By Mary Anastasia O'Grady

 

San Salvador

At the January 2008 inauguration of Guatemala's left-wing President Alvaro Colom, Hugo Chávez sent Salvadoran President Antonio Saca a message, or so the story goes here. "Now I've got you surrounded," the Venezuelan strongman supposedly told Mr. Saca.

Whether that story is urban legend or a factual vignette from the "Chávez guide to diplomacy" doesn't really matter. What matters is what it conveys: the Salvadoran fear that Mr. Chávez has been stalking this country, hoping to add it to his list of revolutionary satellites in Central and South America.

When Salvadorans vote on March 15 to elect a new president, that concern may play a key role in influencing the vote. Conventional wisdom says that Chávez petrodollars have fueled the spread of authoritarian governments in this part of the world over the past decade. But the Venezuelan president also has had the opposite effect, notably in Mexico and Peru in 2006, where candidate association with Mr. Chávez turned out to be the kiss of death. Chavismo could have the same effect here in El Salvador.

This presidential race features former national police director Rodrigo Ávila of the center-right Arena Party against television journalist Mauricio Funes of the hard-left FMLN. Mr. Funes is running as a moderate and as of today he is favored to win. But the race is far from over, and if Mr. Ávila still has a good chance it's because many Salvadorans see him as the only way to avoid the importation of the chavista agenda.

Arena has taken every presidential contest here since 1989, and a victory in March would be the party's fifth consecutive win. That alone makes things difficult for Mr. Ávila. He has other problems too. While the three Arena presidents before Mr. Saca pursued reforms designed to promote equality under the law, economic liberalism and growth, this president has done the opposite: He's become famous for abrogating contracts.

The president has added drag to the economy in other ways too. A massive port project in the municipality of Cutuco promised to make Salvador Central America's most important transportation hub. The port is finished but is still not operational because the Saca government delayed for almost two years the process of bidding the concession. New electricity projects, critical to growth, also have been held up.

El Salvador is also being buffeted by global recession headwinds. Remittances from abroad and exports, both important sources of growth, are falling and may not rebound any time soon. The decline in oil prices has helped cushion the downturn, but the financial system, dominated by international banks, has tightened credit severely.

The upshot of all this has been economic underperformance, and the incumbent party is getting the blame. Thus Mr. Ávila should be easy to beat. Yet polls, though still containing a large undecided vote, show him within striking distance of "change" candidate Funes. One poll last week even showed the race a statistical dead heat.

To explain why Mr. Ávila still has chance, you can rule out ideological opposition to a center-left government, à la Brazil's President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Many Salvadorans are fed up with Arena thanks to Mr. Saca and say they would welcome political competition. No, what's scaring voters is the evidence that, despite Mr. Funes's attempts to distance himself from FMLN extremism, the party leadership remains the very symbol of intolerance.

The FMLN's vice presidential candidate is a case in point. On Sept. 15, 2001, Salvador Sánchez Cerén led mobs in this city that burned American flags and otherwise celebrated the attack on the U.S. by Islamic terrorists. The memory of that day has not faded.

José Luis Merino, a key party honcho, is even more frightening. His nom de guerre showed up on computers captured by the Colombian military in a raid on a rebel camp in Ecuador last year, suggesting that he was engaged in arms trafficking with the FARC. He is widely considered the de facto FMLN party boss now that the militant Schafik Handal is dead, and he does not conceal his appetite for power. Two years ago, when asked in a media interview about the FMLN's agenda, he replied: "It is to take power, to conquer the entire nation and, in that way, assure that the form of government does not change. Of course, not with bayonets or persecution. There are examples, like Venezuela, that is our model."

"Venezuela" is precisely what many Salvadorans want to avoid. They fear that, if elected, Mr. Funes will be pushed out by party hardliners who will refuse to leave when the term is up. The FMLN calls this fear mongering, but Mr. Merino's own words leave little doubt about his intentions. Salvadorans can't afford to ignore his warnings. If they do, the dollarized economy, often praised as the most open and competitive in Latin America (after Chile), would be at risk.

Write to O'Grady@wsj.com