SAN SALVADOR - El Salvador’s gang-busting President Nayib Bukele will be sworn in for a second term Saturday, more popular -- and more powerful -- than ever. “What he has demonstrated is that the law is irrelevant and that he can do whatever he wants, how he wants,” public policy expert Carlos Carcach told AFP, describing Bukele as an “all-powerful” president. Bukele insists that drastic action is needed to cure the country of the “cancer” of gangs. Another problem for Bukele: El Salvador’s public debt has skyrocketed on his watch to more than $30 billion, or 84 percent of GDP. In a bid to revitalize El Salvador’s dollarized, remittance-reliant economy, Bukele in 2021 made bitcoin legal tender -- the first country in the world to do so.
