CRedEye

Nayib Bukele : L’homme qui a transformé le Salvador d’enfer à paradis en quelques années Nayib Bukele a radicalement transformé El Salvador. Les homicides sont passés de 2 398 en 2019 à seulement 114 en 2024, soit un taux historique de 1,9 pour 100 000 habitants. Grâce à l’état d’urgence déclaré en 2022 et plus de 85 000 arrestations, le pays est devenu l’un des plus sûrs d’Amérique. Il a déclaré : « Le prix d’être traité d’autoritaire est trop faible pour m’inquiéter »

Bukele made a bet that security is the foundation layer. That everything, GDP, tourism, foreign investment, diaspora return, builds on top of safety. The numbers say he was right. The method will be debated for decades. In 2015, El Salvador had a murder rate of 106.3 per 100,000. The literal murder capital of the world. Six years of failed truces, 16 killings per day, entire neighborhoods paying monthly extortion to MS-13 just to keep their doors open. Today the murder rate is 1.9 per 100,000. That's a 98% drop. In 2025 it fell further to 1.36. In 2026 so far, the country is on pace for 0.22 homicides per day. El Salvador is now safer than the United States, Canada, and most of Western Europe. The second-order effects are where the real story lives. Tourism went from 1.7 million visitors in 2019 to 3.9 million in 2024 to over 4 million in 2025. Tourism's share of GDP doubled from 6.4% to 14% in five years. A guy whose father was killed by gang members over $200/month extortion demands left the country in 2014, came back in 2024, and opened an Airbnb. 85,000 arrests. 80,000+ gang members detained. The world's highest incarceration rate at 1,086 per 100,000. A 40,000-capacity mega-prison with plans to double it to 80,000. 94% approval rating. Re-elected with 85% of the vote while the constitution previously banned consecutive terms. The tradeoff is real and it's worth stating clearly: suspended due process, mass detention, documented cases of torture and abuse, zero transparency, dismantled judicial independence, no free press access. Every human rights organization on earth has flagged it. The constitutional court that allowed his re-election was packed with his own appointees. And his approval rating went up. Murder capital of the world to safer than the United States in seven years. 106 per 100,000 to 1.9. Tourism doubled. GDP contribution tripled. The JW Marriott is breaking ground in a city where taxi drivers wouldn't cross certain blocks a decade ago.