Editing Illiberal Democracy (section)

===[[File:Cball-ElSalvador.png]] El Salvador [[File:CoolestDictator.png]]===

[[File:CoolestDictator.png]] '''Nayib Bukele''' is the president of El Salvador since 2019.

Bukele was born in 1983, out of Palestinian ancestors. In 1999, he finished high school and went to college. However, he left college short after that same year because he found a job in his dad's company making propaganda for the Socialist political party, Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional (Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front), which he joined in 2011, launching for the mayoralty of Nuevo Cusclatán, which he won, leaving his work at his dad's companies. During 2012, he described himself as "far-left". After his mayoralty ended, he also launched for the mayoralty of San Salvador, winning again. However, during this mayoralty, Bukele became a centrist and a critic of his party, the FMLN, which led to his expulsion in 2017 after tensions grew. After his expulsion, he ran for president on the 2019 elections, with the coalition Nuevas Ideas (New Ideas) which name reminded of his Nuevo Cusclatán mayoralty, where he reduced criminality and established a third way between the two party system on El Salvador at the time. However, the FMLN and the ARENA tried to ban him for participating, banning for participating in the elections in every party he was in, but eventually they led him and legalized the Nuevas Ideas coalition. He allied with the Social democratic party Cambio Democrático (Democratic Change) for the elections, but short after, the CD party was banned too, so he allied with the liberal conservative party Gran Alianza por la Unidad Nacional (Big Alliance for the National Unity) and he won the primaries. He was elected on February 2019, ending 30 years of the two party system on El Salvador.

Upon his first year, he would drastically reduce the crime rate of El Salvador by initiating policestate-like reforms and ordered the arrest of almost all of the country's gangs, making El Salvador safer than the US<ref>https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/19aa8l2/oc_el_salvadors_homicide_rate_is_now_lower_than/</ref>.
In July 2024, Bukele threatened to use the same tactics on wholesalers and distributors, whom he blamed for a recent steep rise in the prices of food and other basic goods.

“I am going to issue a call, like we did to the gangs at the start of 2019,” Bukele said, referring to the year he was first elected. “We told them either stop killing people, or don’t complain about what happens afterward.”

“Well, I’m going to issue a message to the importers, distributors and food wholesalers: stop abusing the people of El Salvador, or don’t complain about what happens afterward.”