The two political heavyweights in Salvadorean politics have started to flex their muscles in advance of the presidential elections next March. The ruling party, Alianza Republicana Nacionalista (Arena), became the first political party to choose its presidential candidate in party primaries earlier this month. Businessman Elías Antonio Saca will run on the Arena ticket having decisively beaten Vice-President Carlos Quintanilla.
Saca swept the floor with Quintanilla, who has faced tough criticism in the past few weeks for his prominent position in an administration which many Arena supporters feel is losing its way. Saca won an unprecedented 98% of the individual votes.
Meanwhile, the leftist Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional (FMLN), which holds a slight lead in opinion polls, revealed that it will hold its party primaries on 27 July. The FMLN is looking to build on the success it gained in March's legislative elections: it won 31 seats in the 84-seat assembly, compared to Arena's 27 seats.
The FMLN's presidential challenge has traditionally been undermined by its failure to unite behind one candidate. The primaries will pit veteran hardliner and former Communist Party leader Schafik Handal, leader of a faction that has consistently fought off 'renewalist' challenges', against Oscar Ortiz, mayor of Nueva San Salvador.
Image problem. The FMLN might not have chosen its candidate yet but it has made a concerted effort to address its international image problem. It sent a delegation to Washington to meet officials from the US State department and international financial organisations last week with the express aim of setting US minds at rest about its policies.
Dan Fisk, US Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, recently signalled that the US would not be happy with a victory by the former guerrillas. Speaking at a press conference in Washington set up to discuss Central American themeson 18 June, Fisk publicly expressed his distrust in the FMLN's 'commitment to democracy in El Salvador,' adding that the party 'still carries a lot of significant baggage.' He also stated that the FMLN's discourse 'looks as if it were written in Havana.'
Fisk's remarks, which were widely reported in the Salvadorean press, followed fast on the heels of those made by US Ambassador to El Salvador Rose Likins, who threatened US retaliation against the country if an FMLN president were elected, and said that US investment could pull out of the country as a result.
Likins criticised the FMLN's economic platform, showing particular concern about mooted policies such as ending dollarisation, revising the laws that permit the privatisation of public services and pulling out of the Central American Free Trade Agreement (Cafta). She also said that the FMLN's support of liberation movements, and its relations with Cuba, China and Vietnam, were at odds with the US-led 'War on Terrorism'. The US was also furious at an FMLN statement that the September 2001 attacks on the World Trade Centre were the result of US foreign policy.
Coup for democracy? The US aversion to the FMLN goes well beyond suspicion of its economic policies. Successive US administrations ploughed hundreds of millions of dollars of military aid into El Salvador in the 1980s to prevent the FMLN from coming to power. The fact that Arena's 14-year grip on power is loosening concerns those in the Bush administration, who would regard an FMLN electoral victory as a threat to democracy. This is somewhat perverse as such a victory would actually serve as an endorsement of democracy in El Salvador. Unlike in neighbouring Guatemala, the political climate remains stable in El Salvador despite the polarisation of the rightwing Arena and the FMLN.
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