CNN —Polls are open in El Salvador, where the strongman president Nayib Bukele is expected to easily win a second term amid a dramatic turnaround in the country’s once-sky high levels of violence.
Bukele, 42, faced little in the way of organized opposition and enjoys one of the highest favorability ratings in the region, regularly polling above 70% in independent surveys.
His supporters trumpet a crackdown on criminal gangs in the country that resulted in a dramatic fall in the murder rate, once the highest in the world.
But the mass arrests – El Salvador now has the world’s highest incarceration rate – have also triggered outcry from human rights groups, who allege Bukele’s government has detained innocent people and subjected prisoners to dehumanizing conditions behind bars, including torture.
A lopsided win for Bukele would likely give the young leader more leeway to reform El Salvador in his heavy-handed vision.
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