“It’s a miracle. It’s a miracle.” This is how Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele described the radical transformation his nation has undergone in recent years.

“We were literally the murder capital of the world,” the 43-year-old leader said in a June 5 interview with Tucker Carlson, “and we have turned it into the safest country in the Western Hemisphere.”

These statements may sound like exaggerations. But the facts show that they are accurate. The main question is not if this transformation happened but how.

‘The Real Government Was the Gangs’

For much of this century, El Salvador suffered twin crises of corrupt politicians and extreme gang violence.

Government officials failed to confront the brutal MS-13 and Barrio 18 gangs, and even established formalized negotiations with their leaders. This resulted in gangs gaining de facto control of parts of the nation. For many Salvadorans, there was no higher authority in their area than the gang members, whose drug dealing and violence sent the number of murders to a peak of 6,640 per year—or 18 per day. For a nation of only 6.2 million people, this is a gut-wrenching rate: around 105 murders per 100,000 individuals.

That’s higher than the intentional homicide rate in Haiti, South Africa, Jamaica and every other nation on Earth.

Most of El Salvador’s people were appalled by the drug dealing, violence and other lawlessness, and desperately wanted change. Thousands fled the nation each year, fearing for their lives and for their children, who were at risk of being recruited, killed or worse. Sara Leon was among those who fled the country, along with her 6-year-old daughter. “If the gangs saw a cute girl, they abducted her, abused her, and killed her,” she told Time in February. “I didn’t want that to happen to my daughter.”

Bukele said, “[T]he real government was the gangs,” so bringing an end to the unspeakable evil seemed like “an impossible task.”

Yet he was determined to try.

After a reasonably successful three-year stint as mayor of the small town of Nuevo Cuscatlán, Bukele ran in 2015 for mayor of San Salvador, the capital and largest city. This is where most of the nation’s violence was concentrated, and he campaigned on promises to combat corruption and gang crime. And he won.

As mayor, Bukele led a program to “have a light on every corner of San Salvador,” and installed thousands of surveillance cameras in crime-ridden areas. He also aimed at the roots of the problem, creating a scholarship and a sports program to give San Salvador’s young people opportunities that would steer them away from gangs. He donated his entire salary each year to the scholarship.

The measures yielded some notable results, including a reduction in El Salvador’s overall murder rate. It was inspiring to see.

But Bukele was just getting started.

In 2019, at age 37, he ran for president. He campaigned on promises to intensify and expand his fight against crime and to accomplish nothing short of ending gang violence nationwide. His track record as mayor and campaign promises resonated with a slim majority of the people. With 53 percent of the vote, he broke the two-party system that had corruptly ruled the country for 30 years, and he became the youngest president in El Salvador’s history.

When Bukele took office, nearly 70,000 gang members were active and in control of much of the nation. Corruption, murder and all manner of violent crime were rampant, and the economy languished, partly because gangs forced business owners to either pay renta or suffer violence.

On June 19, 2019, just days after his inauguration, Bukele announced a multiphase plan to eradicate the gangs. And it would start that very night at midnight.

The Official Plan and the Real Plan

One component of the plan was to work with international intelligence agencies and internal organizations to investigate corrupt Salvadoran politicians and other gang financiers. “As long as we don’t go after those at the top who are financing these crimes, we won’t be able to stop them,” Bukele said.

He sat down with every official in his executive branch and told them they would each be investigated: “You can see that everyone here is from the executive branch … that I oversee, except for one person: the attorney general. He’s not part of the executive branch, but he’s here for a simple reason: I want to ask him publicly to investigate everyone sitting here. Retroactively and into the future.”

He continued: “I want to be remembered as the president who didn’t steal and didn’t let anyone else steal, either. And the one who put whoever stole in prison.”

Another major part of Bukele’s plan was to build up both police and army forces, and reorient the army toward crime-fighting. Both policemen and soldiers were also armed to the teeth, equipped with more advanced gear, and legally empowered to arrest suspects without warrants, including both gang members and their collaborators. Law enforcers were authorized to use whatever force was necessary to subdue them.

The plan included a phase called “extraction,” during which security forces would mobilize nearly all their manpower to surround a certain city or area. In Bukele’s words, these forces would then “extract the terrorists” who were “hiding within the communities, without giving them the slightest possibility of escape.”

The plan called for a thorough overhaul of El Salvador’s prisons, which had often functioned as gang headquarters. Incarcerated gang members could no longer communicate with members on the outside. All prison cash flows were halted. Corrupt prison guards were made to take their place among the inmates and were replaced by law-abiding men.

Bukele told the people of El Salvador that they must elect more congressmen who would support him so the plan could be implemented with greater strength. “We needed a huge majority in Congress,” he said, “because we not only need to approve laws, we need to get all these [corrupt politicians] out. And the only way to get it out democratically, and respecting the rules of the system, is if we get a huge, immense majority in Congress.”

In the 2021 elections, the people gave him not just a congressional majority but an unprecedented supermajority. The war shifted into overdrive.

In March 2022, Bukele said the fight would further intensify under legal acknowledgment that El Salvador was in a “state of emergency.” This was a measure normally used only for brief periods after catastrophes, such as earthquakes. But legislators aligned with Bukele to approve the measure, and this “state of emergency” has been extended every month since. In this modified emergency framework, detainees are denied legal defense and minors are tried as adults, which closes legal loopholes that gangs and corrupt politicians were exploiting.

