Nayib Armando Bukele Ortez (Spanish: [naˈʝiβ buˈkele]; born 24 July 1981) is a Salvadoran politician and businessman who has been the 81st and current president of El Salvador since 1 June 2019.

After the Supreme Electoral Court (TSE) refused to register his party, Bukele ran for president with the Grand Alliance for National Unity (GANA) and won with 53 percent of the vote.

[8] Bukele enrolled at Central American University in San Salvador to study judicial science, aspiring to become a lawyer,[5][6] but dropped out to work for the Nölck advertising agency, one of his father's businesses.

Bukele's campaign used catchphrases such as "we have to change history" ("tenemos que cambiar la historia") and "together we will go forward" ("juntos saldremos adelante") to rally support from young voters.

[23] San Salvador FMLN member Xóchitl Marchelli alleged in September 2017 that Bukele had thrown an apple at her, calling her a "damn traitor" ("maldita traidora") and a "witch" ("bruja").

[39] His campaign promises included the creation of an international commission to combat corruption, the development of a trans-national railroad and a new airport, job opportunities for Salvadorans, and reduced crime.

[51] During his presidency, Bukele enacted tough-on-crime policies that scholars have characterized as successfully reducing gang activity and violent crime at the cost of arbitrary arrest and alleged widespread human rights abuses.

[75] 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.

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".

[92] 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 could have been "quiet, informal understandings" between the government and the gangs.

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.

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 (similar to El Faro's allegations the year before)[97][98] 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.

[149][150][151] Bukele issued an executive decree on 11 March 2020 imposing a "quarantine throughout the national territory" ("cuarentena en todo el territorio nacional"), shortly after World Health Organization (WHO) director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus declared the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic.

[189] On 18 December 2024, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) agreed to give El Salvador a $1.4 billion dollar loan in exchange for the Salvadoran government making some concessions from the Bitcoin Law.

[199] 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".

[214] 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.

[228] 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.

[213] 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".

[258] He added that Attorney General Rodolfo Delgado was in the process of raiding and confiscating assets worth up to $68 million from former Salvadoran president Alfredo Cristiani as part of the anti-corruption campaign.

[260] Others charged during Bukele's war on corruption include deputies Erick García,[261] Lorena Peña[262] and Alberto Romero,[263] and national security advisor Alejandro Muyshondt.

Bukele believed in social justice and the state obligation to guarantee Salvadorans the opportunity for "health, education, [and] productive infrastructure" ("salud, educación, [e] infraestructura productiva").

Some FMLN members criticized Bukele's work as a businessman, believing that it contradicted the "historic goal of the proletariat" ("papel histórico del proletariado"): eliminating capitalism.

[349][350] The Economist has described Bukele as politically "hard right" and compared his policies and ideological views to Milei, former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, and former Chilean presidential candidate José Antonio Kast.

In an interview with Puerto Rican rapper René Pérez, Bukele said that "someday, we are going to recognize that [abortion] is a great genocide" ("algún día, nos vamos a dar cuenta de que es un gran genocidio").

[357] Spanish: Aunque por ahora suena a utopía, el sentido común debería apuntar a la unificación de Centroamérica en un solo país.

The agreement gave Bukele's government the ability to build a port on the Caribbean Sea in Guatemalan territory, that would give El Salvador access to the Atlantic Ocean.

[368] According to Will Freeman of the Council on Foreign Relations, Bukele has styled himself as the "second coming of Francisco Morazán", a Honduran politician who was president of the Federal Republic of Central America in the 1820s and 1830s.

[334] El Faro's Gabriel Labrador compared him to 18th-century military officer and Venezuela independence leader Simón Bolívar for wanting to form a "union of the [Central American] people".

[325][392] Eduardo Escobar, a lawyer with Citizen Action, a non-governmental organization, stated that Bukele's use of his Twitter profile was part of his strategy to "ridicule the feelings of the public or the opposition".

[322] Although the office of the attorney general did not begin such an investigation, El Faro was subject to tax audits that Human Rights Watch's José Miguel Vivanco described as "selective and abusive".