Bukele sworn in for second term as El Salvador president:

El Salvador’s popular President Nayib Bukele begins a second term on Saturday with nearly absolute power and no opposition, but faces the challenge of keeping the country safe and delivering the economic boom he has promised.

Dressed in a suit with a gold collar and cuffs, Bukele, 42, raised his hand to take the oath of office before international dignitaries at the National Palace in the historic center of San Salvador, receiving the presidential sash from Parliament Speaker Ernesto Castro.

“Bukele, Bukele!” thousands of supporters chanted under the blazing sun and amid bursts of gunfire as they filled the square in front of the presidential palace. Soon after, a military parade began, with planes leaving trails of blue and white, the colors of the El Salvador flag.

The Palestinian-origin former advertiser began a five-year term after he won almost the entire Congress party (54 out of 60 seats) in February elections, defeating the opposition with 85% of the vote.

He is an avid user of social media, where he has mocked those who call him a “dictator.” He holds other state powers, including that of sheriff, which would allow him to seek re-election despite a constitutional ban on him.

“They criticize him for being authoritarian, for not respecting human rights, for not being responsible for the money he uses, for being dictatorial… He has restored our security, which is a big step forward. In my opinion, let him stay in power as long as possible,” Miguel Herrera, a 68-year-old retired sports coach, said in the square.

The millennial president will have even more power as delegates recently approved a reform that will make it easier for him to amend the constitution, including what analysts see as indefinite re-election.

Tamara Tarachuk, an analyst at the Inter-American Dialogue, said Bukele had eliminated “the checks and balances necessary for a democracy” and it was “hard to imagine” he would abandon authoritarian measures.

Security costs

In Latin America, where crime and violence are rampant, a regional survey showed Bukele was the most popular president thanks to his “tough” policies against gangs, with several leaders, such as Daniel Noboa (Ecuador) and Simara Castro (Honduras) is trying to follow suit.

Both were present at the inauguration, along with Paraguayan President Santiago Peña and Costa Rican President Rodrigo Chavez and King Felipe of Spain. But it was Argentine Javier Millais who grabbed all the attention. Like Millais, Bukele sympathizes with former U.S. President Donald Trump and supports a conservative agenda.

Bukele claims to have cured the country of its gang “cancer,” he declared war on gangs and built a giant prison: El Salvador has been in a state of emergency since March 2022, with 80,000 detainees without court orders.

Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International Condemned the deaths, torture and arbitrary detention. Nearly 8,000 people have been released, thousands of innocent people.

Miguel Montenegro, coordinator of the Human Rights Commission, concluded that the security costs were paid by “the population that is illegally detained.”

For Bukele, who came to power in 2019 with 53% of the vote, his recent landslide victory shows that Salvadorans want to continue to govern in an extraordinary state.

I want to live and work here

Experts believe that after defeating the gangs, the honeymoon period could end due to economic problems. “I hope that when I leave university I will have the opportunity to find a job and not have to go to another country to find my future. I want to live and work here,” Javier Hidalgo, a 20-year-old computer science student, told AFP in the square.

The country faces a $30 billion public debt, 29 percent of its 6.5 million residents are poor, and many continue to immigrate to the United States in search of work.

The 3m Salvadorans living abroad send $8bn a year in remittances (24 per cent of GDP). They are “float”, says economist Carlos Acevedo, and without them “we would have sunk”.

In an effort to revive a dollarized economy that relies on remittances, Bukele made El Salvador the first country in the world to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender in 2021. But in daily life, Bitcoin is not actually circulated.

Ramon Villalta, director of the NGO Social Democratic Initiative, said “greater transparency” was key as Bukele’s critics accuse him of not being accountable for millions of dollars in spending on mega-projects and the media machine.

In a country where abortion is a crime, Bukele, who has two daughters with psychologist Gabriela Rodriguez, adopted a conservative agenda in his first government that excluded gender equality education from schools.