Mr Bukele is a talented showman. His father was a celebrity imam; his family owns an advertising business. He grew up steeped in the art of lively, emotive persuasion, not necessarily tethered to facts. On Twitter, Facebook, TikTok and YouTube he curates his image as the ceo of El Salvador and the Philosopher King. Shunning suits, he turns up to meetings in jeans and a baseball cap. He boasts of sharing a birthday with Simn Bolvar, the liberator of much of South America from Spanish rule.
When critics accuse Mr Bukele of flouting norms, he revels in his transgressions. For example, his government invests in cryptocurrency. The only public guide to how much it has bought is the presidents tweets. Sticklers for transparency complain. Mr Bukele boasts that he buys Bitcoin (with public money) on his phone, while in the toilet. He announces new policies via social media. State outlets amplify his message; paid trolls deride his critics, according to an investigation by Reuters. Amparo Marroqun of the University of Central America in San Salvador reckons that the president needs just 12 hours to have everyone talking about a topic. By contrast it takes the opposition 500 hours.
While dazzling voters with his charm, Mr Bukele has steadily removed checks on his own power. He won over the army and police with lavish benefits. Then he methodically asserted control over all three branches of government, wagering that the public wouldnt mind ceding new powers to a man waging war on crime. In 2020 Congress refused to approve the hefty sums he wanted for his security plan, so he marched into the chamber with soldiers and accused lawmakers of thwarting the peoples desire for public safety. In 2021 his party won a super-majority. In June it passed a law to reduce the number of seats in the legislature from 84 to 60 and turn the countrys 262 municipalities into 44 districts. Critics say he has tweaked rules to benefit his own party.
When El Salvadors courts tried to restrain Mr Bukele, he first ignored and then gutted them. In 2020 the constitutional court ruled that emergency powers he assumed during the pandemic were illegal. He wielded them anyway. Once he had a majority in Congress, he pushed aside the judges of the constitutional court and the attorney-general, who was investigating Mr Bukeles ministers for embezzling funds, replacing them with yes-men. He forcibly retired a third of the countrys judges and replaced them with yes-men, too. The way he did so was unconstitutional, says Antonio Durn, a judge.
Mr Villatoro says the old legal system gave too much weight to criminals rights, and not enough to those of honest people. Another senior official observes that Mr Bukeles crackdown would not have been possible without many conditions. Had he not got rid of these judges...from the constitutional [court] in the past, all this state of exception would have been declared unconstitutional.
The war on gangs offers a handy excuse to intimidate journalists, too. A law passed in 2022 allows ten- to 15-year jail terms for those who transmit or reproduce messages created or allegedly created by gangs that could foster anxiety and panic. Independent media fear this could be used to lock away anyone whose reports annoy the government. Mr Bukele has suggested that certain reporters want his crackdown to fail. Those he singles out for criticism have received torrents of threats. Several reporters have fled from the country.
The next crackdown, Mr Bukele promised in June, will be on corruption. So far, not much has happened, besides the confiscation of an allegedly corrupt former presidents property. But the implication is plain. If people can be arrested for white-collar crimes as easily as they can be arrested for gang ties, the middle and upper classes had better watch out. Defying the government, or even refusing to pay bribes demanded by corrupt officials, could become dangerous. There is no rule of law, says a businessman. They can take you for anything. He says he wants to leave the country, even if it means washing plates.
Celia Medrano, a human-rights activist who plans to run on an opposition ticket for the elections in February, frets that Mr Bukele is removing restraints on his power far more quickly than, say, the dictator of nearby Nicaragua did. What took 20 years [there] is happening here in two years, she laments. He wants a one-party state, says Ms Escobar. He also appears to be cultivating a family firm. Three of his younger brothers are his closest advisers.
Some critics, from Crisis Group, a think-tank, to Colombias left-wing president, Gustavo Petro, say Mr Bukeles crackdown is unsustainable. Previous mano dura (iron fist) campaigns in Latin America have ultimately failed because they neglected to address the root causes of criminality. Gangsters grow hardened behind bars and cause mayhem when freed.
This is true, but Mr Bukeles crackdown is different. He has locked up much larger numbers of people, on flimsier evidence, and apparently plans to keep them locked up until they are old men. Mr Bukele has built a prison designed to hold more inmates than any other in the world, on 23 hectares of a 140-hectare site in the east of the country. Keeping that many people behind bars costs a lotperhaps $1.5bn per year, according to Mr Villatoro. But Mr Bukele is saving money for the state by leaning on families to pay for inmates upkeep. And in the new mega-prison, inmates will have to grow their own food.
It is hypothetically possible that Mr Bukele is amassing extraordinary powers only temporarily, and plans to relinquish them when he thinks the gangs have been crushed. But it is hard to think of a leader anywhere who has swept aside term limits to keep himself in officeand then given up power voluntarily.
Asked whether Mr Bukele might run for a (clearly unconstitutional) third term in 2029, a senior official says: So far there is no way to have a third term. The worlds coolest dictator may be planning to stick around. And he is only 41.
This is the MAGA dream - sweeping arrests of criminalsand anyone who looks like they could be a criminal. Then removing all their rights and sticking them indefinitely in prisons with inhumane conditions. Trump would love the idea of making them grow their own food.
After the criminals will come the homeless population.