Inaugurations Bukele's first presidential inauguration was held on 1 June 2019. Bukele held the inauguration ceremony at the
National Palace due to its location in Gerardo Barrios Plaza (renovated by Bukele as mayor of San Salvador) instead of in the Blue Room (meeting room) of the Legislative Assembly in an effort to portray his presidency as focusing on the people. Bukele's supporters booed and jeered at the Legislative Assembly deputies as they were introduced. Bukele's second presidential inauguration was held on 1 June 2024, again at the National Palace. During the inauguration, the
Armed Forces of El Salvador (FAES) staged a
military parade as a show of force and Bukele wore a Napoleonic-cut jacket with gold trim to evoke the image of Venezuelan liberator
Simón Bolívar. He described his second inauguration as "the most important moment in our recent history" (""). Most of El Salvador's violent crimes were committed by
MS-13 and the
18th Street gang (Barrio 18). Although they are El Salvador's largest gangs, both originated in
Los Angeles. MS-13 was formed in the 1980s by Salvadoran refugees fleeing El Salvador's civil war. The 18th Street gang was formed in the 1960s by Mexican immigrants. Much of the gang violence stemmed from income inequality, poverty, poor schools, a lack of job opportunities, and high urbanization. El Salvador's
homicide rate peaked at 107 homicides per 100,000 people in 2015. El Salvador's homicide rate had decreased to 38 homicides per 100,000 people by 2019, still one of the world's highest. Gangs controlled parts of El Salvador,
Territorial Control Plan On 19 June 2019, Bukele announced that his government would implement a seven-phase security
Territorial Control Plan that sought to disrupt gang finances. The plan began that night at midnight. Phase one, known as "preparation", called for members of the country's security forces — the Armed Forces of El Salvador and the
National Civil Police (PNC) — to be stationed in 12 of the country's 262 municipalities at locations where gangs were known to collect . The government also implemented a temporary
state of emergency in El Salvador's 28 prisons, putting them on
lockdown and banning visitors. Phase two of the plan, known as "Opportunity", began in July 2019 and called for the creation of programs and initiatives to prevent youths predisposed to crime from engaging in criminal activity. The programs and initiatives included creating scholarships, building schools and sports centers, and improving healthcare. Bukele established the Social Fabric Revitalization Unit to implement the phase. Phase three, known as "Modernization", began in August 2019 and called for the improvement of equipment used by the country's security forces; it included issuing new weapons, gear, helicopters, and drones to the security forces. Phase four, known as "Incursion", began in July 2021 when the security forces began patrolling areas with a high gang presence that were considered difficult to access. Phase five, known as "extraction", began in November 2022. Security forces were ordered to "surround large cities and extract the terrorists [gang members] who [were] hiding within the communities, without giving them the slightest possibility of escape". Phase six, known as "integration", began in September 2023, when Bukele established the National Integration Directory to combat poverty and unemployment. Details about phase seven, which has not yet been implemented, are not publicly known. El Salvador's homicide rate has decreased every year of Bukele's presidency, a downward trend that began in 2016. According to the Salvadoran government, the country's homicide rate was 38 per 100,000 people in 2019; 17.6 per 100,000 in 2021; 7.8 per 100,000 in 2022; 2.4 per 100,000 in 2023; and 1.9 per 100,000 in 2024. Bukele has attributed the decline to his security policies. According to , a human-rights lawyer and former general coordinator of the Commission for the Defense of Human Rights of Central America, it is "impossible" ("") to verify the Salvadoran government's homicide figures because there is "no public access" ("") to a daily homicide registry. Medrano stated that deaths in custody are not registered as homicides. Bodies found in mass graves, missing persons, and people killed in police encounters are not included in the government's homicide statistics. In July 2024, then former United States president
Donald Trump falsely accused Bukele's government of "exporting" criminals to the United States to lower El Salvador's crime rate.
