The Most Famous

POLITICIANS from El Salvador

This page contains a list of the greatest Salvadoran Politicians. The pantheon dataset contains 19,576 Politicians, 15 of which were born in El Salvador. This makes El Salvador the birth place of the 115th most number of Politicians behind Kuwait, and Dominican Republic.

Top 10

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the top 10 most legendary Salvadoran Politicians of all time. This list of famous Salvadoran Politicians is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity. Visit the rankings page to view the entire list of Salvadoran Politicians.

1. Salvador Sánchez Cerén (b. 1944)

With an HPI of 60.05, Salvador Sánchez Cerén is the most famous Salvadoran Politician. His biography has been translated into 43 different languages on wikipedia.

Salvador Sánchez Cerén (Spanish pronunciation: [salβaˈðoɾ ˈsantʃes seˈɾen]; born 18 June 1944), also known by his nom de guerre Leonel González, is a Salvadoran politician who served as the 42nd President of El Salvador between 1 June 2014 and 1 June 2019. He took office on 1 June 2014, after winning the 2014 presidential election as the candidate of the left-wing Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN). He previously served as Vice President under President Mauricio Funes from 2009 to 2014. He was also a guerrilla leader in the Civil War and is the first and only ex-rebel to serve as that country's president.

2. Nayib Bukele (b. 1981)

With an HPI of 56.35, Nayib Bukele is the 2nd most famous Salvadoran Politician. His biography has been translated into 60 different languages.

Nayib Armando Bukele Ortez (Spanish pronunciation: [naˈʝiβ buˈkele]; born 24 July 1981) is a Salvadoran politician and businessman who is the 43rd president of El Salvador, serving since 1 June 2019. He is the first Salvadoran president since 1984 who was not elected as a candidate of one of the country's two major political parties: the right-wing Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA) and the left-wing Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), of which Bukele was formerly a member. Beginning in 1999, Bukele worked at an advertising company owned by his father and also established his own advertising company. Both his and his father's companies advertised election campaigns for the FMLN. In 2011, Bukele announced that he would enter politics, and in 2012, he officially became a member of the FMLN. That year, he was elected as the mayor of Nuevo Cuscatlán and served until 2015. That same year, Bukele was elected as the mayor of San Salvador and served until 2018. In 2017, Bukele was ousted from the FMLN, and shortly afterwards, he founded the Nuevas Ideas political party with which he sought to pursue a presidential campaign in 2019. After the Supreme Electoral Court (TSE) refused to register his party, Bukele ran for president with the Grand Alliance for National Unity (GANA) and won with 53 percent of the vote. In July 2019, Bukele implemented the Territorial Control Plan, an anti-gang program that sought to reduce the country's homicide rate which stood at 38 homicides per 100,000 people in 2019. Homicides decreased by 50 percent during Bukele's first year which he attributed to the Territorial Control Plan. The El Faro digital newspaper and the United States Department of State accused Bukele's government of secretly negotiating with gangs to reduce the homicide rate. After over 80 persons were killed by gangs over the span of one weekend in March 2022, Bukele's government initiated a nationwide crackdown on gangs. This has resulted in the arrests of over 79,000 people with alleged gang affiliations as of 2 April 2024, with over 12,000 of them incarcerated at the Terrorism Confinement Center. The country's homicide rate has decreased to 2.4 homicides per 100,000 as of 2023. In 2021, Bukele passed a law which declared bitcoin as legal tender in El Salvador, and he has promoted plans to build a Bitcoin City powered by geothermal energy to mine bitcoin. In June 2023, the Legislative Assembly approved two of Bukele's proposals to reduce both the number of municipalities from 262 to 44 and the number of seats in the Legislative Assembly from 84 to 60; the reductions will go into effect on 1 May 2024. Politicians, activists, and journalists have accused Bukele of governing in an authoritarian and autocratic manner. In February 2020 Bukele ordered 40 soldiers into the Legislative Assembly building to intimidate lawmakers to approve a US$109 million loan for the Territorial Control Plan. In May 2021, after Nuevas Ideas won a supermajority in the Legislative Assembly in that year's legislative election, Bukele's allies in the legislature voted to remove the attorney general and all five justices of the Supreme Court of Justice's Constitutional Chamber, replacing them with Bukele's allies. Bukele has attacked journalists and news media outlets on social media and has implemented laws which critics claim censor the press. Bukele ran for re-election in the 2024 presidential election, when the country's constitution was previously interpreted as banning consecutive re-election, and won with over 85 percent of the vote. Before Bukele's presidency, he considered himself to be a member of the "radical left". Since becoming president, he has not identified with any political ideology. During Bukele's presidency, political analysts have described him as a populist and a conservative. Bukele retains high job approval ratings and is highly popular both within El Salvador and across Latin America.

