Thousands of refugees fled into poor neighborhoods in the US where Mexican and other American gangs already existed and this led to the formation of MS-13, a notorious organization. Over the years thousands of MS-13 gang members were deported or traveled back to El Salvador and became prolific throughout the country. When the civil war ended, the rebels became a political party(FMLN). Both parties traded presidencies over the years but due to poverty and post-war devastation were very ineffective at combatting gang violence, running the economy, and maintaining public order.
Bukele, a descendant of Palestinian immigrants from the former Ottoman empire -an ethnic group long discriminated against and held back from holding public office in El Salvador- is part of a new party called Nuevas Ideas.
This new democratically elected third party won a majority of its government seats and the presidency but is not well liked by the Biden administration. It has been accused of "subverting democracy" for replacing judges accused of corruption and of violating the human rights of gangsters who by definition have to commit a violent crime to initiate into the gang and are pledged to it for life. He's achieved this by doing broad roundups of hundreds of gangsters at a time. This is considered controversial by first worlders who aren't familiar with having a crime syndicate in every town and nearly every street and what kind of wartime-like operation it would take to address that. Violence is at a historic low, below what can be attributed to a downtrend. The Salvadorian response to COVID was also exceptional among its neighbors, far beyond what can be attributed to accidentally getting it right. Anyways that's my perspective. It's a bit biased but not one I see regularly so I'm just doing my part to show how central Americans might see it.