Alleged gang negotiations (left, 1) during negotiations with gangs in March 2020 In July 2020, the
International Crisis Group (ICG) published an analysis saying that the reason for the decrease in homicides during Bukele's first year in office hypothesized that "quiet, informal understandings" between the government and the gangs. The Salvadoran government denied the ICG's allegations, and the ICG stated that it had no evidence to support the claim. In September 2020, the Salvadoran digital newspaper
El Faro accused Bukele's government of conducting secret negotiations with MS-13. According to the
El Faro report, the government agreed to grant MS-13 more freedom in prison in exchange for a reduction in homicides it would commit and support for Nuevas Ideas during the 2021 legislative elections. Bukele denied
El Faro allegations, posting photos on Twitter of gang members rounded up in cramped conditions from an April 2020 prison crackdown. On 8 December 2021, the
United States Department of the Treasury accused Bukele's government of secretly negotiating with MS-13 and Barrio 18 to lower the country's homicide rate. The department stated that Bukele's government "provided financial incentives" to both gangs to ensure that they would reduce the country's homicide rate and support Nuevas Ideas in the election held earlier that year, echoing
El Faro allegations the year before, and sanctioned
Osiris Luna Meza (the general director of penal centers and vice-minister of justice) and Social Fabric Revitalization Unit chair Carlos Marroquín Chica for negotiating with the gangs. In June 2025,
ProPublica reported that U.S. extradition requests of MS-13 leaders considered potential witnesses had been blocked by Bukele's government. The outlet also reported that a U.S. multiagency law enforcement team, Joint Task Force Vulcan, had previously gathered evidence that
United States Agency for International Development (USAID) funds to El Salvador had been
laundered and used to pay key MS-13 leaders.
Gang crackdown From 25 to 27 March 2022, gangs in El Salvador committed 87 homicides; 62 were committed on 26 March alone, the deadliest day in Salvadoran history since the end of the
Salvadoran Civil War (1979–1992).
Florida International University research director José Miguel Cruz attributed the killings to a breakdown in a secret truce between the government and the gangs, a truce that Bukele has denied. Cruz believed that the killings were a message from the gangs to the government for more concessions as a part of the secret truce. On 27 March 2022, the Legislative Assembly declared a 30-day
state of emergency, formally known as a "
state of exception" ("") and sometimes known as the "
war on gangs". The state of emergency suspended constitutional rights that included
freedom of assembly,
freedom of association, the
right to privacy in communication, the right
to be informed of the reason for arrest, the right to
remain silent, and the right to
legal representation. The requirement for any arrested individual to see a judge within 72 hours of arrest was also suspended.
Cabañas, Comasagua,
Nuevo Concepción,
San Marcos,
southern Chalatenango, and
Soyapango. during the October 2024
blockade of that city , March 2022 Bukele has threatened incarcerated gang members. At the beginning of the crackdown, he tweeted that the government had seized incarcerated gang members' belongings, removed their mattresses, and rationed their food. He threatened to deprive them of food entirely in April 2022 if the gangs attempted to retaliate against the crackdown, citing rumors about revenge killings. After members of Barrio 18 killed three police officers in
Santa Ana in June 2022, Bukele said at a press conference that the gangs were "going to pay dearly" for the "
ambush" against the police. The government began destroying
gravestones belonging to deceased gang members in November 2022 to prevent them from becoming "shrines" and Bukele compared the gravestone destructions to
denazification in post-
World War II Germany. He warned Salvadoran parents to keep their children away from gangs, since they would lead to "prison or death". Shortly after the crackdown began, Bukele called for the construction of a new 20,000-inmate prison. In February 2023, Bukele posted a video on Twitter of him and members of his cabinet touring the prison. It is staffed by 250 police officers and 600 soldiers, and covers . Bukele posted a video on Twitter on 24 February 2023 of the transfer of the prison's first 2,000 prisoners, and posted a similar video the following month of the transfer of 2,000 more prisoners. By 11 June 2024, CECOT had at least 14,532 inmates. At least 427 people have died in Salvadoran prisons since Bukele's declaration of a state of emergency. In July 2023, Bukele's government passed a law formalizing the judicial system's existing practice of mass trials by judge, allowing up to 900 people to be convicted in the same trial, without a jury. In March 2026, the Legislative Assembly approved a constitutional amendment to permit
life imprisonment for individuals convicted of murder, rape, or terrorism. Before the amendment was passed, Bukele wrote on social media that "we will see who supports this reform and who will dare to argue that the constitution should continue to prohibit murderers and rapists from remaining in prison". Liz Throssell, a spokeswoman for the
Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, called the actions of El Salvador's security forces during the gang crackdown an "unnecessary and excessive use of force". Human Rights Watch has stated that there was "mounting evidence" and "credible allegations" that Salvadoran authorities were committing
human rights violations such as arbitrary arrests,
enforced disappearances,
false confessions, and
deaths in police custody during the gang crackdown.
