‘Dictator’ enjoys sky-high popularity as his ‘war’ on gangs curbs murder rate

In his four years as president, Nayib Bukele has shaken up El Salvador: consolidating power, making bitcoin legal tender and waging a “war” on gangs that’s earned him opprobrium from rights groups but adoration from a crime-fatigued nation.

As he gears up to contest a second term in February 2024, the 41-year-old president, who adopted the label “Dictator of El Salvador” in an ironic nod to critics, is basking in sky-high approval ratings.

Brushing aside two establishment parties to sweep to victory in 2019 elections, Bukele, who assumed office on June 1 of that year, stuck to his promise to tackle one of the world’s highest murder rates, jailing tens of thousands of suspected gang members along the way. To house them, he had the largest prison in the Americas built in a matter of months, a 40,000-person complex.

In Bukele’s first year in office, the poverty-stricken Central American country had 38 murders per 100,000 inhabitants.

In 2020, that number was less than eight. Bukele’s main achievement had been “security, the dismantling of gangs”, economist Carlos Acevedo, a former central bank president, said. This, in turn, “has really generated a new climate where we begin to see a revitalisation of the productive fabric of microenterprises”.

Small business owners, street vendors and residents alike celebrate their new-found freedom from drug-dealing gangs that demanded protection money and fought bloody turf battles.

Among them is Cristina Arevalo, 71, who was forced to close her small shop on the outskirts of the capital San Salvador several years ago due to nonstop gang activity in her neighbourhood. “With the security we are experiencing, I will soon reopen, because I will no longer be extorted,” she said.

Polls indicate that nine out of 10 Salvadorans support Bukele’s assault on gangs, which formerly controlled 80 per cent of the country, according to the government.

On the other hand, rights groups, the United States and the United Nations have all expressed alarm about arbitrary arrests, inhumane prison conditions and growing authoritarianism in the country.

The mission of curtailing the gangs “has been achieved,” said Carlos Carcach, a researcher at the El Salvador’s Higher School of Economics and Business.

Another bold Bukele move was to make bitcoin legal tender – the first country in the world to do so. He insisted it would help revitalise a struggling economy despite warnings from experts and regulators.

The adoption of bitcoin “has been the most unpopular measure” of the Bukele government, said Serrano.