Nayib Bukele

After a wave of killings attributed to gangs in March 2022, Bukele and Parliament introduced a repeatedly renewed state of exception suspending several procedural guarantees. More than 90,000 people were arrested. Organisations documented arbitrary detention, torture or ill-treatment, disappearances, violations of fair-trial rights and hundreds of deaths in custody.

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Political responsibility

Under Bukele, El Salvador's reported homicide rate fell to historically low levels, and the visible control of gangs over numerous neighbourhoods declined sharply. This result is the principal driver of his popularity and an essential counterpoint to criticism of the state of exception.

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Directly implicated

Bukele's government opened CECOT, a maximum-security prison announced as having capacity for up to 40,000 prisoners and designed as a flagship of the war on gangs. Prisoners are subject to an extremely restrictive regime without ordinary family visits; organisations denounce the lack of safeguards and inhumane conditions.

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Political responsibility

El Salvador's Congress approved a constitutional reform permitting life imprisonment for certain very serious offences, including murder, rape and terrorism. Bukele had publicly advocated tougher penalties.

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Political responsibility

Human Rights Watch documented eleven cases of Salvadoran nationals deported from the United States who subsequently disappeared or remained detained without effective judicial oversight, with their families sometimes receiving no information about their whereabouts. Several habeas corpus applications had received no response or had been rejected.

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After registering for the Nuevas Ideas primary, Bukele was nominated unopposed as the party's candidate for the 2027 presidential election. He is therefore seeking a third consecutive term following the 2025 reform abolishing re-election limits.

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At Bukele's initiative, El Salvador became the first country in 2021 to make bitcoin legal tender, requiring acceptance by technically capable businesses and creating a public conversion fund. The launch of the Chivo wallet experienced outages and triggered demonstrations. The IMF highlighted risks to financial stability, consumer protection and transparency.

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Political responsibility

El Faro moved its legal structure to Costa Rica in 2023 following years of conflict with the government, citing harassment, threats, surveillance and fabricated allegations. Pressure on journalists intensified further in 2025, when dozens of journalists and rights defenders left the country.

State of the evidence

Reported by the press

El Salvador agreed, in return for US payments, to imprison at CECOT 252 Venezuelan nationals deported from the United States. Many had not been convicted in El Salvador, and lawyers said they could neither meet them nor obtain clear judicial justification. In July, they were returned to Venezuela as part of an exchange.

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Political responsibility

Following their release, Venezuelans held at CECOT described beatings, psychological abuse, incommunicado detention, insanitary conditions and, in some cases, sexual violence. Human Rights Watch and Cristosal concluded after a detailed investigation that the ill-treatment was not isolated but constituted a systematic practice.

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The Nuevas Ideas-dominated Parliament passed a law requiring organisations receiving foreign funding to register as "foreign agents" and imposing a 30 % tax on certain funding. In the same context, anticorruption lawyer Ruth López of Cristosal was arrested; Cristosal evacuated most of its staff, and many lawyers, activists and journalists left the country.

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Within hours, the Assembly dominated by Bukele's party passed a constitutional reform allowing indefinite presidential re-election, extending the term to six years, abolishing the second round and adjusting the timetable so that the next presidential election would take place in 2027.

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Political responsibility

The new Constitutional Chamber judges appointed after the May 2021 removals interpreted the Constitution as allowing a president to seek a second consecutive term under certain conditions, reversing the previous interpretation. Bukele stood and won the 2024 election by a very large margin.

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Directly implicated

El Faro published internal documents describing meetings between government officials and gang leaders to negotiate lower homicide rates, prison benefits and electoral support. In 2021, the US Treasury sanctioned two administration officials, stating that they had facilitated negotiations with MS-13 and Barrio 18. A subsequent US indictment against MS-13 leaders also described commitments by Salvadoran officials.

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Direct responsibility

Citizen Lab and Access Now confirmed 35 cases of journalists and civil society members whose phones had been infected with Pegasus, including 22 members of El Faro. The targeting coincided with sensitive investigations into the administration, and one Pegasus operator worked almost exclusively in El Salvador.

At its first sitting after securing a supermajority, the Nuevas Ideas-dominated Assembly removed the five judges of the Constitutional Chamber and the Attorney General and replaced them. The opposition and several foreign governments condemned an attack on the separation of powers.

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Bukele entered the Legislative Assembly accompanied by armed soldiers while lawmakers were debating a loan of approximately $109 million for his security plan. The image of the President in the parliamentary chamber with military personnel was condemned as an attempt at institutional intimidation.

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Political responsibility

Quarantine policy led to thousands of people being confined in containment centres. The Constitutional Chamber issued several rulings prohibiting detention solely for breaching confinement rules. Bukele publicly stated that he could not follow certain rulings and instructed security forces to take a tougher approach.

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Political responsibility

While Mayor of San Salvador, Bukele was reported to the FMLN ethics tribunal following a dispute with city councillor Xóchitl Marchelli, who accused him of verbal and physical aggression and sexist insults. The party's internal tribunal found him responsible for ethical breaches, and the FMLN expelled him.

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Directly implicated