When Nayib Bukele began his de facto term in El Salvador on June 1, 2024, among the hundreds of guests at the inauguration ceremony were a Costa Rican newlywed couple already dreaming of becoming the next presidential couple in Costa Rica in 2026. Johanna Carolina Bukele Hándal, a first cousin of President Bukele, and her husband José Aguilar Berrocal, a psychologist and social program entrepreneur, took a photo at the National Palace and uploaded it to Facebook along with a drawing of the flags of both countries, El Salvador and Costa Rica. The comments on the photo were eloquent: “Next presidential couple,” said one message. “Hopefully one day we can see them in government,” read another. Johanna Bukele and her husband “liked” these and many other similar messages that kept coming.
Johanna Bukele, a Costa Rican citizen, businesswoman, and designer, married Aguilar on February 24, 2024. Aguilar, 46, is a psychologist and social program entrepreneur who has spoken to people in his inner circle about his plan to run in Costa Rica’s 2026 presidential election. Sometimes, in Facebook posts where he is called a future presidential candidate, he jokes about appointing his friends to government positions. When asked if he would be the standard bearer for Bukele’s movement in Costa Rica, he has kept a prudent distance.
In public, in front of journalists, he has not denied his interest in becoming president, but he avoids giving more details, hiding behind formalities: that in order to compete there must first be a party that ratifies him as a candidate. That should happen in the coming months.
His wife’s surname and his participation in the inauguration in El Salvador have led to doubts in Aguilar's entourage as to whether or not he endorses Bukele’s authoritarian methods. Aguilar has not responded publicly on the matter. The population in Costa Rica, unlike in El Salvador, rejects authoritarianism and values democracy, according to surveys such as Latinobarómetro.
“I spoke to José (Aguilar) in November and asked him about his closeness to Bukele, and he assured me that he is and will continue to be a person with democratic values,” says Eduardo Brenes, a politician who has known Aguilar for years. Brenes was the secretary general of the Liberal Progressive Party, a center-right party, when Aguilar was their vice-presidential candidate in the 2021-2022 campaign, which was won by current President Rodrigo Chaves.
Brenes says his conversation with Aguilar came about when he saw the news that Aguilar’s wife was creating a Costa Rican party. He says that after the conversation with Aguilar, the details of which he preferred not to reveal, he was reassured. “I don't see him moving toward positions that have to do with dictatorships or authoritarian presidents,” he told El Faro. “Any political advisor will tell José that it's tempting to have the Bukele surname because there are many people who admire him, but it's also a double-edged sword. The surname is synonymous with security but also with anti-democracy. I’ve told him it's a balance he's going to have to strike,” says Brenes.
He is not the only one who thinks that Aguilar would refuse to implement a model similar to Bukele's in El Salvador. Eliécer Feinzaig, Aguilar’s former running mate in the Liberal Progressive Party, lived with Aguilar for some time. He believes he is a “convinced democrat”. “I don't think he would be amused by these authoritarian flirtations with breaking the democratic order, with erasing the separation of powers. It would be a big surprise to me if he were to sign up to a program of that nature,” says Feinzaig.
During the presidential campaign in which they worked together, Feinzaig realized how uncomfortable it was for Aguilar to speak in simple terms, as President Bukele is wont to do. “He thought that people in a political campaign should be spoken to as if they were academics in a university classroom with a level of detail and data,” said Feinzaig. “But political campaigns don’t lend themselves to that and on one occasion he told me he thought I was disrespecting people by not talking to them with that level of, shall we say, academic detail.”
In August 2022, a few months after the election, Aguilar announced that he was leaving the Liberal Progressive Party because he believed that Feinzaig was not taking advantage of the contributions of valuable people within the party.
Later, together with his wife, he began to help form a new party: Avanza, of a liberal persuasion, and that was the starting point from which the idea began to take shape that Aguilar could be the future presidential candidate promoted by Bukele, but also by Chaves.
Expectations of a new party arose because the popular president Chaves is looking for a new political project to keep him in power: his previous party disappeared and he cannot be re-elected due to a constitutional ban. However, according to the polls, he is the politician with the most popular support. When Bukele visited him last November, the political message that was established was that the Salvadoran was helping him to promote a new electoral effort. In the corridors of Salvadoran politics, that added to the fact that there was a Bukele in the new party being formed.
In Costa Rica, since the end of the two-party system in 2002, the electoral system has been characterized by the emergence of personality-based projects. Today, “Rodriguism” is only surpassed by the enormous number of people who have not yet decided who they will vote for in 2026.
There are spokespeople for the Chaves government, such as legislator Pilar Cisneros, who have spoken openly about wanting to replicate what Bukele did in El Salvador, and that for this Chaves could choose between six or seven parties for his project to compete in 2026.
There are those who dismiss the theory that Aguilar will take up the banner of Rodriguismo and that behind it is the Salvadoran Bukele. “The day José Aguilar sits down to talk to President Chaves, sparks are going to fly. Frankly, I don't think they are compatible personalities; they are people with very different principles and styles,” said Feinzaig.
