Elections in El Salvador

OE Watch Commentary: Legislative and municipal (county level) elections were held in El Salvador on 4 March. The system of vote counting and confirmation is elongated in El Salvador as compared to, say, Colombia or Cuba. As such, the final counts indicated in the first accompanying reference may be off by a seat or two. In broad ideological terms, however, the overall results likely to be certified this election cycle appear similar to those in Colombia. The right did better than the left. This disfavors current President Salvador Sánchez Cerén, whose governing party is the leftist Frente Farabundo Martí (National Liberation Front, FMLN). The results are also a setback for the region’s Bolivarian alliance, as President Cerén and the FMLN are supporters of that strategic block. The second accompanying reference is an opinion/analysis/call-to-action from the secretariat of the relatively obscure Central American Socialist Party, PSOCA (see https://elsoca.org/). It points out that the farther left organizations in El Salvador, already disillusioned with the FMLN, called for blank voting. Indeed, the non-participation rate, according to the PSOCA, was over 50 percent. Leaders of the PSOCA are calling for a new, radical umbrella organization outside the FMLN. Notably, the FMLN has been the only openly recognized member of the Forum of Sao Paulo, the hemisphere’s top leftist consortium and political style guide. We might look to see if a new Salvadoran organization appears within that grouping. End OE Watch Commentary (Demarest)