The West might balk at strongman Bukele but in parts of Latin America, El Salvador’s president is a star
Latin American politicians are embracing a strict approach to law and order to counter spiralling crime. As elections loom in Brazil, Chile and Colombia, is the region on the brink of full-scale “Bukelisation”?
El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, was catapulted into the global spotlight earlier this month after a buddy-buddy meeting with Donald Trump in the Oval Office. Seated in front of the world’s cameras, the two men bonded openly about fighting organised crime, illegal immigration and terrorism. Fame, however, is nothing new for Bukele, who has been garnering admirers among right-wing circles across Latin America since his election in 2019. Never mind the criticism that his crackdown on organised crime has come with human-rights abuses, forced disappearances and a lack of due process. Many in the region see the 43-year-old leader’s approach as a model to emulate in a region plagued by gang violence.
His clearest imitator is Ecuador’s centre-right president, Daniel Noboa, who was re-elected this month after a hardline campaign focused on public security. The country has witnessed an explosion of drug-related gang violence in recent years and Noboa has taken his cues directly from Bukele by declaring a state of emergency to combat it, even constructing the kind of vast high-security prisons that have become emblematic of Bukele’s governance in El Salvador. In Argentina, security minister Patricia Bullrich has touted “adopting the Bukele model”, despite the country’s relatively low violent-crime rate. And in the crime-plagued city of Rosario in Santa Fe province, local authorities have employed hardline policing tactics in line with Bukele’s. Early indications suggest that they are effective, with a resulting reduction in homicides.
Attention is now turning to which country will next experience “Bukelisation”. Chile, Colombia and Brazil all have elections next year and each appears ripe for disruption from right-wing candidates. Traditionally a safe country, Chile is grappling with a recent upsurge in violent crime. Meanwhile, longstanding security concerns continue to dominate voters’ minds in both Brazil and Colombia. In Brazil, Tarcísio de Freitas, the current governor of the state of São Paulo, is expected to be the most competitive right-wing candidate. His top security official shocked many liberal Brazilians last month when he said that the nation had much to learn from Bukele and El Salvador. Indeed, the vast majority of El Salvadorans appear to back him – his approval rating often surpasses 90 per cent – and the crime figures speak for themselves: from 105 murders per 100,000 people in 2015, the homicide rate has dropped precipitously to fewer than two per 100,000 in 2024. No wonder he has imitators.
Bryan Harris is a frequent Monocle contributor and a columnist on Latin America, based in Brazil.
