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How Nayib Bukele's 'Iron Fist' Has Transformed El Salvador | TIME

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Before he became arguably the most popular head of state in the world, Nayib Bukele was an adman. The President of El Salvador has branded himself the “world’s coolest dictator” and a “philosopher king,” but he is, perhaps above all, a former publicist attuned to the power of image—his own and his country’s. On the day we met in late June, at the presidential offices in San Salvador, Bukele was dressed all in black. Nine brilliant peacocks roamed the lawn outside. “A leader should be a philosopher before he is a king,” Bukele told me, reclining in a chair as the sun set over the lush jungle grounds, “rather than the typical politician who is hated by their people.” It was Bukele’s first interview with a foreign reporter in three years. The occasion was something of a victory lap. At 43, he has remade a nation that was once the world’s murder capital, turning it into a country safer than Canada, according to Salvadoran government data. Bukele’s policy of mano dura—iron fist—drove an agg

You can read the transcript of the interview here and the Spanish version here . Before he became arguably the most popular head of state in the world, Nayib Bukele was an adman. The President of El Salvador has branded himself the “world’s coolest dictator” and a “philosopher king,” but he is, perhaps above all, a former publicist attuned to the power of image—his own and his country’s. On the day we met in late June, at the presidential offices in San Salvador, Bukele was dressed all in black. Nine brilliant peacocks roamed the lawn outside. “A leader should be a philosopher before he is a k

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