‘Philosopher King’Not a fan of criticism, Bukele often resorts to irony online.He frequently changes his handle on X, formerly Twitter, having self-identified as “dictator of El Salvador” and the “world’s coolest dictator” in a sarcastic nod to detractors.Today he goes by “Philosopher King.”In spite of an apparent love for banter, Bukele has shown himself to be nothing if not ruthless.When gangs vowed to kill people at random in a response to his state of emergency, Bukele simply threatened to deprive jailed gangsters of food.Shortly after taking office, he ordered heavily armed police and soldiers to storm a then opposition-led parliament to intimidate MPs into approving a loan to finance an anti-crime plan.That led lawmakers to call for a congressional committee to have him declared “mentally incapable” of governing.Bukele’s New Ideas party and its allies subsequently won a majority in the legislative assembly which promptly replaced the five judges of the Supreme Court’s highest chamber and El Salvador’s attorney general — two institutions with which the president had clashed.It also replaced a third of all the country’s judges in what some see as part of a worrisome consolidation of power.The newly Bukele-aligned Supreme Court allowed him to seek reelection despite a constitutional single-term limit — giving him a six-month leave of absence prior to the vote, with a caretaker president in place.Bukele is also headstrong. He took a gamble on bitcoin, swatting away warnings about volatility risks to have it declared official tender and investing an undisclosed amount of taxpayer money in the currency.Bukele is married to Gabriela Rodriguez, a psychologist and ballet dancer with whom he has two children.
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