The 2009 El Salvador Elections: Between Crisis and Change

[struggle4progress]

The 2009 El Salvador Elections: Between Crisis and Change
Written by Various Authors
Thursday, 22 January 2009

After 17 years since the end of El Salvador's civil war, the leftist Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) is poised to accomplish what its guerrilla predecessors never did: Takeover the national government with the presidential elections on March 15. The FMLN candidate Mauricio Funes holds a double-digit lead over his rival Rodrigo Avila of the right-wing Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA) party. An FMLN victory in March would break 20 years of one-party rule by ARENA ...

This report is the product of collaboration between the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES), the North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA), and Upside Down World. We hope this report helps create a more informed public in the United States, and that it contributes in some small way to Salvadoran's ongoing struggles for self-determination and social justice.

View the full report (PDF, 708 KB)

http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1679/1/

Excerpt from the PDF:

... The Dirty Campaign

A key element of the current electoral climate is the campaign against the FMLN orchestrated by right-wing organizations notoriously led by the El Salvador branch of Fuerza Solidaria (United Force). Founded in Venezuela, the organization’s primary goal is stopping the leftward political tide in Latin America. In El Salvador, its activities include using print and television ads to defame the FMLN presidential formula.

Early on, Fuerza Solidaria’s ads sought to link the FMLN to Hugo Chávez in Venezuela and claiming an FMLN victory would make El Salvador an enemy of the United States. The ads suggested this would jeopardize cash remittances sent home by Salvadorans as well as threaten the legal immigration status of El Salvador’s “distant brothers” in the United States. One ad even contained clips of an interview with Dan Restrepo, an Obama advisor, speaking about the new President’s concerns about Chávez and his influence in the region, specifically in El Salvador.

Since then, the ads have furthered baseless accusations that the FMLN is training armed groups in the country. Another ad attempts to paint Sanchez Cerén as the violent “true face” of the FMLN, claiming Funes only “serves for the photographs.” Fuerza Solidaria’s leadership in El Salvador includes ARENA leaders and members. The FMLN has denounced the organization, along with ARENA, before the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) for conducting an illegal fear-based campaign, demanding the TSE put an end to these activities. The TSE has not responded to the demand.

Political violence has also reared its head in this campaign season with the uninvestigated murders of over a half dozen FMLN party and social movement leaders in 2008 alone. ARENA campaigners attacked FMLN supporters who were conducting door-to-door visits, sending four people to the hospital in San Salvador on September 4, 2008—this was one of several reported attacks against FMLN supporters. ARENA’s mayoral candidate for San Salvador, Norman Quijano,
publicly admitted that his campaigners are armed and should be “considered dangerous.” El Salvador’s Human Rights Ombudsman asked all parties to sign a non-violence pact — a proposal previously made by the FMLN — and every party except ARENA signed on to the agreement ...

[Judi Lynn]

1. The Majority Chose Change, El Salvador Candidate

The Majority Chose Change, El Salvador Candidate

San Salvador - Salvadorian presidential candidate Mauricio Funes considered Sunday's municipal legislative elections as successful, because the Farabundo Marti Front is today the country's first political force.

"We have increased our votes along the nation, in departments and locally, and in the legislative authority as well. If we maintain that same situation for the elections on March 15, there is no doubt we will win the presidency," he said.

In an interview Funes explained that the Farabundo Marti Front for National Liberation (FMLN) increased its number of parliament members from 32 to 37, while Alianza Republicana Nacionalista (ARENA) remains with 34 and could lose two others.

"What does that mean? That we increased the vote in relation to the year 2006 and this is giving us greater presence in the Legislative Assembly," he explained.

In reference to municipal elections, of 262 councils at stake, the left increased the number of mayoralties from 58 to over 80 and has recovered control of administrative centers that had been rightwing bastions up to now, with some of them being strategic, as La Union.

http://insidecostarica.com/dailynews/2009/january/21/reg02.htm

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Thanks for the El Salvador information. It's really time the American people started keeping track of real events with real people so very close to home, over real problems those real people are trying to solve in their own real countries. Up 'til now, they've also had to try to get the change they need so desperately while fighting against the covert war perpetrated secretly upon them by certain dirty US politicians who DON'T have their interests at heart. No way. It has been dirty US politicians' job to help the multinationals exploit, cheat, and brutalize these people if they put up any resistance whatsoever to the rape and plunder of their resources, including virtual slave labor of their huge majorities of poor people.

Hope the people of El Salvador will be far, far closer to their goals after the March election.