By: Staff Writer
February 13, 2024
Nayib Bukele has officially been confirmed as President of El Salvador for his second consecutive term riding off of his popular gang crackdown.
Some have called El Salvador’s gang crack down rife with human rights violation with the Bukele administration suspending habeas corpus for hundreds of suspected gang members who have been filling up El Salvador’s jails since early 2022.
42-year-old Bukele is both a millennial social media superstar and a self-described strongman. A Trump-like leader who represents a new, distinct kind of figure in Latin American politics — Both super cool and authoritarian.
His iron fist policies have won him tremendous popularity. Two years ago, he instituted a state of exception, which suspended habeas corpus and enabled him to lock up more than 70,000 alleged gang members indefinitely.
El Salvador has gone from one of the most dangerous countries in the region to one of the safest. The number of murders dropped 70% over the last year. The country’s homicide rate today is second to only Canada in the Western Hemisphere, and less than half that of the United States. Salvadorans say it has transformed their lives, and it earned Bukele widespread support at the ballot box.
The February 4 election had some minor controversy too as the Supreme Electoral Tribunal had demanded a recount due to technical issues during last Sunday’s vote.
On Saturday, the Tribunal announced that Bukele had won 82.66% of support — receiving some 2.7m votes out of the 3.2m cast.
His support rose by more than a million votes compared to the last election in 2019.
Manuel Flores of the far-left Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) came a distant second with 6.25 percent, while Joel Sanchez, of the right-wing Arena party, obtained 5.44 percent.
Following the announcement, the self-billed “coolest dictator in the world,” thanked “the Salvadoran people” for their support in a post on social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter.
Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken also spoke with El Salvador’s President-elect Nayib Bukele on his victory. Blinken congratulated then President-elect Bukele on his February 4 electoral victory. Blinken also reiterated his commitment to prioritizing good governance, inclusive economic prosperity, fair trial guarantees, and human rights under the United States’ Root Causes Strategy.