In formulating his plan, Bukele also remained mindful of the roots of the problem. He created and expanded programs to combat poverty and unemployment, and to give young people more educational and athletic opportunities.

All of this is what he calls “the official plan.” And since taking office, President Bukele has led his security cabinet, police force and army in relentlessly implementing it. But he says the reason he has succeeded where so many of his predecessors failed was not because of this official plan but because of what he calls “the real formula.”

“It was an impossible task” because “they were everywhere and they were killing randomly,” he said. “I basically said, Well … we’re looking into an impossible, impossible mission here, so we prayed … several times … for the wisdom to win the war” (emphasis added).

“There’s a spiritual war and there’s a physical war,” he said, and “if you win the spiritual war, it will reflect into the physical war …. [O]ur impressive victory was because we won the spiritual war very, very fast.”

Having this “real formula” apparently empowering the human efforts has produced remarkable results. “Our murder rate is 2,” he said, which is down a stunning 98 percent from the peak. “We’re safer than Canada, safer than Chile, safer than Uruguay, safer than the U.S., safer than any country in the Western Hemisphere.”

Bukele also says that he and his security cabinet specifically prayed to have as few law-enforcement and civilian casualties as possible. After imprisoning some 70,000 gang members, the count for slain police and soldiers is eight; slain civilians, zero.

“It’s a miracle,” he said. “It’s a miracle.”

El Salvador Today

El Salvador today is still no Shangri-La. A significant portion of the population still lives in poverty. Access to quality education and good employment remains limited. Almost 2 percent of the adult population is behind bars, the highest incarceration rate on Earth. And there are concerns about violation of civil liberties in society and human rights abuses in the prisons. There are also fears that in Bukele’s zeal and determination, more than a few innocents were arrested and convicted and are currently imprisoned wrongfully in abysmal circumstances.

These are serious concerns and problems. But for the overwhelming majority of El Salvador’s law-abiding citizens, there is no other way to describe the improvements resulting from Bukele’s leadership than as a miracle. And in February, an astounding 84 percent of those people voted to give him five more years at the nation’s helm to preserve and continue the dramatic transformation.

This landslide victory makes Bukele arguably the most popular elected official on Earth. It also shows that his people’s approval of his methods, despite any concerns of overreach, could scarcely be more enthusiastic. “He is the best that God could have sent to this country,” Salvadoran Gesenia García told Time.

Many Salvadorans who had previously fled the nation are now returning, including Sara Leon, who had fled with her daughter. “If he’s a dictator, may we have a dictator for 100 more years,” she said on election day, overwhelmed with emotion. “May he stay in power.”

Trumpet

Many other leaders in Latin America and beyond are also looking to Bukele in hopes of replicating his success in their nations. Political scientist Steven Levitsky summarized the sentiment: “Everybody wants to be a Bukele.”

Bukele playfully describes himself as a “philosopher king” and the “world’s coolest dictator.” But in seriousness, he claims that all of his accomplishments have happened in accordance with Salvadoran law. “We have never not respected a single rule,” he said. “It’s not like all these rules were, you know, these rules are not given by God. These rules were written by people. But still, we respected all the rules.”

There is a simple law of cause and effect. There are laws that can bring about peace, and if we follow them it will bring peace—individually and nationally. Bukele’s predecessors failed to enforce the nation’s laws, and the effects of their leadership were horrendous beyond words. But since Bukele caused them to be rigorously enforced, and since he appears to have requested divine assistance in doing so, the effect was a remarkably more lawful, safe and peaceful society.

Foretaste of the Future

Millions in El Salvador and around the world are inspired by the “miracle” that has been accomplished under Bukele’s leadership, and they eagerly anticipate his future achievements. At the same time, though, we know that Bukele and El Salvador’s transformation are merely a somewhat bright spot—perhaps even tragically temporary—in a dark, unstable world. Injustices from the past cannot be undone. Injustices in the future are inevitable.

Yet this dramatic transformation, however imperfect or temporary, can help us contemplate another Ruler who will soon use all force necessary to perfectly eradicate rebellion and to establish lasting peace. “And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron …” (Revelation 19:15).

This future Ruler will not just be asking for assistance and wisdom from God, He is God. And He will enforce a perfect law in order to bring not imperfect improvement but pure and universal peace—not just to one small nation but to the entire Earth.

In his booklet The Wonderful World Tomorrow—What It Will Be Like, the late Herbert W. Armstrong wrote about this radiant future: “Christ, the King of kings. Perfect in character, absolute in honesty, integrity, faithfulness, loyalty and trust; filled with outgoing concern for the governed—their welfare and salvation; total knowledge, understanding, wisdom. Perfect love, mercy, patience, kindness, compassion, forgiveness. Yet possessing total power, and never compromising one millionth of an inch with His perfect law—which is the way of love. He will enforce God’s law—God’s government on Earth. He will compel haughty, carnal, rebellious humans to yield in complete submission to God’s government.

“No one will be deceived—as the vast majority of mankind is today. All will know the truth. No more religious confusion. Eyes will be opened to the truth. Humans will become teachable. People will start living God’s way—the way of outgoing concern for others—the way of the true values—the way of peace, of happiness, of well-being, of joy.”

This future peace will be infinitely beyond anything any person could accomplish, and it will leave no man, woman or child behind. It is inspiring beyond words to contemplate.