Warwick Fry
Candidate and pregnant wife shot. Christian Democrats beaten up by ARENA supporters. Opposition daily fire-bombed. Democratic Convergence rally attacked. Six opposition party offices raided, two more damaged in bomb explosions. Vice President Francisco Merino's bodyguards shoot up opposition rally, woman with head wounds. Death squad killings rise. Arbitrary arrests of opposition campaigners. Police attack opposition rallies.
These were just a few of the incidents documented in the month leading up to the March 10 elections in El Salvador, a level of terror unprecedented, perhaps, since the early 1980s.
Organisation of American States secretary Baena Soares stated that "violence and intimidation [were] obstructing the electoral process".
ARENA mounted a multimillion dollar black propaganda campaign against opposition parties and individuals and organisations critical of ARENA or the military, linking them with the FMLN.
It culminated in the publication of a "leaked" document allegedly demonstrating that organisations like the Lutheran Church, the Catholic Church Legal Aid office (Tutela Legal) the National Union of Salvadoran Workers and the church-based National Committee for the Debate for Peace were "organic parts of the structure of the FMLN". Meanwhile, the Maximilian Hernandez Martinez death squad put out a paid radio spot calling on its members to prepare to eliminate eminent identities who represented "front organisations for the FMLN170>.
What these organisations really have in common is a commitment to the peace process initiated by the FMLN in 1989 and to the demilitarisation of Salvadoran society.
Military concerns
The military is understandably sensitive to the peace issue — hence the dirtiness of the ARENA campaign. The close bonding between ARENA and the military (apart from the fact that colonels and generals frequently "retire" to a political career with ARENA) is demonstrable in the lack of progress in the "Jesuit assassination" case, in which top echelon military commanders are known to be implicated. After 18 months, none has been brought to trial. President Cristiani withheld crucial documents and reports for months on end, releasing some of them only when it was discovered they were in his possession.
On the other side of the partnership, buses full of voters on their way to the polls were stopped at military checkpoints and the occupants asked who they would vote for. Those who said they would not vote for ARENA were held up for as long as five hours.
The election tactics of ARENA confirmed its role as a facade for the military. The bottom line of the peace negotiations is the issue 70> of the military. It is a necessary condition for a stop to human rights abuses and for the dismantling of the repressive apparatus.
But the present generation of officers have too much to hide and too much to lose — they have built a financial empire on the US$1.3 million daily of military aid received over the last four years.
Negotiations with the FMLN over the last year have consistently stalled on the key point of "purification" of the military. Agreements had to be ratified by the Assembly, where ARENA had an absolute majority. Dr Ruben Zamora, leader of the largest opposition coalition, the Democratic Convergence, saw an electoral challenge to ARENA's dominance of the Assembly as the only peaceable way to break the impasse.
Elections for peace
It was a finely calculated risk for the fledgling coalition, little more than two years old, which in the 1989 presidential elections won barely 4% of the vote and suffered constant harassment from the authorities — death threats, arbitrary arrests of party members and raids and bombings of party office premises.
On balance, the challenge was the preferred option even though it afforded the elections a legitimacy unmerited in the climate of terror and intimidation. The FMLN endorsed this decision by announcing that for the first time it would not boycott the elections and would carry out only defensive military actions.
The FMLN pursuit of a negotiated solution to 10 years of conflict dovetails with the demands of a broad-based mass peace movement which has burgeoned in the last two years. The strength of this movement is such that a range of previously incompatible political parties united to present important electoral reforms to the Assembly, the most important being to increase the number of representatives from 60 to 84. This gave a considerable boost to the chances of challenging the ARENA hegemony. The Convergence was banking on the fact that peace would be the underlying election issue.
As the results started to come in, it was almost immediately apparent that a third and major political force had arrived on the Salvadoran political stage. The Democratic Convergence consistently polled between 15% and 25% — just a few
points behind the second largest, and El Salvador's oldest traditional political party, the Christian Democrats. In some metropolitan seats, it polled higher than the Christian Democrats.
The far-right Democratic Action, and the Christian Democrat breakaway faction, MAC (Movimiento Auténtico Cristiano), looked close to losing their token single seats in the Assembly. At the same time, the UDN (National Democratic Union), a small left-wing party which stayed out of the Democratic Convergence, displaced the PCN (Party of National Reconciliation) in fourth place. The PCN is a right-wing ally of ARENA, an older party set up in the late '60s as a front for the military; throughout the '80s it consistently held between five and seven seats, often holding the balance of power.
Fixing the results
As results came in, so too did reports of irregularities and fraud. At voting stations where there were no Democratic Convergence scrutineers, the Convergence vote was significantly lower, or even non-existent.
Ballot papers for the Democratic Convergence were found dumped in the streets. The Democratic Convergence logo was missing from the ballot guide in one of San Salvador's largest polling booths.
One of the Democratic Convergence's strategies was a drive to register previously disenfranchised voters. It was partially successful — the number of registered voters crept up over 50%, a record for El Salvador — but it was countered to a large extent by systematic obstruction.
The Electoral Council had still not distributed voter registration cards to thousands of voters who had registered in time. Between 300,000 and 400,000 voters had not received cards and could not vote. The names of many registered voters were not listed, and in some electorates, the lists themselves were "lost". In some country towns, the army took over and actively prevented people from voting.
ARENA announced a two-seat majority six hours after the polls opened — a story which was carried by most of the wire services. The opposition parties claimed that ARENA was two seats short of a majority. The FMLN officially acclaimed an opposition victory and sent out congratulatory messages.
Forty-eight hours after the last ballots were in, the Electoral Council had still not announced an official result. The Democratic Convergence sees this as further evidence of a planned fraud. Ruben Zamora is calling for a re-run of the elections.
Hitherto the military has succeeded in blocking more representative participation in the peace negotiations with the FMLN as a result of ARENA's control of the Assembly. The future of the negotiating process is becoming more tenuous. The US in recent months has become more critical of the role of the UN mediator in the negotiations.