El Salvador's president wins big. What does this mean for the country and its neighbors?

El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele

El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele is an unusual politician. The 39-year old political outsider boasts of his political triumphs on TikTok, dons a suave casual uniform (backwards-facing cap; leather jacket; tieless ), and refuses to abide by Supreme Court rulings.

Bukele also enjoys one of the world's highest approval ratings, and that's what helped his New Ideas party clinch a decisive victory in legislative elections on February 28, securing a close to two-third's supermajority (75 percent of the vote had been counted at the time of this writing).

His triumph will resonate far beyond the borders of El Salvador, Central America's smallest country, home to 6.5 million people. Now that Bukele has consolidated power in a big way, here are a few key developments to keep an eye on.

Anti-establishment fervor isn't disappearing. The recent election demonstrates that Salvadorians are buying what Bukele is selling even if he doesn't always deliver on his promises.

In 2019, Bukele came to power pledging to root out corruption, break the monopoly of the two parties that have run the country since the end of the civil war in 1992, and rid the country of violent gangs (El Salvador has one of the world's highest crime rates). Despite a dip early in the pandemic, crime has risen at various stages since — though Bukele has harshly cracked down on gang violence. Meanwhile, investigations reveal that Bukele's administration has been mired in its own corruption scandals. Still, a majority of Salvadorians (roughly 90 percent) see Bukele as preferable to a corrupt political establishment that has long lined its own pockets while poverty plagues around 30 percent of the population. People simply want change.

And this trend isn't unique to El Salvador either. In nearby Mexico, populist President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, known as AMLO, also has failed to make good on some reform pledges that brought him to power in 2018. Still, polls show that Mexicans are overwhelmingly rooting for AMLO — a rugged self-described "man of the people" — in upcoming midterm elections, over a self-enriching political class that they feel has left them behind.

Like in Mexico, there are concerns about El Salvador's authoritarian drift. Last year, Bukele sent troops into the parliament to demand the legislative body approve his security package. "Bukele's style of governing is bullying," said Carlos Dada, founder of the newsite El Faro.

And now that Bukele has a supermajority, analysts warn that he can go even further, claiming a mandate to pack the Supreme Court, reconfigure the attorney general's office, and could even push for a new constitution, scrapping provisions that would cap his current presidency at one-term (consecutive terms are banned). Critics are worried that in placing his allies in control of all levers of government, Bukele can now effectively undermine all judicial and legislative independence.

Why does this matter beyond El Salvador? Political instability in El Salvador breeds regional insecurity and more migration.

People from the so-called "Northern Triangle'' of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras have for years constituted the largest share of migrants stopped at the southwestern US border. If an increasingly-authoritarian Bukele is unable to make good on his promises and improve Salvadorians' lives (New Ideas' success is so far rooted in Bukele's own self-styled image rather than a fixed political ideology) this could result in thousands fleeing in search of a better life in the United States, just as President Biden is trying to diplomatically tweak US foreign policy towards Latin America. The Biden administration recently axed the Trump administration's third country resettlement program (also known as the Remain in Mexico program), while still towing a tough line on what it calls "irregular migration." This complicates things for Biden who needs to work with the Salvadorians to manage the immigration issue, but who also can't be seen to be playing nice with norm-breaking Bukele after putting human rights and democracy at the heart of US foreign policy.

For Mexico, meanwhile, the stakes are also extremely high. The spillover effects of drug trafficking and gang violence in El Salvador create insecurity and havoc in Mexico (and vice versa). This dynamic intensified under the Trump administration's zero tolerance policy, when Mexico City experienced a surge in asylum applications from El Salvador. (Consider that in 2019, Mexico received around 80,000 asylum applications because many Central Americans did not want to risk being rejected at the US border and being sent back to their home countries.)

Looking ahead. The very online Bukele represents a new brand of politician sweeping parts of Latin America — and the globe. But in the year 2021, what happens in El Salvador very much does not stay in El Salvador. Mexico, the United States, and many others, are watching.

More from GZERO Media

Listen: In seven short weeks, the Trump administration has completely reshaped US foreign policy and upended trade alliances. Will China benefit from US retrenchment and increasing global uncertainty, or will its struggling economy hold it back? On the GZERO World Podcast, Bill Bishop, a China analyst and author of the Sinocism newsletter, joins Ian Bremmer for a wide-ranging conversation about China—its domestic priorities, global administration, and whether America’s retreat from global commitments is opening new doors for Beijing.

German Chancellor-in-waiting Friedrich Merz speaks to the media after he reached an agreement with the Greens on a massive increase in state borrowing just days ahead of a parliamentary vote next week, in Berlin, Germany, on March 14, 2025.
REUTERS/Axel Schmidt

Germany’s election-winning center-right Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union, led by Friedrich Merz, and the Social Democrats have reached a preliminary agreement with the Green Party on a deal to exclude defense spending from the country’s constitutional debt break and establish a dedicated $545 billion fund for infrastructure investments.

A Russian army soldier walks along a ruined street of Malaya Loknya settlement, which was recently retaken by Russia's armed forces in the course of Russia-Ukraine conflict in the Kursk region, on March 13, 2025.

Russian Defence Ministry/Handout via REUTERS

The Russian leader has conditions of his own for any ceasefire with Ukraine, and he also wants a meeting with Donald Trump.

Mahmoud Khalil speaks to members of the media about the Revolt for Rafah encampment at Columbia University on June 1, 2024.

REUTERS/Jeenah Moon

The court battle over whether the US can deport Mahmoud Khalil, the 30-year-old Palestinian-Algerian activist detained in New York last Saturday, began this week in Manhattan. Khalil, an outspoken activist for Palestinian rights at Columbia University, was arrested Saturday at his apartment in a university-owned building at Columbia University by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, and he is now being held in an ICE detention center in Louisiana.

The Israeli Air Force launched an airstrike on Thursday, targeting a building in the Mashrou Dummar area of Damascus.
(Photo by Rami Alsayed/NurPhoto)

An Israeli airstrike destroyed a residential building on the outskirts of Damascus on Thursday in the latest Israeli incursion into post-Assad Syria.

Lars Klingbeil (l), Chairman of the SPD parliamentary group, and Friedrich Merz, CDU Chairman and Chairman of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group, talk at the end of the 213th plenary session of the 20th legislative period in the German Bundestag.

Germany’s government is in a state of uncertainty as the outgoing government races to push through a huge, and highly controversial, new spending package before its term ends early this spring.

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, a Republican, speaks as the U.S. vice president visits East Palestine, Ohio, U.S., February 3, 2025.
Rebecca Droke/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo

On Wednesday, Environmental Protection Agency chief Lee Zeldin redefined the agency’s mission, stating that its focus is to “lower the cost of buying a car, heating a home, and running a business.”