Chaves has been characterized by a centralist style of government, and he, his ministers and his deputies have made no secret of their desire to increase his power, even if it means modifying the Constitution. Chaves based his campaign on personalized and frontal attacks against figures from Costa Rica's traditional parties and has also clashed with the media, calling it the “rotten press”. He has sought to bask in Bukele’s limelight: During Bukele’s official visit to Costa Rica in November 2024, while Congress and the Judiciary refused to meet with the Salvadoran leader because of his authoritarian excesses, Chaves decorated Bukele, congratulated him on his security achievements, and asked for his advice. Together they launched and invited more countries to join the “League of Nations” and challenged Costa Rican institutions when Chaves unilaterally accepted the arrival of a contingent of Salvadoran rescue workers and military personnel, and food rations for the victims of recent floods. Chaves took advantage of his counterpart’s show of effectiveness to say that he needs superpowers similar to Bukele’s to govern. The following week, his approval ratings had improved.
Bukele’s popularity extends far beyond the borders of El Salvador: he inspired the founding of a party in Guatemala and managed to infect the president of Honduras, Xiomara Castro, with hardline security plans, such as targeted states of emergency, despite the fact that she ideologically defines herself as left-wing. Some studies, contrasting with Costa Rican support for democracy, have measured the increase in sympathy in Costa Rica for hardline policies such as those of Bukele. Others identify that the Salvadoran leader is very well-received there.
That is why in Costa Rican politics there are those who have wanted to take advantage of the surname Bukele for partisan benefits. “As an electoral strategist, whose eyes don’t light up when they see a surname like Bukele’s?” Douglas Caamaño, an expert in social media data engineering and former head of strategy in the Chaves campaign, told El Faro.
In 2021, Caamaño tried to organize another party with the participation of Johanna Bukele. The party was called National Democratic Alliance (ADN), but it did not even manage to register with the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) because it ran out of time to comply with all the administrative requirements. Other members of Johanna Bukele’s family in Costa Rica were also involved in ADN, including her brothers and her father, Humberto Bukele Kattán, who is one of President Bukele's four uncles on his father’s side.
In ADN, Bukele was a party leader in San José, the capital, and later became a leader in Santa Ana, where she lives. In Costa Rica, in order to participate in a presidential election, a party must have a membership structure in all 84 cantons of the country.
Caamaño asserts that the surname Bukele is an electoral resource to be exploited. “With someone who has the surname Bukele, you have an interesting opportunity to do marketing, or neuro-linguistic programming [on social media] in an appropriate way if you know how to use what you have at hand. That’s obvious,” he told El Faro in a phone call.
Caamaño claims that he has measured the influence of the political surname on electoral preferences. He said in 2022 that 84 percent of voters under 34 (six out of ten voters in general) viewed figures like Bukele favorably. “That’s why, from a strategist’s point of view, it’s relevant to have an element like the surname Bukele,” he says.
He said he met Johanna Bukele because a controversial communications strategist named Federico Cruz Saravanja introduced her to him as someone who could help him set up the ADN party structure in San José. Cruz Saravanja has been linked to a communications campaign known in Costa Rica as “de mano izquierda” (left-handed), meaning that it aims to attack through disinformation and attacks via trolls.
After the unsuccessful ADN registration, Caamaño told leading newspaper La Nación in December 2022 that he was still in communication with Johanna Bukele to try to create another party that could resume the style of government of President Chaves. “That effort didn't continue, and now she’s making another effort to create another party. Sometimes we text each other. She’s an excellent person,” Caamaño says of Johanna Bukele.
El Faro called Johanna Bukele to ask her about the new party she is creating with her husband, and whether they were in tune with the style of government of her cousin, the Salvadoran president, or with that of Chaves. She said that for the moment she was not interested in making any statements. In the call, which lasted less than two minutes, she only made one clarification: She said it was “false” —“and the media know it”— that the Salvadoran president was related to that ADN creation effort in 2020.
Conservative formula
Aguilar entered politics with Javier Quirós, owner of Purdy Motor S.A., one of the largest vehicle distributors in Costa Rica. “Thanks to Javier Quirós for convincing me from the beginning,” Aguilar wrote in a Facebook post in February 2022, on election night when he finished fourth. He accompanied the message with a photograph at a school in La Carpio, a marginalized community to which Aguilar has dedicated years of community-building projects. Quirós donated 196,535,200 Costa Rican colones ($387,180 U.S. dollars) to Aguilar's campaign in 2021, according to information from the TSE, which represents 64 percent of the total donations he has made since 2006.
