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Voters Give El Salvador's Nayib Bukele Landslide Win...and For a Very Good Reason

Leah Barkoukis
Leah Barkoukis  |  February 05, 2024 3:00 PM

President Nayib Bukele celebrated a landslide victory on Sunday in El Salvador’s elections. Despite concerns about human rights and due process over his crackdown on gangs, voters rewarded the 42-year-old for transforming a country once known as the murder capital of the world into one of the safest in Latin America. 

Though a final tally has not been released yet, Bukele claimed to win 85 percent of the vote.

Provisional results showed Bukele winning 83% support with 31% of the ballots counted.

His New Ideas party is expected to win almost all of the 60 seats in the legislative body, tightening its grip on the country and bestowing even more sway on Bukele, the most powerful leader in El Salvador's modern history. 

"All together the opposition was pulverized," Bukele, standing with his wife on the balcony of the National Palace, told his supporters.

"El Salvador went from being the most unsafe (country) to the safest. Now in these next five years, wait to see what we are going to do," Bukele added.

New Ideas' electoral success means Bukele will wield unprecedented power and be able to overhaul El Salvador's constitution, which his opponents fear will result in scrapping of term limits.

Wildly popular, Bukele has campaigned on the success of his security strategy under which authorities suspended civil liberties to arrest more than 75,000 Salvadorans without charges. The detentions led to a sharp decline in nationwide murder rates and fundamentally altered a country of 6.3 million people that was once among the world's most dangerous. (Reuters)

One shopkeeper grateful for the changes Bukele made in the country told Reuters ahead of the election that he no longer had to pay a $300 extortion fee to the gangs every two weeks. 

A 53-year-old construction worker also interviewed by Reuters said there was no reason to vote Bukele out. 

"Why switch leaders? To go back to the same? We're happy without the gangs and he needs power to keep making change," said Elmer Martinez. 

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Bukele took to X to share videos of celebrations in San Salvador. 

Secretary of State Antony Blinken congratulated Bukele on the win.