General feeling of a somewhat wide sample of my social circle, that encompasses various South American countries, Europe, and the US.

Same goes for the Salvadoreans I know.

Overall I feel it's only a combination of foreign NGOs + a domestic progressive minority that criticize Bukele.

I think El Salvador has a very well run media-and-public relations department that creates media and guidelines for publications in different markets (countries). It relies on social media, instead of relying on traditional public broadcasting like German's Deutsche Welle, British BBC or U.S Voice of America.

This has given El Salvador lots of "soft-power". What I've seen is that it will talk about (well researched) the target audience's pain points and show how El Salvador solves them.

Not sure I follow. You're saying El Salvador has an extensive and apparently successful propaganda apparatus that uses social media instead of state-controlled broadcasting. And thus the perspective of El Salvador held by those who do not live there is wrong? Not clear what you're suggesting.

> And thus the perspective of El Salvador held by those who do not live there is wrong?

Sometimes wrong, sometimes contradictory and most of the times a very sugarcoated version of reality.

Okay, so what is actually happening in El Salvador?