El Salvador's president, Nayib Bukele, has been re-elected for another term following Sunday's (Feb. 4) election despite concerns about the erosion of democracy to reward him for a comprehensive and harsh gang crackdown transforming the Central American country for better security-wise.
Reuters reported that the 42-year-old's supporters gathered at San Salvador's main square to celebrate his re-election, which Bukele termed as a "referendum" on his government.
Earlier, Bukele declared himself the winner of the race, claiming to have attained over 85% of the vote. This is in slight contrast to provisional results showing 83% supporting Bukele with 31% of the ballots counted.
Meanwhile, his New Ideas Party was also expected to win almost all of the 60 seats in its legislative body, which would solidify Bukele's grip on the country and bestow even more sway on him as the most powerful leader in modern Salvadoran history. This would also mean the strongman could also propose a constitutional amendment or overhaul to parliament, a prospect opponents feared would result in the scrapping of term limits.
"All together the opposition was pulverized," Bukele proclaimed to the crowd while standing beside his wife on the balcony of the National Palace. "El Salvador went from being the most unsafe (country) to the safest. Now in these next five years, wait to see what we are going to do."
Pros, Cons of Bukele's Gang Crackdown
During his political career, Bukele became wildly popular for his security strategy of authorities suspending civil liberties to arrest more than 75,000 Salvadorans without charges. The detentions also led to a sharp decline in nationwide murder rates and fundamentally altered the country's 6.3 million population that was once among the world's laughing-stock in terms of crime rates.
However, some analysts have said that the mass incarceration of the 1% of the population was not sustainable in the long term.
Meanwhile, some rights groups claimed that El Salvador's democracy was under attack, but instead of responding to such concerns, Bukele took advantage of them on his own terms, even calling himself the "world's coolest dictator" on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.
With El Salvador's security situation stabilized, Bukele is expected to focus on his country's economy and poverty rate.
Unlike his projections that a tax-free crypto haven called Bitcoin City would jumpstart the Salvadoran economy, it has not been gaining much momentum.
The IMF, which has been negotiating a $1.3 billion bailout with El Salvador, described in late 2023 that the country's fiscal situation as "fragile."
