Nayib Bukele consolidates his dictatorship in El Salvador

In 2026 Nayib Bukele will consolidate his dictatorship. Still only in his early 40s, El Salvador’s president has secured indefinite re-election by rewriting the constitution, having captured the country’s institutions. Now, with Donald Trump back in power and praising him as a “great friend”, he faces no international check.

Mr Bukele’s takeover has been swift. After coming to office in 2019 he stacked the courts, tamed the security forces, secured a supermajority in the legislature and rewrote the rules of the game to suit his party. In 2021 his loyalist supreme court reinterpreted the constitution to allow a second term. Then in 2025 the legislature scrapped term limits altogether.

Mr Bukele was able to amass power more easily than some of his authoritarian peers because he is popular, and has also made deft use of the fight against gangs. A state of emergency, which will enter its fifth year in March 2026, lays aside much due process. Some 85,000 people have been imprisoned, giving El Salvador the world’s highest incarceration rate. The crackdown has delivered results (though evidence suggests secret pacts with gang leaders played a role). Official murder rates have plummeted, from 51 per 100,000 in 2018 to 1.9 in 2024, lower than in the United States. Extortion has fallen.

But in 2025 Mr Bukele, once keen to cultivate his public image, took off the mask and went after civil society. Ruth López, a prominent human-rights activist at Cristosal, an ngo, was arrested on a charge that few believe genuine. Lawmakers passed a “foreign agents” law that imposes a 30% tax and registration requirements on ngos receiving overseas funding. Journalists at El Faro, an investigative outlet, fled abroad after the attorney-general prepared arrest warrants for them. Cristosal and others closed their offices. Farmers, transport bosses and environmentalists who voiced dissent were harassed or detained.

Mr Bukele is likely to become more brazen as a result of Mr Trump’s backing. When Joe Biden was president, he faced criticism for his human-rights record; under Mr Trump he receives applause. (It helps that Mr Bukele jailed deportees from the United States in El Salvador’s mega-prison.) In April he was feted in the Oval Office, the only Latin American leader to receive such a welcome.

In 2026 observers will be watching to see whether Mr Bukele’s open repression will cost him. The first test will be the economy. Growth has been falling; the imf expects it to be only 2.5% in 2025, less than in neighbouring countries. Public debt stands at 88% of gdp. Poverty has climbed. Hospitals lack medicines and supplies. Mr Bukele’s experiment with making bitcoin legal tender has lost its shine. Some investors are jittery. His agreement with the imf for a $1.4bn loan may entail spending cuts in health and education.

The second test is whether the president’s popularity, which hovers around 80%, falls. Yet even if discontent spreads in 2026, it may not matter. Mr Bukele holds all the levers of power. In 2026 the country will look less like a democracy under stress than a dictatorship secured. ■