First Civil, Now Gang Wars. Who Would Want To Be President of El Salvador?
Here’s
something you probably didn’t know: Salvadorans are poised to pass
Cubans as the third-largest Latino group in the United States, behind
Mexicans and Puerto Ricans.
There are 2 million Salvadorans in
the U.S. That’s almost a third of the entire population of El Salvador
itself, Central America’s smallest country. Many were born in the U.S.,
but most are migrants – and that inordinate exodus suggests some serious
things are wrong with El Salvador.
A civil war tore El Salvador
apart in the 1980s – and today violent drug-gang crime is tearing it
down. About 40 percent of the population live in poverty while a tiny
elite lives in luxury. The economy’s long been in the cellar, and the
country still seems as politically polarized as it did when right-wing
death squads terrorized the place a generation ago.
If you needed
a reminder of that split, consider the results of the March 10
presidential election: Vice President Salvador Sánchez Cerén of the
leftist FMLN party defeated Norman Quijano of the right-wing ARENA party
by a miniscule 50.11 percent to 49.89 percent. Sánchez, 69, who was a
guerrilla during the civil war, was declared the winner this week, but
Quijano and ARENA reject that official ruling and are crying fraud. Quijano even summoned cold-war demons last week by urging the military to intervene.
In fact, compared to really dysfunctional neighbors
like Honduras – which has the world’s highest murder rate today – El
Salvador looks relatively stable. After returning from El Salvador to
gauge post-election tensions, Cruz told me this week that for all its
problems, “El Salvador is one of the few countries in Central America
where democratic institutions are seen to be working.”
El Salvador is one of the few countries in Central America where
democratic institutions are seen to be working. -- Jose Miguel Cruz.
The
question is whether Sánchez’s election signals more difficult relations
between Washington – which backed a brutal Salvadoran military during
the civil war – and San Salvador.
This marks the second
consecutive presidential victory for the FMLN, the party of the rebels
that fought the military until the 1992 peace pact. But Sánchez is
considered more left-wing than current President Mauricio Funes, who is
not a former guerrilla; and conservatives fear he wants to align his
country more closely with anti-U.S. regimes like oil-rich Venezuela’s.
Would you want to be president of El Salvador?