IRON FIST

A crackdown on El Salvador’s gangs made Nayib Bukele one of the world’s most popular leaders. Is he going too far?

- VERA BERGENGRUEN/SAN SALVADOR

BEFORE HE BECAME ARGUABLY THE MOST popular head of state in the world, Nayib Bukele was an adman. The President of El Salvador has branded himself the "world's coolest dictator" and a "philosopher king," but he is, perhaps above all, a former publicist attuned to the power of imagehis own and his country's. On the day we met in late June, at the presidential offices in San Salvador, Bukele was dressed all in black. Nine brilliant peacocks roamed the lawn outside. "A leader should be a philosopher before he is a king," Bukele told me, reclining in a chair as the sun set over the lush jungle grounds, "rather than the typical politician who is hated by their people."

It was Bukele's first interview with a foreign reporter in three years. The occasion was something of a victory lap. At 43, he has remade a nation that was once the world's murder capital, turning it into a country safer than Canada, according to Salvadoran government data. Bukele's policy of mano dura-iron fist-drove an aggressive crackdown on vicious gangs that has jailed 81,000 people and led to a precipitous drop in homicides. After decades of violence, fear, and extortion, citizens can move freely in former gang-controlled "red zones," lounge in parks, and go out at night. El Salvador now markets itself as the "land of surf, volcanoes, and coffee," hosts international events like the Miss Universe pageant, and draws tourists and cryptocurrency enthusiasts to coastal enclaves like "Bitcoin Beach." The transformation helped Bukele cruise to re-election earlier this year; his approval rating these days tops 90% according to the latest CID Gallup poll. His picture adorns key chains, mugs, and T-shirts at souvenir stands; prominent portraits of him and his wife greet visitors at the airport. As we spoke, blue-and-gold banners festooned the streets of the capital, remnants of his second inauguration three weeks earlier.