Nayib Bukele won the war. The Salvadoran president says it and repeats it on Twitter: “We are no longer the same. » Four years of “bukelism” have changed the face of El Salvador, and the 6.6 million inhabitants adore it, even idolize it. Because he succeeded where all the others had failed: overcoming the pandillas, gangs that have bloodied the country – and the Central American region – for more than two decades. Almost every day, Nayib Bukele tweets for his 5.2 million subscribers: “Another day with zero homicides. » A finding that has an undeniable impact, whereas, seven years earlier, we could deplore almost twenty murders a day.
It is enough to walk in the streets of San Salvador, the capital, to measure the evolution. Children play soccer in a square. A couple is about to have a drink on the terrace. A woman visits a friend. Scenes of everyday life unthinkable just two years ago, as the gangs sowed terror, extorted businesses, controlled the entrances and exits to neighborhoods, threatened their inhabitants, even banned the brands of sneakers worn by the rival gang.
The changeover dates from March 27, 2022. That day, after a particularly deadly weekend (87 assassinations) which undermined his stated crime reduction policy, the president declared war on gangs, to the applause of an overwhelmed population. He decreed a state of emergency – still in force today –, deployed the army in the streets, surrounded entire towns to root out gang members (the pandilleros) and throw 70,000 people in prison (1.6% of the population is now locked up, the highest incarceration rate in the world). A year and three months later, the finding is clear. The online investigative media El Faro verified this by traveling through fourteen cities that were previously under the control of criminal groups: “Gangs no longer exist in the form that El Salvador suffered. »
Nayib Bukele, soon to be 42, is jubilant. This same El Faro didn’t he vilify his strategy against the pandilleros ? Hasn’t the international community urged him to respect the rights of detainees? “That all “human rights” NGOs know that we are going to finish off these accursed assassins and their collaborators, we will put them in prison and they will never come out again”, he tweeted again, furious, on May 17, after the assassination of a policeman. Under his tweet, hundreds of responses from ministers, deputies, civil servants, journalists close to power, influencers, decided to applaud, even to praise the most beloved president of the American continent (92% popularity according to a CID Gallup study).
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