Amnesty International stated the following month that the Salvadoran government has committed "massive human rights violations", including
torture, against prisoners. In June 2024, Bukele told
Time that the security situation in El Salvador had become sustainable and that he and his government hoped to end the state of emergency "in the near future". By 4 March 2025, the state of exception had been extended 36 times by the Legislative Assembly. By that same date, over 85,000 suspected gang members had been arrested, 3,319 of whom were minors according to Human Rights Watch. By November 2024, more than 8,000 people had been released after the government determined that they were innocent. According to human rights organizations, at least 367 people had died in custody by March 2025. A number of opinion polls between May 2022 and June 2023 indicated that 80 to 90 percent of Salvadorans approved of the gang crackdown and measures taken by the government against the gangs.
Political crises In November 2019, Bukele's administration began trying to secure a $109 million loan from the
Central American Bank for Economic Integration to fund phase three of the Territorial Control Plan. The legislature, which was controlled by ARENA and the FMLN, asked him to give them more time to evaluate the loan. On 6 February 2020, Bukele invoked Article 167 of the
country's constitution and called for an emergency meeting of the Legislative Assembly to approve the loan. He called for his supporters to rally around the Legislative Assembly during the emergency meeting that was scheduled for 9 February. Although Bukele ordered 40 soldiers into the Legislative Assembly's meeting room on the day of the meeting to coerce legislators into approving the loan, a
quorum was not reached and the loan was not approved. Opposition politicians described the crisis as a "
self-coup", On 1 May 2021, Nuevas Ideas formed a coalition government with GANA, the
National Coalition Party (PCN), and the
Christian Democratic Party (PDC). The justices were replaced by five of Bukele's allies, and Melara was replaced by
Rodolfo Delgado. The purge, known in El Salvador as "1M", and was condemned by the United States.
COVID-19 pandemic Bukele issued an executive decree on 11 March 2020 imposing a "quarantine throughout the national territory" (""), shortly after
World Health Organization (WHO)
director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus declared the
COVID-19 outbreak a
pandemic. The quarantine suspended all school activities for 21 days, prohibited foreigners from entering the country, and mandated a 30-day quarantine for everyone entering the country. Bukele confirmed the first case of
COVID-19 in El Salvador on 18 March 2020. The country's first death from the disease was recorded on 31 March. On 5 May 2023, the
Pan American Health Organization declared the end of the pandemic. According to the WHO, , El Salvador had 201,807 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 4,230 deaths from the disease by 2 June 2023; the WHO reported that 11,426,688 doses of the
COVID-19 vaccine had been administered in El Salvador by that date. On 21 March 2020, Bukele imposed a 30-day
nationwide lockdown in an effort to combat the pandemic. During the lockdown, 4,236 people were arrested by the National Civil Police for violating the lockdown order; 70 were arrested before the lockdown order became public. The arrestees were quarantined in a "containment center". Human rights organizations such as
Human Rights Watch criticized the arrests, citing instances of arbitrary arrests and abuse by police. Amid April 2020 lockdowns in the country's prisons and published images of prisoners lined up in cramped positions, Human Rights Watch called the prisons' living conditions "inhumane" (particularly in light of the pandemic). On 27 May 2020, the United States donated 250
ventilators to El Salvador. During a press conference where Bukele received the ventilators, he said that he took
hydroxychloroquine as
prophylaxis and added that "most of the world's leaders use [hydroxychloroquine] as a prophylaxis". Bukele inaugurated the
Hospital El Salvador, the largest hospital in Latin America used exclusively for treating cases of COVID-19 at the site of the former , on 22 June 2020. The hospital had a capacity of 400 beds, 105 intensive-care units, and 295 intermediate-care units staffed by 240 doctors. In August 2020, the hospital's capacity was increased by 575 beds. It began treating conditions other than COVID-19 by June 2022. In April 2021, Bukele inaugurated a vaccination center at Hospital El Salvador to administer up to 10,000 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine per day; the center closed in August 2022, as dose administrations diminished. Most of El Salvador's COVID-19 vaccines were donated by the United States and China. On 13 May 2021, Bukele donated 34,000 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine to seven towns in
Honduras after pleas from their mayors for vaccine doses. El Salvador had received 1.9 million doses at the time, and Honduras had only received 59,000. Gabriel Labrador, a journalist for
El Faro, told
El País that Bukele made the donation to Honduras to improve his public image in
Central America. The Legislative Assembly approved the bill three days later. Although the
World Bank rejected a request from the Salvadoran government to assist it with the implementation of bitcoin as legal tender, citing concerns about transparency and the environmental effects of
bitcoin mining, Athena Bitcoin announced that it would invest $1 million to install 1,500 bitcoin
ATMs. This would allow users to exchange U.S. dollars for bitcoin and vice versa. Bitcoin became legal tender on 7 September 2021 in El Salvador, the first country to do so. It became legal tender alongside the
United States dollar, which had been adopted in 2001 and replaced the
Salvadoran colón.
