Nayib Bukele Stuns the World in El Salvador’s Historic Presidential Re-Election Bid

In his four years in office, President Nayib Bukele has turned El Salvador from a dangerous place filled with corruption, crime, and MS-13 gang members to a tropical paradise. Now, with his signing up for a historic re-election bid, he’s transforming El Salvador’s election system so he can do more. 

This last week, Bukele officially registered to run for a second term, which hasn’t happened in El Salvador’s history due to a law that prevented any president who served from applying for office again. El Salvador’s Supreme Court changed the law in 2021, ruling that Bukele would be eligible to run for re-election. With almost every other democratic nation allowing for a president to serve a second term, the law seemed absurd, and with Bukele posting a 90% approval rating among Salvadorans, he faced little opposition to the constitutional change. However, it hasn’t stopped the foreign media, particularly in the United States, from criticizing Bukele and comparing him to authoritarian dictators in Central America’s past.

Before Bukele took office, El Salvador had one of the highest murder rates in the world, posting 103 murders per 100,000 people in 2015, according to government statistics. This was mainly due to the rampant MS-13 gang problems in the countryside, where corrupt officials allowed these gangs to take root and harass local citizens and tourists. Those numbers have fallen drastically during Bukele’s tenure, as the president built a mega-prison to hold criminals and deployed the nation’s military to crack down on gang activity. 

In 2022, El Salvador’s murder rate dropped to 8 per 100,000, which is less than a third of what Mexico posted in the same period and down 92% from when Bukele took office, making it one of the safest countries in Latin America. With this shocking data, it appears safer to travel to San Salvador than Los Angeles, California. Traveling to El Salvador’s capital, a tourist will likely see families gathered for wholesome fun around the El Salvador Del Mundo monument downtown, even after dark, an activity you wouldn’t see in many U.S. cities. 

Bukele’s popularity goes beyond the safety, however, as he’s built highways and hydroelectric dams, cleaned up litter and trash around the famous beach tourist attraction, Surf City, and changed the country’s official currency to the U.S. Dollar, also adopting Bitcoin as a second currency to make tech-friendly commerce easier. He’s also put forth initiatives where technology companies pay zero taxes to incentivize businesses to come to El Salvador.  

With so much opportunity created, crowds gathered in support over the weekend, cheering for Bukele’s re-election. However, the liberal American media has tried to diminish Bukele’s accomplishments, calling him “authoritarian” and saying his re-election campaign is “raising concern.” The same mainstream media outlets have called his efforts to clean up El Salvador “human rights violations” as he has had publicly harsh displays of what happens to criminals, including posting a video of the Salvadoran National Guard dragging a convicted pedophile into his prison cell, where soldiers forced the criminal to cower on the concrete floor. 

Despite the cries of American media, the local population is enthusiastic about Bukele’s re-election. Shops and street vendors carry merchandise with his picture, and people regularly gather in large crowds to voice support for their president. With his polling showing him more popular than any other Latin American leader, he’s all but assured re-election when Salvadorans go to vote on February 4, 2024. It is only sensible that the rules change for the elections take place to allow Salvadorans their rights to self-determination and safety in their country.