in the world. His outsized public profile stems from his public embrace of bitcoin and the staggering decline in crime and violence in El Salvador since he took office. 

But Bukele has also taken control of the federal judiciary and has clamped down on press freedoms. He overrode a constitutional rule against running for a second term so that he could remain in office. His defenders point to his broad popular support as evidence that he has a mandate to do what's necessary to fix the impoverished and crime-ridden country he presides over. But this view is shortsighted: Latin America's slide toward authoritarianism points to the long-term cost of allowing political majorities to undermine the rule of law.  

The former mayor of the capital of San Salvador, Bukele was elected president in 2019, becoming Latin America's youngest leader at 37. The self-described "world's coolest dictator" (he trolls his critics by owning their epithets) entered the political arena amid widespread disillusionment with traditional parties and rampant corruption. His anti-corruption pledges and his unconventional policies made him immensely popular. So did his social media savviness: A fluent English speaker, he often bashes his critics on X, formerly Twitter, where he's garnered 5.9 million followers. 

The backward-hat-wearing president first caught the world's attention in September 2021, when he announced to an adoring crowd of bitcoin devotees at a conference in Miami that El Salvador would become the first country in the world to adopt the cryptocurrency as legal tender. The move alarmed international financial institutions like Moody's and the International Monetary Fund, but it turned him into a celebrated figure who sought to end the U.S. dollar's global dominance. He installed bitcoin ATMs around the country and launched a government-sponsored crypto wallet, where citizens could access the $30 in bitcoin that El Salvador gifted to all of its citizens. 

His reputation as a visionary leader was further cemented when he announced Bitcoin City, a new urban center that he claimed was inspired by Alexander the Great, where the government will use geothermal energy from nearby volcanoes to mine the cryptocurrency. 

But bitcoin use hasn't taken off in El Salvador, which has been on a dollar standard since 2001. What has won the support of voters is Bukele's broad attack on the country's violent criminal gangs, which transformed the murder capital of the world into a nation with the lowest homicide rates in the region. And it happened over the course of just two years. 

By imposing a state of emergency in the spring of 2022, Bukele was able to detain around 75,000 alleged gang members, or about 1.7 percent of the population. He built a "mega-prison" with capacity for up to 40,000 inmates dubbed the "Terrorism Confinement Center." 

No longer the murder capital, El Salvador now has the world's highest incarceration rate.

Bukele's gang crackdown suspended constitutional protections and drew allegations of human rights abuses. People were arrested without a judicial order or access to a lawyer. Arrest quotas were handed out and thousands were wrongfully detained. Mass hearings are being held for as many as 300 defendants at a time. There are reports of over 250 people being placed in a single prison cell, and inmates are often denied food for extended periods. There are allegations of torture. And Bukele's government is accused of secretly negotiating a truce with gang leaders, buying their support with financial benefits and special privileges. 

But Bukele remains incredibly popular thanks to the dramatic improvement in public safety. According to a recent poll, he has the support of 70 percent to 90 percent of the country. 

He launched his reelection campaign with a promise to continue the crackdown and the state of emergency. If his party, New Ideas, didn't win the election, he said that it would reverse his accomplishments.  

In the short term, Bukele has dramatically improved daily life in El Salvador. But when popular leaders subvert constitutional constraints to achieve even worthy goals, it can have catastrophic effects in the long term. 

In 2020, Bukele stormed the Legislative Assembly with heavily armed troops after lawmakers didn't approve his security loan proposal. A year later, he replaced the Supreme Court's judges with loyalists, who then paved the way for his reelection. He made electoral reforms, reducing the number of deputies in the Legislative Assembly. Bukele and his party control every branch of power.

Bukele has also targeted critics and journalists with harassment and intimidation techniques, facilitated by a government-run propaganda apparatus that disseminates official narratives. Activists, union leaders, and opposition politicians who speak out against his regime have faced retaliation and censorship. For instance, the editors of El Faro, a prominent critical news outlet, were forced to flee the country after enduring state-sponsored harassment and surveillance of their journalists.

One of Bukele's boldest legislative maneuvers led to his reelection. In El Salvador, at least six articles of the Constitution prohibit presidential reelection, clearly stipulating that candidates can only serve one five-year term. So Bukele changed the makeup of the court, which then reinterpreted the Constitution to allow his reelection by a 4-0 vote (with one judge abstaining). 

Bukele has indicated that he won't remain in office for a third term and has said that "the current norms don't permit" indefinite reelection. But he has a record of breaking norms. 

Bukele's vice president, Felix Ulloa, told The New York Times, "To these people who say democracy is being dismantled, my answer is yes — we are not dismantling it, we are eliminating it, we are replacing it with something new." When asked about Ulloa's comments by the Spanish newspaper El País, Buekele said, "I don't trust anything the New York Times says….El Salvador has never had democracy….We are bringing democracy to this country."

Latin America's recent history is rife with cautionary tales of imperial presidencies. Hugo Chávez seized direct control over every component of Venezuela's state apparatus after he was elected president in 1998, including the judicial system and military. He, too, enjoyed broad popular support. In 2009, he amended the Constitution, allowing him to remain in office indefinitely. 

Chávez died in 2013, but his decision to end term limits has been a factor in the return of authoritarian rule. There's little hope of dislodging Chávez's successor, Nicólas Maduro, who is currently under investigation by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity. Maduro recently barred opposition member María Corina Machado from participating in the upcoming election. In a free election, she'd likely defeat him.

In 2014, Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega pushed through a constitutional reform allowing his indefinite reelection. As with Chávez, Ortega enjoyed broad popular support at the time of the change. Today, both Venezuela and Nicaragua are effectively dictatorships.  

Bukele brushes aside claims that he is forming a single-party state, pointing to his landslide victory and broad support. There's an understandable tendency to overlook rule-bending for expedience in deeply troubled nations, but if robust institutions don't constrain El Salvador's political majority, it could become yet another Latin American dictatorship. 

Beware the short-term allure of pupusas at the polling booth.

Music Credits: "Eyes on the Ball" by Sémø via Artlist; "Yelema" by Captain Joz via Artlist; "Piki Piki" by Captain Joz via Artlist; "CloudCity" by Out of Flux via Artlist.

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• Video Editor: Regan Taylor
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• Audio Production: Ian Keyser