President Nayib Bukele walked up a red carpet and into El Salvador’s congress where armed soldiers lined the chamber. He sat down in the Speakers’ chair, repudiated lawmakers who hadn’t passed his security plan, then put his hands together to pray.
“I asked God, and God told me: ‘patience’,” he told angry supporters gathered outside afterwards. “If they don’t approve the plan . . . I’m not going to stand between the people and Article 87 of the constitution,” he said, referring to a clause permitting insurrection.
The shocking stunt in 2020, less than a year after Bukele took office, preceded a rapid concentration of power in Central America’s smallest country. The backwards baseball cap-wearing strongman, who has more TikTok followers than leaders of much larger countries, has won admirers across Latin America.