On September 15, 2021, thousands of people marched peacefully in San Salvador to protest against Nayib Bukele, in one of the greatest demonstrations of his mandate. The protesters called him “dictator,” shouted at his Bitcoin policy approved days before and his recent intervention with military to Parliament. Bukele responded with irony: he called himself “the world’s most cool dictator” in X, then Twitter. The joke caused grace in many. Little more than two years later, on May 12, 2025, a much smaller group – about 150 peasants who begged Bukele’s help so as not to be evicted from their homes – bet near the president’s house. The answer this time was different: a group of military and police repressed the demonstration and captured five of its leaders.
This June 1, Bukele will play his sixth year as president of El Salvador. Six years after getting to power with a fresh and modern image that conquered Salvadorans, the president maintains his level of internal approval above 80% and is one of the most popular leaders in the world. It is a phenomenon in Latin American politics. However, the side cool The self -denominated dictator is fading at the same time that it strengthens its authoritarian image, according to experts consulted by the country.
“At the beginning I tried to connect with a younger audience. He had a slightly more open and tolerant speech and, therefore, the image that best suited him was that of a different politician, who dresses differently and that I am able to embrace new ideas,” says Edwin Segura, a journalist and researcher who has worked 21 years measuring public opinion in El Salvador. “Now it has ended up taking old -fashioned punitive measures,” he adds.
Bukele, an expublicist who has overturned huge efforts to carefully build his image, has changed the way he projects into the world. He has gone from dressing youth clothes and caps back to wearing a long long cut suit, adorned with golden edges and high neck that evokes historical figures such as Simón Bolivar or Muamar El Gaddafi, says Segura. But not just that. His populist policy has also had an important turn. “He went from a populism in which he spent more than what the State was capable, giving cash, in Bitcoin and even food packages, to a punitive populism with which he projected as a strong man, with experience. A man who solves, even by force,” he adds.
When Bukele called himself a “cool dictator”, his image was that of a modern president who had broken with the old schemes, who promoted a Bitcoin policy and sold El Salvador as “the land of volcanoes, coffee and surfing.” Now, its main claim for the outside is that of a jailer, after reaching an agreement with the United States to receive deportees from that country.
“An important change has been noticed in its iconography. From the costumes he uses to his own style. He began projecting a figure almost of a mischievous child who used the caps back and became projecting as a more old leader,” says William Carvallo, a teacher and researcher at the Mónica Herrera Communications School. “It has been a slow and long process, but he is not a person who improvises this kind of thing. All his communication, his appearance and his actions are duly planned to achieve something,” he adds.
From his arrival to power, Bukele did not tremble his pulse to execute despotic measures. The first day of his mandate, dismissed hundreds of public employees and dissolved entire institutions with only one order on Twitter. Over time, he took larger steps, such as when in February 2020 the Legislative Assembly was taken with military and sat in the chair of the president of that state body as a pressure measure for the deputies to approve a loan to finance their security strategy.
Later, in 2021, when he won the absolute majority in Congress, he hit the Supreme Court of Justice and put finger magistrates who, later, endorsed their re -election despite the fact that the Constitution prohibits it. He also dismissed the attorney general who investigated his negotiations with the MS-13 and Barrio 18 gangs, and forced the investigators to flee the country. Later, in 2021, he started a purge in the judicial body to put judges to its measure.
But the jump that accelerated its image before the world as an authoritarian was the establishment of the exception regime, a measure contemplated in the Salvadoran Constitution in case of national catastrophe or emergency with a duration of one month. Bukele has renewed this measure more than 36 times. Although the president appeals to the fight against gangs that had made El Salvador one of the most violent countries in the world, the imprisonment of almost 80,000 people in a country of 6.3 million inhabitants has activated all the alarms of the international community and human rights organizations. Since then, local organizations have documented about 400 dead without conviction within prisons, many of them with signs of torture.
Repression increases in the criticism
Given most criticism, Bukele has responded with sneer. However, it seems to be tilting more to repression and less to the joke, as they demonstrate their reactions to the communicational crises that his government has faced in the last two months. In mid -March, El Salvador initiated a prison treaty with the administration of Donald Trump to recruit in its maximum security prison, the CECOT, to undocumented immigrants.
At first, the Salvadoran president said that it was only criminals, but then he met from the mouth of the US authorities that many of those sent on a first flight were simply migrants whose only fault was to enter the United States without papers. Later, it was learned that behind that agreement there really was Bukele’s intention to return to nine gang leaders, supposedly to prevent them from declaring in a New York court on their secret pacts. This agreement left the image of Bukele very badly, who responded with criticism of the media and humanitarian organisms.
In early May, a newspaper publication The lighthouse He showed two gang leaders, including one released by Bukele, counting details about his negotiations with the Bukele government. Days later, the director of that media, Carlos Dada, said in a live broadcast that he had received an alert of possible arrest warrants against his journalists. Several of them have left the country by caution.
The last event that, according to experts, has further unmasked the spirit of Bukele, occurred on Monday of this week, when a small demonstration near the president’s residence caused the deployment of the Military Police to repress civilians. This represents a historical fact, since since the peace agreements signed in 1992, military had never been used for these tasks assigned exclusively to the National Civil Police.
A day later, persecution and captures continued against other community leaders who protested against the president’s residence. Bukele reacted, as usual, with an X publication in which he announced reprisals against the Human Rights Oenegés, which he accused of being after the protest: a new law of foreign agents for which he will retain 30% of his income.
These movements, however, do not mean that Bukele’s approval percentage is going down in the surveys, according to Segura. “When approval or disapproval is measured, the answer is dichotomous. Approves or does not approve. This is lost. What is happening is that many people have their reservations with the president’s work or abuse, but in the end he decides to approve,” says the expert. On the other hand, “public opinion responses in authoritarian environments are complicated because people are afraid and do not dare to comment,” he says.
Carvallo, on the other hand, says that in El Salvador that strong leader prototype likes. “Talking to people or doing more complex studies, we can see that people are very satisfied with what they do,” he says. “Contrary to subtract him, he is reinforcing his popularity.” In the streets, as the country has been able to verify, it is increasingly common for people to refrain from criticizing President Bukele. And who dares to do it, asks not to be summoned for fear of reprisals.
Meanwhile, with each new action, Bukele seems to get away from the young and disruptive president who conquered headlines in 2019 and is dangerously approaching the mold of traditional autocrats. You no longer need to joke to exercise power: an order is enough. The freshness of self -denominated more cool dictator The world seems to dissipate.
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