El Salvador’s First Left-Leaning President

Is El Salvador’s First Left-Leaning President Changing the Country’s Internal Political Realities for the Better? Are U.S. Policy Makers About to Make a Major Mistake?

An analysis of current developments in El Salvador, while at the same time undertaking an assessment of President Mauricio Funes’ performance, might reveal that:

“For the first time we have a democratic government, a solidified government, a just government that is going to push for changes that for decades many of our esteemed people fought for, at times with their lives, who waited to see that a new El Salvador is possible.”

President Mauricio Funes uttered these words as part of his inaugural address delivered on June 1, 2009. He is the first and only leftist candidate ever to be nominated and elected from the former guerrilla Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) political party. Consequently, many who voted for him strongly expected that genuine change would take place on his watch. His proclamation that this is “the first time we have a democratic government” was due to the fact that the traditional ruling, rightwing Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA) party, which uninterruptedly had controlled the nation for nearly two decades, had been defeated.

Many Salvadorans, including Funes, had questioned the legitimacy of a purportedly democratic government in which ARENA had governed for years without ever being defeated in elections that saw violence and death squads freely used against the opposition. What is alarming about the increasingly rancorous relationship between the left and centrist wings of the FMLN party is that ARENA is likely to take the risk of fishing in troubled waters, even if it means leaving the door open to a deterioration in the country’s security situation and face-offs between the country’s political factions. But the situation gets worse when one looks at the injudicious behavior of high U.S. officials, who are not helping to seek a resolution of the country’s internal dislocations.
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This analysis was prepared by COHA Research Associate Katya Rodriguez

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