El Salvador goes to polls with strongman Bukele way ahead

President Nayib Bukele is the favorite to win the elections in El Salvador after clamping down on gang violence. But critics accuse the self-described “world’s coolest dictator” of creeping authoritarianism.

Of Palestinian heritage, Bukele was born in the capital San Salvador where he served as mayor

Salvadorans are headed to the polls on Sunday in a presidential election expected to deliver an overwhelming victory for the incumbent Nayib Bukele.

Recent polling shows that about eight out of 10 voters support Bukele, who has led a crackdown on gang violence that once plagued the country.

Why is Bukele so popular?

The 42-year-old is credited with slashing the murder rate in a country that was once among the most dangerous in the world to its lowest level in three decades. Currently, the murder rate is well below the world average.

Since a state of emergency was introduced in March 2022, the government has rounded up more than 75,000 real and suspected gangsters.

The purge has seen more than 1% of the country’s population arrested and restored peace in the violence-weary Central American country. Thousands of them are held in a prison that was built in a matter of months and which is touted as the largest in the Americas.

Since the end of El Salvador’s civil war in 1992, some 120,000 deaths have been attributed to the gangs.

Bukele, of Palestinian heritage, was born in the capital San Salvador where he served as mayor.

With legislative elections also taking place on Sunday, the president aims to boost the parliamentary majority of his party, Nuevas Ideas (New Ideas). It currently holds 56 out of 84 seats in the legislature.

What are the criticisms of the president?

The high level of support comes despite allegations about increasing authoritarianism and human rights violations in the country. Critics of his administration accuse the authorities of arbitrary arrests, torture, and housing prisoners under inhumane conditions.

Bukele has embraced the totalitarian image, once describing himself as “the world’s coolest dictator.”

Soon after taking office, he ordered security forces to storm the parliament, then led by the opposition, to intimidate lawmakers into approving borrowing for his anti-crime plan.

A reform led by Bukele has seen the overall number of seats reduced, a development that critics say will squeeze out smaller parties that fail to garner enough votes.

Also, Salvadorans voting abroad tend to favor Bukele and a new is focusing their votes to the capital San Salvador, which has the most undecided seats.

A controversial ruling in 2021 by El Salvador’s Supreme Court established a new procedure that allowed Bukele to run in the February 2024 elections.

Before this ruling, a president had to wait 10 years after the end of his term to run again for the presidency.

There are also economic concerns about high public debt, and the president’s investment of public money in Bitcoin has widely been seen as a failure.

Who is the opposition?

The conservative Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA) and leftist Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) have alternated in power for decades.

They are considered to have largely discredited themselves through corruption and inefficacy, with their current presidential candidates polling in the low single digits.

Bukele has sought to galvanize support by claiming that it is the opposition’s “true and only plan to free the gang members and use them to return to power.”

rc/dj (AFP, AP)