The New York Times has noted that bitcoin adoption has allowed Salvadorans without bank accounts to "access digital payments, invest savings or boost earnings." The day before bitcoin became legal tender, Bukele announced that the Salvadoran government had bought its first 200 bitcoins. Economist
Steve Hanke stated that El Salvador had "the most distressed sovereign debt in the world" due to its adoption of bitcoin, and other economists predicted that the country would likely
default on its debt. As the price of bitcoin rose to $44,000 in December 2023, Bukele announced that El Salvador's investment into bitcoin had broken even. In March 2024, he stated that El Salvador had made a 50-percent profit from bitcoin. Bukele mocked news-media outlets on Twitter, saying that there were "literally thousands of articles" about El Salvador's bitcoin losses and the same outlets were now "totally silent". By 19 January 2025, the Salvadoran government had 6,043 bitcoins worth $611.2 million. In November 2021, Bukele announced that he planned to build
Bitcoin City in the southeastern region of
La Unión at the base of the
Conchagua volcano. The city would use
geothermal energy to power bitcoin mining. Ricardo Navarro, head of the Salvadoran Center of Appropriate Technology, criticized the plan, adding that it would result in an "environmental disaster". Bukele published images of models of Bitcoin City and its
planned airport on Twitter in May 2022, saying that the city would have "no income tax, zero property tax, no procurement tax, zero city tax, and zero CO2 emissions". In December 2023, the Legislative Assembly passed a law that allowed individuals to purchase Salvadoran citizenship by donating bitcoins to El Salvador. On 18 December 2024, the
International Monetary Fund (IMF) agreed to give El Salvador a $1.4 billion loan in exchange for the Salvadoran government making some concessions from the Bitcoin Law. Concessions included not requiring businesses to accept bitcoin as payment, not accepting bitcoin as tax payments, and reducing the number of bitcoins the government was purchasing. The day after the loan was approved,
Stacy Herbert, the director of the National Bitcoin Office, stated that El Salvador would continue to buy bitcoins at an "accelerated rate" ("") and the government purchased 11 bitcoins then worth over $1 million in total. On 29 January 2025, the Salvadoran government amended the Bitcoin Law to remove bitcoin's status as legal tender and currency but still allows its use as payment. In March 2025,
The Economist wrote that El Salvador's bitcoin experiment had been a failure, bringing more costs than benefits to the Salvadoran economy.
Economic Plan During Bukele's second inauguration, he stated that his second term would focus on improving the Salvadoran economy with "bitter medicine" (""). In July 2024, Bukele threatened to mass-arrest vendors, importers, and distributors who engaged in
price gouging. Later that month, he announced the beginning of a six-phase Economic Plan (""). Phase one, known as "Feeding" (""), involved the establishment of 30 food distribution centers and the removal of tariffs on certain agricultural imports for ten years. Phase two, known as "Technology" (""), involved the construction of
data centers and
technological parks in El Salvador. Bukele stated that his Economic Plan would create 4,000 jobs. On 15 September 2024, Bukele stated that his 2025 government budget would not include "a single cent of debt for current spending" ("") and that his government would not take out foreign loans to pay for the budget. On 16 October, El Salvador and
J.P. Morgan & Co. agreed to restructure US$1.03 billion of the country's debt as a part of a
debt-for-nature swap, which Bukele described as "reaffirm[ing] this government's commitment to economic growth". In the agreement, El Salvador would allocate US$352 million in savings towards conserving the environment around the
Lempa River. On three occasions in 2024, Bukele offered to buy back billions of dollars worth of
government bonds due by 2034. In November 2024, the Central American Bank for Economic Integration announced that it would give the Salvadoran government $646 million to finance infrastructure projects. Bukele stated that the bank's support would help El Salvador's "economic takeoff" (""). Later that month, Bukele wrote on X that he supported mining gold, describing it as "wealth that could transform El Salvador". He further described the country's metal mining ban as "absurd". The Catholic Church, which supported the mining ban's implementation in 2017, called on Bukele to not repeal the ban, citing environmental concerns. The Legislative Assembly repealed the ban on 23 December 2024 and Bukele approved the law that same day. In 2025, at least 2,500
street vendors were evicted from downtown San Salvador as part of Bukele's economic revitalization plan.
