In the small Central American nation of El Salvador, recent years have witnessed the rise of a new model of autocrat who embodies the worst tendencies of this first quarter of the twenty-first century. His name is Nayib Armando Bukele Ortez. The world now knows him,...
Costa Rica heads to the polls this Sunday, February 1, to elect a new president and a new Legislative Assembly. Laura Fernández, candidate of President Rodrigo Chaves’s Pueblo Soberano party, leads the polls by a wide margin over a decimated opposition; and even...
The latest report from the Salvadoran organization Legal Humanitarian Aid (SJH) documents 470 deaths among detainees during the 45-month state of exception spearheaded by Nayib Bukele. The investigation concludes that “a high percentage of people who entered the...
Approximately 1,300 detained persons died in El Salvador’s prisons between March 2022 and December 2025—the period during which the state of exception has remained in effect. Of that figure, 470 cases are documented in detail, revealing that some of the deceased...
“When Bukele ran for the presidency in 2018, the people of El Salvador were desperate,” explains Óscar Martínez, exiled in Mexico City since 2025. In his book, he dissects Nayib Bukele’s rise to power and how his political persona took shape through his...
Juan Hernández arrived at the Jan. 7 press conference in a uniform that became commonplace in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic: full-body white medical protective gear, including a cap, mask and safety goggles. When it was his turn to speak, he read a statement...
