This is CBSI on the world. I'm John Batchez. The New World Report with Professor Evan

Ellis of the U.S. Army War College, 43-year-old Naibuquele, the re-elected president of El Salvador.

Evan, this man has skills. Wow. Does it make sense to you that he's emerged as a superstar? Did you see that coming?

John, it absolutely makes sense, although sometimes in worrisome ways. But first of all, given that previously El Salvador has a very young population, a population

that had been also badly affected by violent at one point, 104 murders per 100,000 people.

I remember back in the late 2000s.

And so Buceli came with a combination of things in an atmosphere that was right for it.

So first of all, as a relatively young person who's media savvy, who's internet savvy,

he was able to cast himself as different and connect with the young people.

Number two, after winning an initial victory on his own party platform, his new ideas party

successfully controlled literally two-thirds of

the legislature, which basically gave him the power to do whatever he wanted. So that was where

you really saw the acceleration of a concept, which is to get the gangs under control, frankly, by

terror tactics. You know, with that legislative fiat, virtually

everybody in El Salvador, if you look, if you had a gang tattoo, if there's a reasonable suspicion,

you were a gang member, you got rounded up. They built a big new prison. They label the gangs as

terrorists. The new prison is called Sikot, which literally means terrorist confinement center.

And both in the

prisons and in the roundups, really it implemented a reign of what I would call terror. But that

terror dramatically decreased violence. And so literally El Salvador went from 104,000 murders per

100,000, 104 per 100,000 to about three per 100,000

today, which literally makes it safer than most parts of Canada.

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