Foreign policy Bukele stated in June 2019 that his government would no longer recognize
Nicolás Maduro as the
president of Venezuela, instead recognizing
Juan Guaidó as Venezuela's legitimate president during
Venezuela's presidential crisis. On 3 November of that year, he expelled Maduro-appointed Venezuelan diplomats from El Salvador. Bukele considers Maduro to be a
dictator. Bukele rejected the results of the
2024 Venezuelan presidential election as a "fraud" ("") and stated that he would not restore relations with Venezuela unless there were "real elections" (""). Bukele refused to recognize the presidency of
Manuel Merino in Peru in November 2020, calling Merino's government "putschist" (""). He and the Legislative Assembly denounced the results of the
2021 Nicaraguan general election, that were seen by several governments as fraudulent. In 2024, El Salvador was the only country to abstain on an OAS resolution to condemn Ecuador for
raiding the Mexican embassy in Quito to arrest former Ecuadorian vice president
Jorge Glas. summit in March 2026 In February 2022, Bukele accused United States president
Joe Biden of "
crying wolf" about a
Russian invasion of Ukraine. Bukele did not comment on the invasion when it began later that month, posting instead on Twitter about bitcoin and bonds. Throughout 2022, El Salvador abstained from votes on United Nations resolutions condemning the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Bukele condemned the
7 October attacks, describing
Hamas as "savage beasts" who "do not represent the
Palestinians", comparing the group to MS-13. He tweeted that "the best thing that could happen to the Palestinian people is for Hamas to completely disappear". In March 2024, Bukele offered to send a mission to Haiti to "fix" the
country's gang war with
United Nations Security Council support. In October 2024, El Salvador agreed to provide soldiers to conduct street patrols and aerial surveillance for the
Multinational Security Support Mission in Haiti, and the first Salvadoran soldiers arrived in
Port-au-Prince on 3 January 2025. In March 2026, Bukele attended the
Shield of the Americas summit in
Miami along with several other Latin American leaders.
Relations with the United States in February 2025 During Bukele's September 2019 meeting with Trump, Bukele called on Trump to promote legal migration in an effort to combat
illegal immigration and to maintain the United States'
temporary protected status (TPS) policy for
Salvadorans living in the United States. The following month, Bukele confirmed that the United States would continue TPS for Salvadorans. In February 2021, Biden refused to meet Bukele when he arrived unannounced in Washington, D.C. to meet him. Bukele did not attend the
9th Summit of the Americas in June 2022 due to frustration with the U.S. government's allegations of corruption and human rights abuses by his government. Some
Democratic Party members have been critical of Bukele's government, and members of the
Republican Party have supported him and his policies. Bukele and
Norma Torres, a member of the U.S. Congress representing
California's 35th congressional district, engaged in an April 2021 argument on Twitter about illegal immigration at the United States' southern border. Torres accused Bukele in November 2022 of interfering in that month's
35th congressional district election by endorsing Republican challenger Mike Cargile. In January 2024, fourteen Democratic members of Congress sent a letter to Biden about Bukele's "authoritarian" actions. Meanwhile, Republican congressmen such as
Tom Cotton,
Matt Gaetz, and
Marco Rubio have praised Bukele's policies on crime. The
second Trump administration considers Bukele to be an important ally in mitigating immigration to the U.S. from Central America. In February 2025, Bukele offered Secretary of State Rubio to accept non-Salvadoran
deportees from the United States, including convicted American prisoners "of U.S. citizenship and legal residents". Bukele stated that these "dangerous American criminals" would be incarcerated in CECOT. In March 2025, the United States
deported 238 alleged members of the Venezuelan gang
Tren de Aragua to El Salvador. Bukele met Trump in the
Oval Office in April 2025 where they discussed immigration. Both Trump and Bukele stated they could not unilaterally release
Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a migrant deported due to an administrative error.
