Inside El Salvador

Reading Time 9 mins approx.

Sunday evening in 'downtown' San Salvador. Young people, old people, families, groups of foreign school kids: the pedestrianised streets are busy. There is a light police presence, but not obviously greater or more heavy-handed than in most urban centres.

The historic Presidential Palace is brightly illuminated, as is the national cathedral. The impressive theatre is advertising upcoming ballet performances. Restaurant diners are enjoying the views from the rooftop terraces of refurbished hotels. The enormous public library - built by the Chinese, and open 24-hours a day - sits like a spacecraft, newly landed amongst the classical buildings.

It is not quite posh. There is still a little roughness at the edges. This is Central America. But it feels safe. Wholesome even, with ordinary El Salvadorians relaxed and enjoying their capital city.

None of this would have been possible five years ago. Not just impossible, but unimaginable. Everyone says so. The streets were controlled by gangs. No rational person would have dared to venture out, especially after dark. Lifelong residents of San Salvador had not visited the historic heart of their own capital city for decades. The violence of the brutal 1979-92 civil war had given way to an even greater dystopia: a vacuum of state authority. Order administered, often with sickening violence, by criminals. Lawlessness in hideous forms: homicides, kidnappings, extortion.

El Salvador was believed to have the highest murder rate in the world. Over 100 per 100,000 residents, per year. The rate in most European countries is around 1 per 100,000. If Britain was at the El Salvadorian level, about 70,000 people would be murdered annually. Roughly 200 a day.

El Salvador now has a murder rate more like the European level. It means over 5,000 people a year, who would have been murdered, are now alive. Every year. And it means that people visit the historic San Salvador ‘downtown’ with their families on a Sunday night.

The received wisdom was that a transformation of this magnitude was impossible. An unrealistic fantasy. That endemic, gang-based violence was a fact of life in Central America. It could be loosely managed, it was even sometimes mitigated, but it could never be beaten. It was too ingrained in the system.

It is this success that has made President Bukele a leader of international interest and importance. In an era of diminished public faith in the ability of politicians to deliver unambiguous social progress, this is, without doubt, a remarkable triumph.

The El Salvadorian public recognise the achievement. How could they not? At the last Presidential election, Bukele received 85 per cent of the vote.

And there this comforting, feel-good, tale could end, but it is not quite that simple. In politics, as in life, more than one thing can be true at the same time.

Bukele’s international detractors recognise his security success, although they move on with slightly jarring haste. “Yes, yes”, they say, “there are fewer murders, but…..”. Hum, wait, maybe it is worth dwelling on the first part of the sentence, at what that means for El Salvadorians, before we get beyond the “but”. There are many millions of people across Latin American who envy the people of El Salvador's liberation from fear.

But - and there is a 'but' - you do not need to be a hand-wringing European liberal of JD Vance caricature to feel unease about the absence of due process in the fightback against the gangs. Thousands of people have been summarily incarcerated, with shudderingly long sentences, in starkly basic conditions, often without proper legal procedures. It was rough justice, with some gang associates just rounded-up.

Nobody really doubts that people who were marginal to the gang violence, and even some who are straightforwardly innocent, have been caught in the net. The unflinching will claim that breaking eggs is necessary to make omelettes, but that feels somewhat pat and casual.

It is also said that detractors should focus on the net benefit. More people are walking around today, who would otherwise have been murdered, than the number of innocents in prison. Benthamism served cold. It is almost certainly true, but for many liberal British people who cherish the sanctity of individual rights, it feels simplistic, even glib.

These are unresolvable disputes. Does the freedom that comes from the absence of fear trump constitutional freedoms? Some may caution against over-analysis. In the words of one former US Congressman and Bukele admirer, “Sometimes, to solve Third World problems, you need some Third World solutions". Crude, certainly, but there is an onus on Bukele’s critics to explain how they would have achieved the same outcome, only nicely.

International critics are perhaps on clearer ground when they express alarm about a wider fraying of democratic norms. President Bukele changed the constitution to allow him to run a second time for the Presidency, and won big. He rides high. But it is hard to find anyone - admirers or detractors - who believes he will not run again. And again and again. And that opposition and alternative political views will be squeezed out. And that this is already happening, and will become more stark.

It is possible to have voted for President Bukele, with enthusiasm and gratitude, and yet also wish to retain the option of not voting for him in ten years' time.

To maintain momentum he needs to deliver tangible economic progress. His security transformation is a necessary, but not alone sufficient, precondition for achieving this goal. El Salvador is a poor country. The living standards of ordinary people are basic. It has no commodities, natural resources or specialisms that make it stand out from the crowd. There needs to be an accelerated economic plan. A strategy.

Bukele understands this, on an instinctive and intellectual level. His focus and determination can plausibly be deployed in this new context. His vision centres on mass lifestyle tourism ('Surf City’ and volcanoes), plus positioning El Salvador as daringly cutting edge. Bukele is seduced by the modern. El Salvador is the only country in the world where the US dollar and bitcoin are both legal tender. He speaks fluent MAGA, in both its political and tech manifestations.

But there is also reality to contend with, and El Salvador is borrowing money from the IMF. There is a long way to go. And some doubt whether Bukele is psychologically suited to the long haul. He seems to value short-term popularity - adulation even - over medium-term outcomes. Can he bring himself to spend some political capital to secure a bigger economy legacy? Giving away electricity, and free vet appointments for pets - yes, really - does not bode well.

Superficially Bukele is sometimes coupled with President Milei of Argentina - both ‘right-wing populists’ - but they are diametric opposites on their economic instincts. Milei is administering severe short-term economic pain with the promise of long-term economic gain. There is little sugaring of the pill. Bukele is, for now anyway, a pill sugarer.

Bukele - the self-styled "world's coolest dictator" - will remain hugely divisive, and revel in his notoriety. Admired - loved, even - by supporters, for his verve and audacity, and for his contempt for those weighed down by processes and liberal orthodoxies. Respected, albeit with serious qualifications, by those who recognise his security achievements, and hope his economic ambitions bear fruit. And opposed - loathed, even - by detractors, who see an autocrat even more consumed by his self-image, and even less bound by civic norms, than others in his international peer group.

The Bukele story is compelling. It has transformed millions of lives. For outsiders, at least, it is theatrical. It sets in competition great political theories and values. Everyone can have an opinion. El Salvador is the smallest country in Latin America, but now it often commands the biggest attention.

Jeremy Browne is the CEO of Canning House and a former FCDO Minister of State.