Opinion | The High Price of Safety in El Salvador

Nöe del Cid watched his neighborhood come back to life from the seat of his wheelchair.

This tight row of cinderblock houses with barred windows and corrugated metal roofs formed, for much of Mr. del Cid’s life, a precarious border zone between enemy gangs. Bullet scars are still visible, chipped into the walls of houses and staining the flesh of residents like Mr. del Cid, who was partially paralyzed in 2003 by a gunshot to the neck.

In the two years since President Nayib Bukele unleashed his brutal crackdown on El Salvador’s gangs, most of the gangsters who once lorded over the neighborhood have been imprisoned, fled or gone into hiding, Mr. del Cid said.

“He took the action that we needed him to take. And not only that, he’s maintained it,” said Mr. del Cid, who at 38 is the president of the neighborhood’s community association. “It’s very admirable.”

When I visited the neighborhood recently, the street teemed with life — thickets of overgrown vines and hibiscus, neighbors gossiping on their stoops, Mr. del Cid’s wife deftly frying enchiladas on a gas cooktop propped on a table by the street. His mother, who lives across the way, keeps the TV running — when Mr. Bukele comes on, she uses a megaphone to broadcast the president’s words to the neighbors. You never know what he will say — or do! He’s part mafia boss, part Willy Wonka — a mercurial leader with a showman’s instincts, dropping dead-eyed threats between grand declarations of benevolence.

Earlier this summer, thanks to a free ride on a bus sent by the government, Mr. del Cid and his neighbors joined the adoring crowd outside the National Palace to witness Mr. Bukele’s inauguration. This second term is both legally indefensible (El Salvador’s Constitution bans consecutive re-election) and, like the president himself, wildly popular (he won by a landslide). Mr. Bukele took the occasion to warn people not to complain about the “bitter medicine” coming their way. This is one of his favorite catchphrases — and he means it.