MEXICO CITY In his first two years in office, El Salvador’s president marched soldiers into the country’s legislature, defied Supreme Court rulings, published photos of barely clothed gang members crammed together on a prison floor and dispatched the military to detain anyone breaking quarantine.
Salvadorans can’t get enough of him. President Nayib Bukele, who enjoys an approval rating around 90 percent in polls, is expected to expand his mandate even further in legislative elections on Sunday that could deliver a decisive victory to his party.
The vote could also endow Mr. Bukele with sweeping new powers: control over a legislature that has been dominated by the opposition, along with the chance to begin changing the Constitution and, possibly, to remake the government in his image. If his party and its allies win two-thirds of the seats, they can replace the attorney general and appoint new Supreme Court justices.