Relations with China in November 2023 In 2018, El Salvador cut diplomatic ties with Taiwan and recognized the People's Republic of China as China's legitimate government. This led to Bukele and the United States accusing China of interfering in Salvadoran and Latin American politics. Despite Bukele's criticism of China before becoming president, Vice President Félix Ulloa stated in May 2019 that Bukele's government would not restore
diplomatic relations with Taiwan. In December 2019, Bukele met
Chinese leader Xi Jinping in
Beijing and signed a "gigantic" infrastructure agreement with China for an unknown amount of money. and the
National Stadium of El Salvador (construction began in November 2023). In November 2022, Bukele announced that El Salvador and China had begun negotiations for a
free trade agreement between the countries. China donated fertilizer and wheat flour to El Salvador and, according to a Salvadoran government official, offered to buy El Salvador's external bond debt. Bukele stated that a free trade agreement with China was "very important" because El Salvador had been "isolated from [the] potential" of China's economic strength.
Alleged governmental corruption Twenty of Bukele's governmental institutions were investigated by the office of the attorney general in November 2020 for corruption related to the COVID-19 pandemic, but the investigations were halted after the attorney general was removed by the Legislative Assembly on 1 May 2021. The United States has placed sanctions on several of Bukele's government officials, labeling them as corrupt. The officials include Javier Argueta (presidential advisor), Osiris Luna Meza (general director of penal centers), Carlos Marroquín Chica (chairman of the Social Fabric Reconstruction Unit), Martha Carolina Recinos (chief of the cabinet), Rogelio Rivas (former minister of justice), Ernesto Sanabria (press secretary), and
Alejandro Zelaya (former minister of finance). The U.S. also considered some of Bukele's Legislative Assembly allies corrupt, including
Guillermo Gallegos and Christian Guevara. Some of the individuals are included on the U.S. State Department's "Engel List" of Central American politicians and judges considered "corrupt and undemocratic". Bukele called the sanctions and labels "absurd". On 11 November 2021, Bukele introduced the "Foreign Agents Law" to the Legislative Assembly with the goal of "prohibiting foreign interference" in Salvadoran political affairs. According to Minister of the Interior
Juan Carlos Bidegain, the law was meant to "guarantee the security, national sovereignty and social and political stability of the country". In October 2024, when investigative journalists published a report that found that Bukele, his three brothers, wife, and mother had purchased 34 properties valued at US$9 million during Bukele's first presidential term, Bukele referred to the journalists as "imbeciles" and denied accusations of corruption.
Anti-corruption campaigns Bukele established the (CICIES) in September 2019, an
anti-corruption commission to combat drug trafficking, corruption, and
white-collar crimes. CICIES was operated by the Salvadoran government and the
Organization of American States (OAS), and cooperated with the National Civil Police to form an anti-corruption unit. Bukele dissolved CICIES in June 2021 after the OAS named
Ernesto Muyshondt an anti-corruption advisor; Ernesto Muyshondt was accused by the Salvadoran government of electoral fraud and illegal negotiation with gang members to vote for ARENA during the
2014 presidential election. He was arrested and was scheduled to go on trial in April 2024, despite concerns about his health. On 1 June 2023, during a speech celebrating his fourth year in office, Bukele stated that his government would begin a "war against corruption" (""). He announced that he would build a prison for individuals convicted of white-collar crimes that would be similar to the Terrorism Confinement Center. Bukele stated that the police and military would arrest white-collar criminals like they capture gang members in the gang crackdown. Others charged during Bukele's war on corruption include deputies Erick García,
Lorena Peña and
Alberto Romero, and national security advisor
Alejandro Muyshondt. In 2022, the last full year before the war against corruption was announced,
Transparency International's
Corruption Perceptions Index gave El Salvador a score of 33 out of 100 and ranked it 116th out of 180 countries. According to a February 2023 CID-Gallup opinion poll, only four percent of Salvadorans considered corruption the country's most pressing issue.
