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Fatima Valdes Haugstveit follows the preparations for elections in El Salvador in 2009, where she will be an election observer. This is the second of three articles that she will write for NorLARNet on the coming elections. View part one here

The official opening of the electoral campaign is programmed to take place on November 11 with the legislative elections and on November 14 with the presidential. The rhetoric war has already started, the candidates and parties are actively traveling around the country attending nominations meetings and talking to the media. The opinion polls have also started working. At the beginning of October, the Catholic University (UCA) presented a survey where the population was asked which party they think will win the next elections (Opinion poll by UCA in September):
44.9% believes that the FMLN will win, while 30% believe that ARENA will win. People were asked directly which candidate they would vote for, and 49% said Funes (FMLN) and 34% said Avila (ARENA). José María Tojeira, rector of the UCA, said that the parties had not yet started the campaign and things can change when the parties’ campaign machines get started.
The UTEC (Centro de Investigación de la Oón Pública de la Universidad Tecnológica - The Technological University) presented an opinion poll at the end of October. They found that 45.6% would vote for FMLN and 30.9% for ARENA (Opinion poll by UTEC in October, page 10).

By initiative of The Human Rights Ombudsman Oscar Hunberto Luna, five political parties signed an agreement in which they commit to run a decent electoral campaign -avoiding electoral violence and extreme language confrontation, and a duty campaign. The agreement is based on four fundamental principles: Human integrity, legality by keeping to the rule of the game, keeping agreements, and decent behavior.
Even so, the FMLN has denounced a smear campaign trying to create intimidation in the population. TV and radio commercials have appeared, trying to convince the population that if the FMLN wins the elections, Hugo Chavez will control the country. Attempts to relate FARC (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia – Revolutionary army of Colombia) and FMLN have also been made.

The FMLN: moderate left?

The FMLN has presented a wide governing program, which includes a large number of items in almost all the political fields regarding society, health, education, economy, environment, justice, governance, etc (FMLN party program). Mauricio Funes said one week before the elections in the US that he will make sure he’ll have a good relation with the new American administration and will cooperate together with them to find a solution for the thousands of illegal Salvadorian immigrants in the USA. He said that he regrets that so many Salvadorians have to leave the country, trying to find better opportunities which they do not find in the country: -" Migration has to be stopped", he said, -"we will encourage our people to stay in the country".
Funes has visited Washington, and had meetings with authorities from the American government and congress. American authorities have expressed that they will respect the results of the elections and will cooperate with the new government. Funes also ensured that his government would respect international economical agreements made by the actual government. This is the case of the Free Trade agreement (Tratado de libre comercio TLC) between El Salvador and the USA. During a meeting with the private sector, Funes confirmed his commitment to create predictable and stable economical policies to create incentives for national and international investments in the country. He also said that the dollar will continue to be the currency in El Salvador.
It is evident that Funes is giving a new direction to the left wing in the country. His campaign is not based on the old populist anti-American feeling, like the FMLN has traditionally carried out during the past elections after the peace agreements. Funes is conducting the political left with reliability, professionalism and clear speech. Even so there are experts that believe that the orthodox left wing of the party is the one that still has the power in the FMLN, and that it will not be easy for Funes to lead the country with moderate leftist ideologies.

Arena: drop in popularity

Taking a look at ARENA’s governing program, it is important to say that the party’s major slogan during this election will be to make El Salvador a country with fairness, where people have liberties with responsibilities. ARENA believes that it is necessary to have a conservative party that shows more solidarity and justice defending the country, the free market, the family and workers, a party that is open to dialog, encouraging the people to participate politically. It is interesting to observe that it is also said in the party program, that to build a fair society is to follow the beliefs of Mayor Roberto d´Aubuisson, when he founded the party with the ideas of peace, respecting the rule of law and progress, and ensuring equality and liberty with right and responsibility. Mentioning Mayor d’Aubuisson in this party program, ARENA is showing either political immaturity as a conservative party, where they cannot see that the figure of d´Aubuisson does not fit in a modern conservative party - or this may be due to the existence of forces inside the party that still believe in the ideology of d´Aubuisson and still have influences in the direction of the party and the design of policies. As mentioned in Part I of this series of articles, d´Aubuisson was highly responsible for the atrocities committed in El Salvador during the 1980s. ARENA is suffering a drop in popularity after several years in power, in a country with a lot of inequality and poverty.

The development of the electoral campaign this time shows a notable difference from the ones before. Following tendencies in Latin America, for the first time after the end of the war in 1992, the left in El Salvador has a real chance to win these elections. However, there is still time until the elections, and things can still change the the actual general view of future results.

Fatima Valdes Haugstveit ( fatima.valdes(at)haugstveit.no) 

November 5, 2008