Bukele's Third Term? El Salvador’s Gamble on Continuity Requires Some Important Context

In late July, on a Wednesday night, outside Casa Presidencial, Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele honored several hundred of his country's most precious resource: its people. He awarded them a Medalla al Mérito (Medal of Merit) for their work in Venezuela following the double earthquakes that devastated the country in late June.

As I've mentioned, El Salvador was the first country on the ground in the immediate aftermath, with rescue crews and medical personnel, and it remained there operating a field hospital — and offering veterinary services — once everyone else had gone home.

"El Salvador is no stranger to tragedies," Bukele said. "We’ve already had to suffer not only earthquakes, but a civil war, the war of the gangs, the dictatorship of the gangs. We’re a poor country, relatively short on resources. We’ve had to dig through rubble to pull out our brothers too. We know what it feels like, and so there was nothing left to do but go and help."

He added: "We are showing El Salvador bringing hope. The country that once needed to be rescued is now rescuing. The country that for decades asked for help is now giving help. The country that was recognized for its tragedy now begins to be recognized for its heroes."

A nuestros rescatistas: gracias por ir hacia el peligro que otros evitan, por sostener la esperanza cuando ya se había perdido, y por mostrarle al mundo el corazón de El Salvador. Esta misión les pertenece a ustedes. 🇸🇻🇻🇪 pic.twitter.com/pFpuPHddDO
— Casa Presidencial 🇸🇻 (@PresidenciaSV) July 30, 2026

“Mostramos a El Salvador llevando esperanza. El país que antes necesitaba ser rescatado, ahora rescatando. El país que durante décadas pidió ayuda, ahora está dando ayuda. El país que era reconocido por su tragedia, hoy comienza a ser reconocido por sus héroes”, Presidente… pic.twitter.com/AUtz1bxVQ7
— Casa Presidencial 🇸🇻 (@PresidenciaSV) July 30, 2026

In mid-August, in the aftermath of the devastating 7.4-magnitude earthquake that devastated parts of Colombia, Bukele was one of the first world leaders to speak up, offering what the country needed for initial rescue and recovery efforts. While manpower wasn't an issue, Colombia said it could use supplies, and Bukele announced on the following Tuesday that he was sending two cargo planes with 100 tons of humanitarian aid prepared to their specifications. More was available if required.

Bukele's government has reformed El Salvador's education system, making it a priority. As I reported in February, the previous government left the education program fractured and in debt, but Bukele has a mantra: "The money is enough when nobody steals." He brought in anti-corruption measures and laws that weeded out things like government grift, prosecuted corrupt holdovers, and eliminated wasteful contracts.

He also vowed to remodel 5,150 schools over five years with "free internet, new infrastructure and furniture, audiobooks, braille and sensory books." Prisoners even help build the furniture, solving two problems at once, and private sector partnerships, including one with Elon Musk, also help with funding or providing supplies like laptops and tablets.

Here's more that I wrote about that in February:

Mi Nueva Escuela also ensures children have access to nutritious food and health care at school, advanced technology, and high-quality teachers who have gone through additional training. And it involved getting rid of El Salvador's outdated, rigid curricula and replacing them with something holistic that actually matches how children learn and will ultimately lead to better outcomes.
First Lady Gabriela de Bukele has been heavily involved with this, particularly when it comes to early childhood education. In January, she rolled out the new curriculum for younger students that incorporates more structured play, exploration, and creativity, and encourages better emotional and social development and, eventually, more well-rounded adults.
They also removed all gender ideology and inclusive language from school curricula, as well as any other content seen as advancing woke agendas. Schools must focus on learning, respect, order, and responsibility instead of any progressive nonsense.
Kids are also expected to come to school looking respectful in their uniforms, and boys must have short, clean haircuts that can't be mistaken for gang-affiliated ones. Furthermore, they must greet their principals and teachers respectfully upon arrival.

As of August of this year, at least 210 schools have been completed, while up to 700 more are in the process or nearly completed.

