El Salvador’s former Marxist rebels seemed to have their best chance yet of ousting a right-wing party in power since the end of the 1980s civil war when the country voted yesterday in a charged presidential election.
Left-winger Mauricio Funes, a former TV journalist, was leading polls for the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front as he promised to soften the blow of the world economic crisis on El Salvador’s poor yet maintain good relations with Washington.
Rodrigo Avila, a former national police chief running for the long-ruling Nationalist Republican Alliance, Arena, was running close behind.
Many Salvadorans want a break from two decades of right-wing rule, but others are fearful of putting the economy in the hands of leaders schooled in Cold War-era Marxism just as the economic crisis bites.
“I never voted for the FMLN before, but with Mauricio it’s different,” said Martha Martinez (50) a prim housewife whose flowery satin blouse stood out from the red T-shirts of traditional FMLN voters at a rally in the capital.
Memories of the 1980-1992 conflict, which killed 75,000 people, still hang over El Salvador.
Mr Avila, who once acknowledged shooting left-wing fighters as a soldier during the war, has called the FMLN “communists” and “terrorists”, while Mr Funes, who reported on but never fought in the conflict, has accused Arena of using smear tactics.
Economic gloom is playing a part too, as El Salvador suffers from a recession in the United States, the main buyer of its factory goods and the source of some $3.5 billion a year sent home by a huge Salvadoran diaspora there.
“If there was a third party I’d vote for it. Things are terrible economically and with Arena they will stay the same,” said José Rodriguez (37), a TV repairman. “But I can’t vote for the FMLN. I saw what they were like in the war and I don’t know if they’ve changed,” he said. “With them, things could get three times worse.”
Mr Funes (49) says he is closer to the moderate left of Brazil’s President Lula than to the more radical governments of Nicaragua and Venezuela. – (Reuters)