El Salvador's popular hardline president boasted over his soaring approval ratings on social media following his government's strict crime crackdown. 

Nayib Bukele has imprisoned over 65,000 gang members since he introduced an 'iron fist' approach to the country's rampant cartel activity in March 2022. 

Varying polls have seen the 42-year-old's support rocket to around 90 percent as a result, with Bukele retweeting favorable statistics about his tenure on Tuesday after they were posted by controversial conservative Twitter account 'End Wokeness'. 

Bukele shared the account, which boasts 1.4 million followers, to highlight how record incarceration levels and intractable policing have essentially put an end to cartel dominance in the nation. 

'He took one of the deadliest countries and made it the safest in Latin America,' the account said. 'How did he do it? He jailed the criminals.' 

Bukele's tough-on-crime approach was evident as soon as he was elected president over four years ago, when he announced a 'territorial control plan' to target gang activity. 

El Salvador was still reeling from one of the worst crime waves in recent memory, reaching a staggering 107 homicides per 100,000 people in 2015, according to data from the World Bank. 

More than 4,000 people were arrested in the first few weeks of his tenure, and the widespread arrests saw murder rates plummet to just 18 per 100,000 by 2021. 

Although crime rates improved, Bukele clearly wasn't satisfied, and he stepped up his administration's focus on gangs last year amid an increase in activity, particularly from infamous cartel MS-13.