Fireworks erupted in El Salvador's capital on February 4 as gang-busting President Nayib Bukele claimed to have won reelection with more than 85 percent of votes cast: "a record in the entire democratic history of the world."
Bukele, 42, polls as Latin America's most popular leader, possibly the world, on the back of a war on gangs that has slashed homicide rates in the violence-weary country.
El Salvador's fearsome gangs took some 120,000 civilian lives in three decades, according to the government, which says criminal groups controlled 80 percent of the country when Bukele took power in 2019. Under a state of emergency introduced in March 2022, his government has rounded up more than 75,000 gangsters—real and suspected.
Last year, the country that was once one of the most dangerous in the world, saw the murder rate plummet to its lowest level in three decades—far below the global average.
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