El Salvadoran president praises God and dunks on haters after landslide re-election

Nayib Bukele, El Salvador's tough-on-crime president, has been re-elected with 83% of the vote, leaving his "pulverized" opposition in the dust, roughly 70 points behind. The 42-year-old populist's New Ideas party also appears to have secured 58 out of the 60 seats in the National Assembly, which will enable Bukele to maintain the controversial state of emergency that has all but ensured the elimination of gang violence in the country.

Both in the lead-up to Bukele's landslide victory and in the days since, foreign leftists such as Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and liberal publications such as the Economist have concern-mongered about Salvadorans threatening democracy by exercising their civic right to elect Bukele to another term.

Bukele made sure to send such foreign critics a message in his victory speech Sunday night, stressing, "The Salvadoran people have spoken. And they haven't just spoken loudly and clearly; they have made the clearest statement in the history of democracies around the world."

Hours after telling reporters Sunday that El Salvador had overcome the cancer "with metastases that were the gangs" and is now set to recover and "be the person we always wanted to be," Bukele took to the presidential balcony with his wife, Gabriela, to the sound of REM's "It's the End of the World as We Know It."

After boasting about his latest accomplishment, Bukele gave a brief summary of the country's triumph over crime: "We have gone from being literally, and this is no exaggeration — it's not hyperbole — we have gone from being literally the most dangerous country in the world to being the safest country in the entire Western Hemisphere."

Blaze News previously reported that there were 51 homicides per 100,000 in 2018, the year before Bukele first entered office. The homicide rate dropped to 7.8 in 2022 under his leadership, such that El Salvador saw fewer homicides that year (495) than were reported in Chicago during the same period (695).

"We lived through 50 horrible years of wars and killing, and everything has changed," Ana Rodriguez, a 70-year-old voter, told the Economist.

The homicide rate in El Salvador last year was reportedly 2.4 per 100,000. Canada's, by way of comparison, was 2.25 in 2022, and the U.S. is pushing 8 per 100,000.

Bukele told thousands of his supporters Sunday, "[El Salvador is] the safest country in the American continent. And what did they tell us? 'You're violating human rights.' Whose human rights? The rights of the honest people? No. Perhaps we have prioritized the rights of the honest people over the criminals' rights. That is all we have done."

Rep. Omar and other Democratic lawmakers urged the U.S. State Department to lean on El Salvador ahead of its national election last week, noting in a statement, "President Bukele is amassing power and establishing authoritarian rule in El Salvador. The Members of Congress are urging the State Department to review its relationship with El Salvador and use America's diplomatic influence to defend democratic values."

"I ask these organizations, I ask the governments of these foreign nations, I ask these journalists: 'Why do you want them to kill us? Why do you want to see Salvadoran blood spilled? Why aren't you happy to see that blood doesn't run in our country as it did before?" continued the Salvadoran. "'Why should we die? Why should our children die? So that you can be happy that we are respecting your false democracy, which you don't even respect in your own country?'"

The president shared an anecdote about a conversation with a Spanish journalist who supposedly asked him why he wanted to "dismantle democracy."

"I answered: 'What democracy are you referring to? Democracy means the power of the people. Demos and kratos. That's where the word democracy comes from,'" said Bukele. "And if this is what the Salvadoran people want, then why should a Spanish journalist come and tell us what Salvadorans can and can't do? What democracy is he talking about? He's talking about the democracy that his bosses in Spain want."

Bukele suggested the alternatives were imperialism, colonialism, elitism, or plutocracy in disguise.

After telling off his foreign detractors, Bukele dismissed secularist anxieties, then praised God.

"We must give all glory to God," said Bukele, eliciting applause and cheers from the crowd. "Because what are we if not His instruments? We are all the tools of God. God chose to heal our country. ... We respect all religions; we respect atheists and agnostics. We are their friends, but let us believe in God."

Alluding to possible concerns over his religious statement, Bukele added, "Maybe the problem [of praising God] is that it sets an example. Because maybe the people in your countries who you have tried to indoctrinate into atheism will once again believe in God."

Félix Ulloa, Bukele's vice president, reportedly indicated that now that the government has "cleaned the house" of crime, the administration will make education, health, and infrasructure top priorities.

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