3. Maximiliano Hernández Martínez (1882 - 1966)

With an HPI of 55.61, Maximiliano Hernández Martínez is the 3rd most famous Salvadoran Politician. His biography has been translated into 26 different languages.

Maximiliano Hernández Martínez (21 October 1882 – 15 May 1966) was a Salvadoran military officer and politician who served as president of El Salvador from 4 December 1931 to 28 August 1934 in a provisional capacity and again in an official capacity from 1 March 1935 until his resignation on 9 May 1944. Martínez was the leader of El Salvador during most of World War II. Martínez began his military career in the Salvadoran Army, attended the Polytechnic School of Guatemala, and attained the rank of brigadier general by 1919. He ran for president during the 1931 presidential election but withdrew his candidacy and instead endorsed Labor Party candidate Arturo Araujo, who selected Martínez to serve as his vice president and later minister of defense. After the Salvadoran military overthrew Araujo in December 1931, the military junta established by the coup plotters, known as the Civic Directory, named Martínez as the country's provisional president. His presidency was not recognized by the United States or other Central American countries until January 1934. The 1931 coup and Martínez's succession to the presidency allowed for the rise of a series of military dictatorships that held on to power in El Salvador until 1979. Martínez served as president of El Salvador for more than 12 years, making him the longest-serving president in Salvadoran history, and his presidency is sometimes referred to as the Martinato. In January 1932, shortly after assuming the presidency, Martínez crushed a communist and indigenous rebellion; the mass killings committed by the Salvadoran military police following the rebellion's suppression have since been referred to as La Matanza (Spanish for "The Massacre") and resulted in the deaths of between 10,000 and 40,000 peasants. Martínez ruled El Salvador as a totalitarian one-party state led by the National Pro Patria Party, a political party he established in 1933 to support his 1935 presidential election campaign. The 1935, 1939, and 1944 presidential elections, were uncontested and Martínez received every vote cast. Martínez established the Central Reserve Bank and engaged in infrastructure projects such as building the Pan-American Highway in El Salvador, building the Cuscatlán Bridge in central El Salvador, and inaugurating the Nacional Flor Blanca stadium, which held the 1935 Central American and Caribbean Games. The Salvadoran economy almost exclusively relied on coffee production and exports during Martínez's presidency, particularly to Germany and the United States. El Salvador joined the Allied powers of World War II and declared war on Germany, Italy, and Japan in December 1941. Following an attempted coup in April 1944 and massive civil unrest following the execution of the coup's leaders, Martínez resigned as president in May 1944, and he and his family fled the country. In 1966, Martínez was killed in exile at his home in Honduras by his taxi driver following a labor dispute. Martínez remains a controversial figure in El Salvador. Martínez was a fascist and admired European dictators such as Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. During the lead-up to World War II, he and many of his government officials held sympathies for the Nazis and Axis powers; however, sympathizers were later purged from government after El Salvador joined the war on the side of the Allies. Martínez was a theosophist, believed in the occult, and had a number of religious and personal beliefs that his contemporaries considered unorthodox. During the Salvadoran Civil War (1979–1992), a death squad named after him claimed responsibility for the assassinations of several left-wing politicians.

4. Farabundo Martí (1893 - 1932)

With an HPI of 54.76, Farabundo Martí is the 4th most famous Salvadoran Politician. His biography has been translated into 20 different languages.

Agustín Farabundo Martí Rodríguez (Spanish pronunciation: [faɾaˈβundo maɾˈti]; 5 May 1893 – 1 February 1932) was a Marxist-Leninist activist and a revolutionary leader in El Salvador during La Matanza.

