Caribbean & Central America - September 2014 (ISSN 1741-4458)

The ruling left-wing Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional (FMLN) and the right-wing opposition Alianza Republicana Nacionalista (Arena) have announced almost all of their candidates for the 2015 legislative and municipal elections for the 84 deputies of the legislative assembly and the 262 mayoral positions across all municipalities in the country. The secretary general of the FMLN, Medardo Gonzaléz, announced in late August that Nayib Bukele would be the mayoral candidate for the all-important mayoralty of San Salvador where he will face off against the present incumbent, Arena’s Norman Quijano.

Bukele is the current mayor of Nuevo Cuscatlán in the La Libertad department, who took office in 2012. Bukele, who previously had a career in advertising before entering politics, has been widely acclaimed as mayor of Nuevo Cuscatlán. He has donated his entire mayoral salary to scholarships (the only mayor in El Salvador to do so) and has established healthcare for low-income families to be paid for by the municipality. He has strengthened social programmes and maintained a low crime rate in Nuevo Cuscatlán with only one homicide in the town since becoming mayor, very rare in El Salvador. Investment is much higher in Nuevo Cuscatlán than in surrounding municipalities.

Despite being branded a Socialist by his opponents, Bukele has incredibly high approval ratings in a historically right-wing municipality. The FMLN hopes he can win over voters in San Salvador, a traditional party stronghold before Quijano won election for Arena in 2009, and then bring some of the same achievements to the capital.

Bukele has criticised his own party in the past and put distance between himself and the previous government of Mauricio Funes (2009-2014), the first-ever FMLN president. On 19 August at a press conference he stated: “what was good about Mauricio Funes’ government is that social programmes became part of the debate, and what was bad is that five years passed and I feel that not one structural change took place”. He continued “yes, the FMLN won in 2009 and they did a few things but the people are still in the same situation, the economic model has not been restructured”.

Notable FMLN candidates elsewhere include former economy minister Armando Flores (2012-2014), who is running for mayor of Santa Tecla in the La Libertad department (where the FMLN’s Oscar Ortiz held sway [2000-2014] before becoming Vice-President last June), and Carlos René Hernández, current director of the San Batrolo Hospital in Ilopango, who is running for mayor in the same town in the department of San Salvador.

Jorge Velado, the president of Arena, confirmed that Quijano will stand for re-election in San Salvador. Velado said that Quijano, who narrowly lost in this year’s presidential elections to Salvador Sánchez Cerén, would defeat whatever candidate the FMLN put forward.

Over 100 Arena mayoral candidates have been announced around the country to run in areas not currently governed by the party.

The FMLN confirmed all of its candidates at its annual conference on 31 August. The Arena annual conference will take place in late October; Velado is promising a party surprise.

• San Salvador

Whichever candidate wins the San Salvador mayoral election will have to combat some of the highest crime rates of any city in the world, something Norman Quijano has had some success in addressing through the installation of security cameras, safety campaigns and recreational programmes for youths.