President of El Salvador, first elected in 2019 at the age of 37. His political party is called New Ideas. He styles himself "the world's coolest dictator".
Mr Bukele ran for mayor of San Salvador in 2014. Investigative outlet El Faro published videos in May 2025 in which gang leaders allege his party paid them $250,000 to drum up votes in that race. After becoming president, he allegedly struck further deals with gangs to suppress murder rates and enforce curfews during the covid-19 pandemic.
After 87 people were murdered in a single weekend in 2022, Mr Bukele declared a "state of exception" allowing police to hold suspects without trial. The state of exception, which suspends all due process, was still in force in its fourth year as of mid-2025. Some 85,000 suspected gang members have been locked up without trial—more than 1.5% of the population; an astonishing 8% of all young men have been arrested—dismantling the two main gangs, Barrio 18 and Mara Salvatrucha 13.
In 2023 he opened the Terrorism Confinement Centre (CECOT), a prison with a capacity of 40,000. Inmates are stripped, shaved and held in huge windowless cells. Human-rights groups say many innocent people have been arrested for no more than a tattoo. No prisoner has been tried.
The prison is run by Osiris Luna, who was sanctioned by the US Treasury in 2021 for links to gangs and for embezzling millions of dollars in government funds. Mr Luna is also alleged to have given imprisoned gang leaders time with sex workers and mobile phones in exchange for political co-operation.
By the time he declared the state of exception, Mr Bukele had already won over the army and police with lavish benefits, secured a super-majority in the 60-seat Legislative Assembly and slashed the number of lawmakers and municipalities to the benefit of his party. He used his legislative power to stack the courts. In 2024 the domesticated courts found a way round the constitutional ban on a second consecutive term, paving the way for his re-election. He won re-election in a landslide with 85% of the vote. He will remain in office until 2029.
The Legislative Assembly changed the amendment process: constitutional changes that previously required approval by two consecutive sessions with an election in between can now be made in a single sitting.
On July 31st 2025 the Legislative Assembly voted to remove presidential term limits from the constitution, allowing Mr Bukele to seek re-election indefinitely. The next presidential election was also brought forward from 2029 to 2027, to coincide with legislative polls. Presidential elections can now be won with a plurality in the first round, without a run-off. Xavier Zablah, Mr Bukele's cousin and president of New Ideas, wrote on X: "President Nayib Bukele is the only one who can take El Salvador to where our people want to go."
A law Mr Bukele pushed through in 2022 allows jail terms of 10-15 years for those who transmit or reproduce messages "created or allegedly created" by gangs that could foster "anxiety and panic". After El Faro published its exposé, the government issued arrest warrants for three of its journalists, who fled the country.
In May 2025 Ruth López, an anti-corruption investigator at Cristosal, an NGO, became his first high-profile political prisoner. Days later the Legislative Assembly rushed through a "foreign-agents law" requiring those receiving money from abroad to apply for permission and pay a 30% tax. The law, resembling measures in Nicaragua and Russia, also prohibits "foreign agents" from pursuing activities with "political ends".
Cristosal documented 538 assaults on activists and journalists in 2024, up 136% from 2023. On July 17th 2025 Cristosal shut its offices in El Salvador, citing threats to the safety of its staff.
Donald Trump welcomed Mr Bukele to the White House in April 2025, calling him "one hell of a president". Mr Bukele agreed to jail prisoners deported from the United States at CECOT, for which the Trump administration pays $6m. Marco Rubio and Kristi Noem have visited El Salvador to lionise him.
Mr Bukele's family has reportedly acquired 34 properties in El Salvador worth around $9m since he became president. In 2024 the government spent $1.4m to buy land for a new presidential residence next to Mr Bukele's private home in a gated community called Los Sueños.
Mr Bukele has consistently enjoyed approval ratings above 80%, though the majority of the population also tell pollsters they are afraid to express their opinion. His support appeared to be sliding somewhat by mid-2025. Corruption allegations concerning the Bukele family circulate online, and the El Faro exposé of secret gang pacts took some gloss from the crime-fighting narrative. Some bitcoiners who had flocked to the country have left, venting their disillusion on X.
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