Lawfare Archive: El Salvador’s President Cracks Down on Gangs—and Democracy

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4.7 • 6.2K Ratings

🗓️ 22 March 2025

⏱️ 67 minutes

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Summary

From May 9, 2023: Since March 2022, El Salvador has been under a state of exception as its President Nayib Bukele seeks to crack down on the country’s powerful gangs. Bukele, who once described himself on Twitter as the “world’s coolest dictator,” has engaged in a prolonged attack on El Salvador’s democratic institutions. And the crackdown has resulted in a range of human rights abuses. At the same time, Bukele really does seem to have been successful in curbing gang violence, and his popularity is sky high.

To understand the situation in El Salvador, Lawfare Senior Editor Quinta Jurecic spoke with Manuel Meléndez-Sánchez, a PhD candidate in Political Science at Harvard University who has written about Bukele on Lawfare. They discussed why Bukele’s crackdown on the gangs seems to be working, why it might fall apart in the long term, and what Bukele’s rise means for democracy in El Salvador and around the world.

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0:55.3	including tips and advice, tune in to our podcast, Waterfall, by simply searching for CCW, waterfall. I'm Carolyn Cornett, intern at Lawfare, with an episode from the Lawfare
1:19.1	for March 22nd, 2025. Last week, the Trump administration appeared to defy a court order
1:26.6	prohibiting deportations under the
1:28.6	Alien Enemies Act. The administration deported migrants to El Salvador in a deal with President
1:34.7	Naïbe Buckele, who interred them in a mega prison notorious for its crowded conditions
1:40.1	and alleged human rights violations such as torture, inmate deaths, and mass trials.
1:46.0	For today's archive episode, I selected an episode from May 9th,
1:50.0	2003, in which Quinta Jurassic spoke to PhD candidate Manuel Melendez Sanchez
1:57.0	about Buckelay's prolonged attacks on El Salvador's democratic institutions and his efforts to crack down on gangs.
2:04.3	While his regime has engaged in human rights abuses, Buckele has succeeded at curbing gang violence and enjoys high popularity.
2:12.9	They discussed why Buckele's crackdown on the game seems to be working, why it might fall apart in the long run,
	...

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