Why Salvadoreans love their populist president, Nayib Bukele

OUTSIDE A POLLING station in El Salvador’s capital city Jennifer Vásquez, a 36-year-old selling water, explains why she voted for candidates from New Ideas, the party of the president, who is just a few years older than she is. “Nayib Bukele has done things no president has ever done before,” she gushes, dressed in a T-shirt the sky blue of Mr Bukele’s party. “We have received packages of food, including tuna and rice, and he is going to send computers to my children.”

Most voters in the country of 6.5m seem similarly smitten. New Ideas won a landslide in the legislative and municipal elections on February 28th. The party, which was founded in 2018—too late for the previous general election—won at least 56 seats in the 84-seat assembly, giving it a two-thirds majority.