Salvadorans on Sunday is headed out to vote in the presidential polls amid human rights concerns in the region. When gang wars ruled the streets of El Salvador, people feared to even walk on the streets. But things have changed since then and thanks to Nayip Bukele, the country's president.
With virtually no competition and majority of Salvodorans support, Bukele is almost certainly headed for a second term as president.
Bukele, known as the self-styled 'world's coolest dictator', worked in his father's ad agency and handled the business for the leftist former guerrilla group Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN), which won the elections in 2009 and 2014. In FMLN's ticket, he became the mayor of Nuevo Cuscatlan, where he reduced homicides and donated his salaries to scholarships.
Bukele was getting noted for his works as mayor. He used social media to promote his developmental work as well. However, Bukele was expelled from the FMLN in 2017 for allegedly sowing division and violating party norms. He denied all the allegations and later switched to a right-wing political alliance.
Bukele pledged on eliminating corruption and graft. He won the 2019 elections and became to be known as an innovator. He adopted Bitcoin as legal tender in 2021 and invited many tech giants to invest.
Bukele's crackdown on criminal gangs is above all the development he has undertaken in El Salvador. Within a year of him coming to power, crime rate had fallen to just a third fo what it was in 2017.
"Nayib does excellent management, we have never had someone who cared so much about people's well-being," said Eduardo Samayoa, a 36-year-old taxi driver in San Salvador was quoted by Reuters.
A week after taking office as El Salvador's youngest president in 2019, Bukele had wrote on X (formerly Twitter), "I am officially the coolest president in the world".
However, critics and other international bodies had expressed concerns over his methods violating human rights.
In March 2022, an outbreak of gang violence that killed 62 people in a single day had left Bukele in a spot. He declared a state of emergency and also imposed restriction on civil liberties. Some allege that even now the restrictions are in place.
According to the data, over 75,000 people were in jail as of January as part of crackdown on the gang wars. The rights group have documented around 150 inmate deaths due to torture. It is also alleged that Bukele increased his control of state institutions that are meant to be independent from the presidency.
