El Salvador Abolishes Presidential Term Limits

Bukele, a former mayor of San Salvador, was first elected as president in 2019. He gained international attention for his aggressive crackdown on gangs and his decision to adopt bitcoin as legal tender.

Under Bukele's leadership, El Salvador's homicide rate dropped. But the cost has been steep: More than 2 percent of the country's adult population has been imprisoned under a "state of exception" that suspends constitutional rights and allows mass detentions without trial. While supporters credit his security strategy with restoring order, human rights groups have reported widespread abuses, including arbitrary arrests and the detentions of innocent people.

Bukele has worked to consolidate power since first taking office. He once marched into the Legislative Assembly flanked by armed soldiers after lawmakers blocked a funding request. He later removed Supreme Court justices and replaced them with loyalists. He has also pushed through electoral reforms that weakened political opposition.

In 2024, Bukele won reelection with 85 percent of the vote, despite a constitutional ban on consecutive presidential terms. With a loyalist court in place to reinterpret the rules, his path to reelection was cleared. Bukele celebrated his win as "a record in the entire democratic history of the world."

Meanwhile, dozens of journalists, opposition leaders, and activists have fled the country, citing harassment and threats from the government. The Los Angeles Times has called it "the biggest exodus of political exiles since the country's bloody civil war," noting that El Salvador now finds itself "in the company of other authoritarian Latin American nations, including Nicaragua and Venezuela, where dissent has been criminalized and critics choose between prison and exile."

Despite international condemnation, Bukele remains popular at home. For many Salvadorans, safety on the streets outweighs concerns about authoritarianism.