Perhaps because of this relationship and because of his own personal history —coming from a family of landowners and politicians, with specialized training in London, bilingual, married to a Bukele— there are those who see Aguilar as the political heir-apparent of an elitist sector of society. He appears conservative in moral and religious matters, rejecting sexual diversity, for example, and on economic issues seems more anchored in the center right: he has insisted in interviews and writings that he believes in public-private initiatives and in equal opportunities as a complement to individual effort. He implemented in Costa Rica, with the help of European specialists, the system of measuring multidimensional poverty, replacing the old model that only measured income.
Aguilar has also shown sympathy for the message of Monsignor Óscar Romero, the Salvadoran archbishop murdered by death squads in 1980, and the Jesuit priests murdered in the same country in 1989. This makes him seem like the moderate representative of an otherwise staunchly business elite.
The party that Aguilar could use to launch himself is called “Avanza” and, although it is still in formation, there is time yet for it to compete in 2026. The deadline for parties to have everything in order, including the designation of their candidates, is August.
In the articles of association of “Avanza”, Johanna appears as one of the 104 people who helped found the party on the afternoon of July 27, 2024, according to a copy that the TSE gave to El Faro upon request for information. Bukele is also the alternate treasurer on the cantonal committee of Santa Ana, half an hour from the center of San José. Aguilar, meanwhile, is treasurer of the canton of Escazú, the town where he lived and which is often associated with the country's elite and upper class. This is where The Country Club, named in English, is located: the place where Leyla Bukele, another first cousin of the Salvadoran president, got married in 2023.
The Avanza party defines its ideology as “liberal thinking (...) defending individual freedom, the market economy, life, and private property as essential pillars of human development and well-being.” The party says it seeks to create limits to state power while creating opportunities for all. The idea of limiting state power is contradictory to the way Bukele does politics, whose actions in security and even in the economy, with the threats of price controls and sanctions and the supply centers, show a strong state run by one man. To top it all off, and despite rumors of political closeness to Bukele, Avanza’s statutes attempt to settle the issue: “The party will not subordinate its political action to the dispositions of foreign organizations or states,” it says.
Some also see in Avanza the incursion into politics of the Evangelical Christian sector. The statutes explicitly state that one of the party’s values is “the defense of the right to life from conception.” There are also people, such as former deputy Jonathan Prendas, who are advising on the creation of the party, with past ties to the religious sector.
Prendas was an advisor and head of communications for National Restauration, the evangelically inspired party that reached the presidential run-off in 2018 under the leadership of the preacher Fabricio Alvarado. For Ilka Treminio, a political scientist at the University of Costa Rica, it is no surprise that Avanza has links with the Evangelical sector due to the growing influence of these groups: “They gained experience in the negotiation processes with the traditional parties during past governments, in which they were strategic allies.” Between 22 and 28 percent of the Costa Rican population, says Treminio, classifies itself as evangelical, compared to almost half who consider themselves Catholic.
Aguilar and Johanna Bukele are Evangelicals. She, according to those who know her, even holds a pastoral position in a church. According to someone who lived with them at the time, her family attended Theos Place at least a few years ago. Theos Place is an elite church, attended by influential people such as Keylor Navas. “At first glance, Theos Place would appear to be an association with Neo-Pentecostal characteristics, but the lack of information makes it impossible to be sure,” says Mónica Ulloa-Gómez, a researcher at the University of Costa Rica on the religious phenomenon in political history. On Theos Place, the sermons tend to deal with topics on how rich people can help the poor based on the teachings of the Bible. Aguilar shared one of those videos in 2024.
Aguilar has a conservative view on other issues. In an interview with Prendas, he talked about his concept of family. “Today there is an interpretation contrary to the definition of nuclear family as we understand it as believers: dad, mom, children. It is seriously questioned by different groups that have a strong political presence and are also very skilled in social media,” he said. He also mentioned that the inclusion of women in the labor sector has led to imbalances in households and that is why young people need programs to adapt socially.
In El Salvador, with much less discretion than Aguilar, Bukele has mentioned God on hundreds of occasions. One of the most eloquent displays of Bukele’s authoritarianism occurred in February 2020, before he had taken control of the Legislative Assembly: he occupied that branch of government with soldiers, claiming that he would speak to God to ask for advice on whether or not to dissolve it. After a few minutes in which he covered his face while occupying the chair of the president of the Assembly, surrounded by soldiers and his communications employees who were filming him, Bukele said that God told him to be patient. He officially decreed a Day of Prayer on four different dates between 2020 and 2022. In June 2021, a month after obtaining a majority in the Assembly, he responded on his X account to an affront that he claimed came from the opposition: “Then they wonder why we wiped them out in the elections. Fools. They don't understand that God always puts things in their place.”
Aguilar has not yet invoked God in his speeches. Douglas Caamaño, who helped Johanna form ADN in 2021, believes that she will probably use the surname Bukele in politics. “Capitalizing on the surname Bukele has its difficulties, because the Salvadoran and Costa Rican regimes are operationally different and, moreover, she is not the candidate. The important thing is that the candidate to be promoted fulfills the archetype that people expect and have defined. People like the archetype of Nayib Bukele or Rodrigo Chaves.”
