Small Country Big Story: El Salvador and the appeal of the "world's coolest dictator"

Nayib Bukele: The Dark Side of the ‘World’s Coolest Dictator’

Illustration by MintPress News By Alan MacLeod / MintPress News The Trump administration’s deal to send large numbers of people to prisons in El Salvador has thrust its president, Nayib Bukele, into the international spotlight. Bukele has been praised, especially in conservative media, as a dynamic and popular leader who has saved his country from the grips of gang violence. But beneath this polished image, he has cemented his rule based on assi…

The government of a tiny Latin American nation again captivates a disproportionate number of foreign admirers, who it uses to wash its international image and who it encourages to take to its own countries bits of its authoritarian model.

Nayib Bukele: The Dark Side of the “World’s Coolest Dictator”

The Trump administration’s deal to send large numbers of people to prisons in El Salvador has thrust its president, Nayib Bukele, into the international spotlight. Bukele has been praised, especially in conservative media, as a dynamic and popular leader who has saved his country from the grips of gang violence. But beneath this polished image, he has cemented his rule based on assigning himself autocratic powers, jailing and persecuting his pol…

REPORTING. President Nayib Bukele, a self-proclaimed "cool dictator", declared the state of emergency against gangs. An ultra-security policy that accommodates arbitrary justice.

Small Country Big Story: El Salvador and the appeal of the "world's coolest dictator"

Nayib Bukele, the millennial strongman president of El Salvador, has many admirers. At least 1 million of them now follow an Instagram “fan” account dedicated to him. The account, @Bukele2024, regularly posts videos of Salvadoran gang members in prison, their heads shaven and their faces crawling with tattoos, crouching or cowering half-naked in the cells or yards of El Salvador’s maximum security facilities. The gushing comments under these vid…

Thousands of Salvadorans have taken to social networks to express their support for President Nayib Bukele through the viral trend: “Fear of what?”, in which they appreciate the transformation that El Salvador has experienced under its government, especially in terms of security. Videos and messages, shared on platforms like TikTok, Instagram and X (formerly Twitter), tell testimonies of citizens who lost loved ones to gangs during previous gove…