Last week, Bukele announced to a crowd of tens of thousands of cheering young people that the Salvadoran government would provide 50,000 scholarships this year for public high-school graduates to cover university degrees, technical training, vocational courses, and even some opportunities to study abroad, with more to come. He also said that El Salvador plans to invest 8% of its GDP back into education.

ASMR pic.twitter.com/6lFkn0yma1
— Nayib Bukele (@nayibbukele) August 26, 2026

Over the past couple of years, tourism has exploded in El Salvador. In 2025, it welcomed a record 4.1 million international visitors, generating over $3.6 billion in revenue, and that's expected to continue through 2026. In the first quarter of 2026, El Salvador's GDP grew 4.8% year-over-year, largely driven by construction and tourism. Bukele's government's housing program has put roughly 50,000 families into homeownership with $1.16 billion in loans. Many of those houses were recovered from gangs after the crackdown and returned to the market.

San Salvador's Historic Center, which was once a no-go zone due to gang activity, is in the midst of a major revitalization, attracting private businesses, restaurants, and entertainment, and allowing the citizens to recover their beautiful public spaces. In the 2026 Greenfield FDI Performance Index, El Salvador ranked second in Latin America and the Caribbean for attracting new investment projects relative to the size of its economy.

I could go on, but my editors would kill me, and your eyes would glaze over, and I'm sure you get the idea. However, if you Google El Salvador or Bukele, you rarely see any of that in the headlines. What you do see lately is "Bukele's third term," followed by fake news outrage that he's becoming the next Fidel Castro or Hugo Chávez or Daniel Ortega.

To be blunt, for the most part, the U.S. mainstream media tends to be ignorant and lazy when reporting on Latin American countries. It sees every one as the same as the next one. It sees "popular leader runs for a third term" and brings out an outdated template to write a generic story. It ignores the fact that these countries are not all one and the same and ignores each nation's uniqueness.

I'd like to present a different angle: The fact is that Bukele is running for a third term. But it's because he's still got work to do — work his constituents want him to do — not because he's consolidating power.

First, you can't look at El Salvador through a United States lens. Before 2019, when Bukele was elected for the first time, El Salvador was a failed state in almost every possible way. The president and his team restored order, and El Salvador became functional again in record time. Bukele's goal now is to make sure that this Salvadoran renaissance is strong enough to withstand the future.

The privileged reporters, columnists, and so-called experts in the United States have no idea what it's like to live through that.

They don't know what it's like to live under gang territorial control or to live in a country with the highest homicide rate in the world. They don't know what it's like to see your elderly neighbor get her fingers chopped off because she couldn't pay the local terror group their extortion money, or see a business blown up because the owner refused the local gang's "protection," or to see a bus driver decapitated with a machete for driving into enemy territory.

They don't know what it's like to be a parent afraid of exposing your children to the outside world because they could easily be recruited into a life of organized crime — and it's just that, a life. You rarely escape it. They get them when they're very, very young, and it becomes a religion so ingrained that there is no turning back.

There was a video circulating on X recently of two Salvadoran children doing their homework on their computers on a sidewalk in the middle of the day. At first glance, it looks normal. But a few years ago, this couldn't happen. Their laptops would have been stolen at the very least. The little boy might have been kidnapped and recruited into MS-13, and the little girl might have become a victim of human sex trafficking.

Antes, jamás nos hubiéramos imaginado en El Salvador

Ver niños haciendo sus tareas con sus computadoras tranquilamente en una acera.

Con la tranquilidad de saber que no les pasará nada.

Así es El Salvador hoy. ❤️🇸🇻 pic.twitter.com/9tNBsyi1lp
— Jose Valdez 🇸🇻 (@JoseValdezSV) July 23, 2026

That's why Bukele's government is investing so heavily in education — so that current generations of children have opportunities beyond dropping out of school, leaving the country, or joining a gang.

My second point is that no one is forcing this on El Salvador. Unlike a Castro, Chavez, Maduro, or Ortega, Bukele is not simply parking himself in Casa Presidencial and telling the people that's how it's going to be, nor is he holding sham elections. Even if he were, he wouldn't have to. He consistently has one of the highest organic approval ratings of any world leader.

