El Salvador votes in presidential election that the 'world's coolest dictator' has clear path to win

On Sunday, Salvadorans will cast ballots in presidential and parliamentary elections that will primarily centre on the balance between democracy and security.

Given his high approval ratings and the lack of opposition, Nayib Bukele is most likely going to seek reelection to a second term as president.

The constitution of El Salvador forbids reelection. However, according to a January University of Central America study, around eight out of ten voters’ favour Bukele. This is true even though Bukele has taken actions during his first term that opponents and attorneys claim weaken the nation’s system of checks and balances.

But El Salvador’s traditional parties from the left and right that created the vacuum that Bukele first filled in 2019 remain a shambles. Alternating in power for some three decades, the conservative Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA) and leftist Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) were thoroughly discredited by their own corruption and inefficacy. Their presidential candidates this year are polling in the low single digits.

Known as the “world’s coolest dictator,” Bukele has become well-known for his harsh anti-gang policies, which have resulted in the detention of almost 1% of the nation’s population.

In a nation that was regarded as one of the most dangerous in the world only a few years ago, violence has also drastically decreased although his administration is accused of perpetrating extensive violations of human rights.

Voters are therefore ready to overlook worries that Bukele has employed undemocratic measures to consolidate power, such as the 55-year-old entrepreneur Marleny Mena.

Mena, a former street seller in the once-gang-controlled centre of San Salvador, claimed she used to be afraid to go about the city for fear that she might unintentionally enter another gang’s domain and face dire repercussions. Since Bukele began his crackdown, that fear has dissipated.

“He just needs a little bit more time, the time he needs to keep improving the country,” Mena said.

In the lead-up to Sunday’s vote, Bukele made no public campaign appearances. Instead, the populist plastered his social media and television screens across the country with a simple message recorded from his couch: If he and his New Ideas party didn’t win elections this year, the “war with the gangs would be put at risk.”

“The opposition will be able to achieve its true and only plan, to free the gang members and use them to return to power,” he said.

Still, the 42-year-old Bukele and his party are increasingly looked to as a case study for a wider global rise in authoritarianism.

“There’s this growing rejection of the basic principles of democracy and human rights, and support for authoritarian populism among people who feel that, concepts like democracy and human rights and due process have failed them,” said Tyler Mattiace, Americas researcher for Human Rights Watch.