5. José Napoleón Duarte (1925 - 1990)

With an HPI of 52.27, José Napoleón Duarte is the 5th most famous Salvadoran Politician. His biography has been translated into 26 different languages.

José Napoleón Duarte Fuentes (23 November 1925 – 23 February 1990) was a Salvadoran politician who served as President of El Salvador from 1 June 1984 to 1 June 1989. He was mayor of San Salvador before running for president in 1972. He lost, but the election is widely viewed as fraudulent. Following a coup d'état in 1979, Duarte led the subsequent civil-military Junta from 1980 to 1982. He was then elected president in 1984, defeating ARENA party leader Roberto D'Aubuisson. Supported by the Reagan Administration and the Central Intelligence Agency, his time in office occurred during the worst years of the Salvadoran Civil War which saw numerous abuses and massacres of the civilian population by the Salvadoran security forces and the death squads linked to them.

6. Alfredo Cristiani (b. 1947)

With an HPI of 51.85, Alfredo Cristiani is the 6th most famous Salvadoran Politician. His biography has been translated into 27 different languages.

Alfredo Félix Cristiani Burkard (born 22 November 1947) is a Salvadoran politician who was President of El Salvador from 1989 to 1994.

7. Fidel Sánchez Hernández (1917 - 2003)

With an HPI of 50.88, Fidel Sánchez Hernández is the 7th most famous Salvadoran Politician. His biography has been translated into 22 different languages.

Fidel Sánchez Hernández (7 July 1917 – 28 February 2003) was a Salvadoran military officer and politician who served as president of El Salvador from 1967 to 1972. During his rule, Sánchez Hernández faced war and economic turmoil.

8. Armando Calderón Sol (1948 - 2017)

With an HPI of 49.16, Armando Calderón Sol is the 8th most famous Salvadoran Politician. His biography has been translated into 25 different languages.

Armando Calderón Sol (24 June 1948 – 9 October 2017) was President of El Salvador from 1 June 1994, to 1 June 1999, representing the Nationalist Republican Alliance. He was the first president elected in El Salvador after twelve years of civil war.

9. Arturo Armando Molina (1927 - 2021)

With an HPI of 49.08, Arturo Armando Molina is the 9th most famous Salvadoran Politician. His biography has been translated into 18 different languages.

Colonel Arturo Armando Molina Barraza (6 August 1927 – 18 July 2021) was a Salvadoran politician and military officer, who served as President of El Salvador from 1972 to 1977. He was born in San Salvador. He served between 1 July 1972 and 1 July 1977. The 1973 oil crisis led to rising food prices and decreased agricultural output. This worsened the existent socioeconomic inequality in the country, leading to increased unrest. In response, Molina enacted a series of land reform measures, calling for large landholdings to be redistributed among the peasant population.Molina was distrusted by the oligarchy and the right-wing military, and was resented by the opposition from whom he had stolen power. His attempts to silence opposition included the military occupation of the University of El Salvador in 1972, as well as violently suppressing student protests that erupted after public funds were used to hold the Miss Universe contest in San Salvador. He also oversaw assassinations of priests in the country. His regime saw extreme polarization and violence in the country. His tenure ended in 1977, and then he left the country. Molina returned to El Salvador in 1992.He died on 18 July 2021 in California, at the age of 93.

10. Carlos Humberto Romero (1924 - 2017)

With an HPI of 47.89, Carlos Humberto Romero is the 10th most famous Salvadoran Politician. His biography has been translated into 19 different languages.

Carlos Humberto Romero Mena (29 February 1924 – 27 February 2017) was a Salvadoran military general and politician who served as president of El Salvador from 1 July 1977 until his overthrow on 15 October 1979. Romero was the final president of the country's military dictatorship which began in 1931.

People

Pantheon has 17 people classified as Salvadoran politicians born between 1834 and 1981. Of these 17, 5 (29.41%) of them are still alive today. The most famous living Salvadoran politicians include Salvador Sánchez Cerén, Nayib Bukele, and Alfredo Cristiani. The most famous deceased Salvadoran politicians include Maximiliano Hernández Martínez, Farabundo Martí, and José Napoleón Duarte. As of April 2024, 2 new Salvadoran politicians have been added to Pantheon including Schafik Hándal, and Claudia Rodríguez de Guevara.