Search
AI-powered
search, human-powered content.
We have updated our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use for Eurasia Group and its affiliates, including GZERO Media, to clarify the types of data we collect, how we collect it, how we use data and with whom we share data. By using our website you consent to our Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy, including the transfer of your personal data to the United States from your country of residence, and our use of cookies described in our Cookie Policy.
El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele registers his candidacy to seek reelection in 2024.
Nayib Bukele, the strongman president of El Salvador, certainly has his critics. He’s angered human rights activists with his sledgehammer crackdown on gang violence. He has antagonized the opposition by using the military to intimidate Congress and appointing judges who helped him wriggle out of term limits. Even the US has warned the youthful and irreverent Bukele about undermining his country’s fragile democracy.
And yet … Bukele enjoys a staggering 91% approval rating among ordinary Salvadorans, who see his strongman tactics as the price to pay for safer streets in one of the world’s most violent countries. The official homicide rate has fallen by half over the past year.
Now add one more group to the Bukele fan club: bond investors. The country’s sovereign debt is delivering 60% returns in 2023, the best performer in the world.
A year ago, by contrast, Salvadoran bonds were worth barely a quarter of their face value, as Bukele’s bet on bitcoin went up in smoke, he was unable to agree to terms for a badly needed IMF bailout, and markets worried about default. Since then, Bukele has calmed Wall Street by twice buying back huge tranches of El Salvador’s outstanding debt, and by appointing an ex-IMF official as one of his top advisers.
Whether his authoritarian streak will have longer-term negative consequences for El Salvador’s politics and civil society remains to be seen – but for now, Wall Street is betting big on Bukele.