I've covered El Salvador so much over the past couple of years and have talked to many people affiliated with the country. The love for their president is the common theme. They're grateful to him for making it a decent place to live again. People who came to the United States to escape the violence tell me that their parents back home can actually enjoy life again. Some plan to return to the country. I recently spoke to a woman from the U.S. who is in the process of moving to El Salvador. When I asked her why she chose to do so, she hesitated and said, "Bukele, man. It's just Bukele and all the great things he's doing. I want to experience it."

I've also covered this extensively: Bukele is a big reason why we're seeing so many countries in Central and South America elect leaders who are hardliners on crime. People are tired of cartels and terrorists taking over their communities. They want their leadership to do what he did for El Salvador. I keep coming back to this, but a reader emailed me a while back when Peru was having elections and said there were more Bukele posters on the streets than posters for the actual candidates. I have contacts in Costa Rica and Colombia who consistently praise him and thank God daily that their new presidents see him as a guide for combatting crime in their own countries.

This man will not be a king. He'll be someone who gets things done and earns his re-election. This is the people's decision.

The U.S. media apparently discovered "authoritarianism" in San Salvador about five years after Salvadorans discovered they could take a bus after dark. Fortunately, a Salvadoran grandmother knows more about her country than some Yale Law School grad.

Which brings me to this nonsense that the whole situation is a "constitutional crisis." Last summer, El Salvador's Legislative Assembly made changes to its constitution that would allow any president to run for an unlimited number of times and increased terms from five years to six.

In many European countries, this is actually the norm. Many government leaders don't have term limits. Angela Merkel served Germany for 16 years. Margaret Thatcher led the United Kingdom for 11. Iceland's Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson served for 20 years. None of this was considered a "constitutional crisis."

In fact, Bukele has wondered aloud a time or two about these international double standards. Why are these wealthier European countries allowed to put the decisions in the hands of the voters rather than rely on arbitrary term limits, but a developing nation is not? Why is Germany having the same leader for 16 years deemed "political stability," but when El Salvador does it, it's the end of democracy?

Could it be that the U.S. mainstream media that likes to lecture on xenophobia and racism and the "Global South" (I hate that term) is actually the biased party?

Finally, let's look at the things dictators like Castro, Chávez, and Ortega have actually done. They nationalize things. They steal private property. They create scarcity.

Bukele has sought private investments, encouraged the ownership of homes and businesses, and is creating abundance.

Those guys built careers out of being anti-U.S., anti-imperialist. Bukele is one of our greatest allies. Shortly after it was announced that he was running for a third term, he visited the White House this summer. A couple of weeks ago, the State Department released a statement that said, "President Bukele is one of our most valued partners in the region. The United States looks forward to hosting an economic summit between our two nations to deepen our important partnership with El Salvador and continue to advance our shared economic interests."

Those guys don't hold elections, or they hold sham elections. El Salvador will hold free and fair elections in February 2027. Any and all opposition is welcome to run against him. The problem is that the opposition isn't very popular, and it even admits that itself.

No leader should be above public scrutiny, Bukele included. If the people of El Salvador are crying out for help like the people in Venezuela and Cuba do, I truly believe the United States and other international bodies should investigate and intervene. But they're not. If they're unhappy with him, they'll vote him out in February, but that's highly unlikely.

Aside from the expats who are flocking there to find a better life and the tourists filling the airports and sidewalks, every person in El Salvador knows what it was like to live there pre-Bukele. They know what it was like to avoid no-go zones, to keep their children home from school, to stay inside after dark, or to shut down their businesses out of fear. I don't think they really care what a bunch of foreign journalists have to say about their voting decisions.

To those foreign journalists: Instead of grasping for comparisons to Castro, Chávez, or Ortega, perhaps it's time to actually learn something. Modernize yourself. Welcome to 2026. El Salvador is leading the way for the Americas — a newer, safer, and more prosperous version of the Americas — and it will do whatever it takes not to reverse course.

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