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, ŕ 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.
The Wall Street Journal
OPINION: THE AMERICAS
FEBRUARY 23, 2009
. New Cuba Coalition P. O. Box 14077
Washington, D. C. 20044-4077
Dr. Emilio-Adolfo Rivero — President
Ernesto Díaz-Rodríguez — Vice President e-mail:
cuba@idt.net