Municipal and legislative reductions In December 2022, Bukele tweeted that he believed that the country's
262 municipalities should be reduced to 50. He called it "absurd" ("") that El Salvador, around in size, had so many municipalities. Some lawyers and politicians criticized Bukele's proposed reduction as an attempt to consolidate power by
gerrymandering. His allies supported the proposal, with some proposing a reduction in the number of Legislative Assembly seats. On 1 June 2023, during a speech commemorating his fourth year in office, Bukele announced that he would present two proposals to the Legislative Assembly. One sought to reduce the number of seats in the assembly from 84 to 60, and the other sought to reduce the number of municipalities from 262 to 44. Bukele justified the legislative reduction by saying that the legislature had 60 seats before the signing of the
Chapultepec Peace Accords in 1992 that ended the Salvadoran Civil War, and the accords' only accomplishment was the addition of 24 seats to the legislature. About the municipal-reduction proposal, he stated that the 262 municipalities would retain their cultural identities and be classified as districts. and approved the proposal for municipal reductions six days later. Both reductions became effective on 1 May 2024.
2024 re-election campaign On 3 September 2021, the Supreme Court of Justice ruled that the president can serve two consecutive terms in office. The ruling overturned a 2014 ruling that presidents had to wait ten years to be eligible to run for re-election. Constitutional lawyers criticized the ruling, saying that consecutive re-election violates
El Salvador's constitution. The 2021 ruling allowed Bukele to run for re-election in the
2024 presidential election. ARENA and the FMLN protested the court's ruling, with an ARENA spokesperson calling it a "precursor to a dictatorship" and an FMLN representative saying that the state is serving only one person: Bukele. On 15 September 2022, during a speech commemorating El Salvador's 201st anniversary of independence, Bukele announced that he would run for re-election in 2024. According to Bukele, "developed countries have re-election, and thanks to the new configuration of the democratic institution of our country, now El Salvador will too". Constitutional lawyers criticized his announcement, saying that presidential re-election violates "at least" four articles of the El Salvador constitution. Bukele registered as a presidential pre-candidate on 26 June 2023 with Nuevas Ideas; Ulloa registered as Bukele's vice-presidential pre-candidate. Nuevas Ideas nominated Bukele and Ulloa as their presidential and vice-presidential candidates on 9 July. The party began registering Bukele and Ulloa's candidacies with the
TSE on 26 October, the last day to do so. On 3 November 2023, the TSE registered their candidacies amidst opposition requests to reject Bukele's candidacy. On 30 November 2023, the Legislative Assembly granted Bukele and Ulloa leaves of absence to focus on their re-election campaign. The leave went into effect the following day and Bukele's presidential powers were suspended. The Legislative Assembly named
Claudia Rodríguez de Guevara, Bukele's presidential secretary, as the presidential designate; Rodríguez was the first woman in Salvadoran history to hold presidential power. Her appointment was criticized by some lawyers and opposition politicians as unconstitutional. Including Bukele, there were six presidential candidates in the 2024 election. His primary opponents were ARENA's Joel Sánchez, a businessman, and the FMLN's
Manuel Flores, a former legislator. Bukele led Sánchez and Flores by large margins in
opinion polling before the election. Bukele promised to maintain the gang crackdown, invest in infrastructure projects, and promote economic growth during his second term. Bukele was the first Salvadoran president to be re-elected since
Maximiliano Hernández Martínez in
1944. Nuevas Ideas retained its Legislative Assembly supermajority and, with its allies, won 43 of the country's 44 municipalities. Several news outlets described the election results as a "
landslide victory" for Bukele and Nuevas Ideas, and Bukele described his victory as "the record in the entire democratic history of the world". The TSE granted Bukele his presidential credentials on 29 February and his second term began on 1 June. In July 2025, the Legislative Assembly passed several constitutional amendments, among them, the abolition of presidential term limits that made Bukele eligible to run for re-election indefinitely. Additionally, the legislature voted to move the date of the next presidential election from 2029 to 2027, reducing the length of Bukele's second term by two years. In December 2025, Bukele told YouTuber
TheGrefg that "if it were up to me, I would stay for 10 more years". == Personal life ==