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EL SALVADOR: Elections Mark Shift to the
Left
By Raúl Gutiérrez
SAN SALVADOR (IPS) - Salvadoran
president-elect Mauricio Funes of the
leftist insurgency-turned-political party
FMLN promised to build an "inclusive"
government, with a view to bringing about
reconciliation in Salvadoran society and
creating a "future of progress" for all
Salvadorans.
With over 90 percent of the votes counted,
Funes took 51.7 percent of the total against
48.7 percent for his rival, Rodrigo Ávila,
the candidate of the rightwing Nationalist
Republican Front (ARENA), which has governed
the country since 1989.
"This is the happiest night of my life, and
I also want it to be the night of greatest
hope for El Salvador," Funes said late
Sunday when he declared his victory,
alongside vice president-elect Salvador
Sánchez Cerén, other FMLN (Farabundo Martí
National Liberation Front) leaders, and the
future first lady, Brazilian-born Vanda
Pignato.
Funes, a 49-year-old TV journalist and
former correspondent for the U.S. CNN cable
news network, said "a spirit of national
unity" would reign in his government, which
would leave aside confrontation and
revanchism.
"It is time to move towards the future; the
fatherland belongs to all Salvadorans," he
said.
President Antonio Saca and Ávila both called
Funes to congratulate him.
Funes will head the first leftwing
government in the history of El Salvador,
which has been governed by military
dictatorships and conservative and rightwing
forces since it became an independent nation
in the mid-19th century.
Sunday’s turnout stood at 61 percent, with
just over 2.4 million of the country’s 4.2
million voters casting ballots.
Although a 1992 peace agreement put an end
to a 12-year armed conflict between the FMLN
and government forces that left 80,000
people dead or "disappeared" and 40,000
disabled, this impoverished Central American
country of 5.7 million still has one of the
world’s highest homicide rates: 61 per
100,000 population.
And while the 2006 official unemployment
rate (the latest available figure) was 6.6
percent, 43 out of 100 economically active
people are under-employed or scrape by with
temporary jobs, casual labour or working in
the informal sector of the economy, mainly
as street vendors.
Analyst Ernesto Rivas Gallont said Funes won
because his message reached Salvadorans,
overcoming the intense "fear campaign" waged
against him.
"The people were fed up after 20 years of
government by ARENA; voters have matured,"
Rivas Gallont commented to IPS.
The biggest challenge Funes now faces, he
said, is to create "a more just country,"
fighting poverty and restoring "the rule of
law."
More than 40 percent of Salvadorans are
poor, according to official statistics.
After it became a legal political party in
1993, the FMLN lost three presidential
elections, in 1994, 1999 and 2004.
"I’m overjoyed, at last we are free; we are
going to have a more just society," FMLN
supporter María Artiga told IPS during the
celebration that stretched into the wee
hours of Monday morning.
Artiga formed part of a huge tide of people
in red - the colour of the FMLN – along the
Paseo General Escalón and Alameda Roosevelt,
two of the capital’s main thoroughfares.
People "spoke out for change," FMLN
legislator Jorge Jiménez told IPS.
"I’m happy, after so many years of
struggle," said a visibly moved Jiménez, who
as a guerrilla fought on Guazapa mountain,
one of the insurgent group’s strongholds in
northern El Salvador.
Responding to Funes’s victory, former
president Armando Calderón (1994-1999), of
ARENA, said "democracy and El Salvador have
won."
The president-elect’s spokesman, David
Rivas, told IPS that Brazilian President
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva phoned Funes to
congratulate him and to reiterate the offer
of support that he made during the four
meetings they have held, in El Salvador and
Brazil.
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