Electoral victory for ARENA in El Salvador THE VICTORY of Alfredo Cristiani, Alliance for National Renewal (ARENA) candidate in the March 19 presidential election, must not be interpreted as a sign of popular support for this ultra-rightist and militarist bourgeois force. In the first place, most Salvadorans did not vote. A million people are supposed to have voted out of a total of 2.2 million entitled to cast ballots, from a population of 6 million. That indicates the support for the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) and the National Union of Salvadoran workers (UNTS), who called a boycott and a widely observed transport strike.
Participation in this election was even lower than in the previous one in 1984. Cristiani has declared that he got 54% (500,000 votes). His main rival, Chavez Mena of the Christian Democratic Party (PDC), claims 30%. Moreover, the vote for ARENA first of all reflects a rejection of the outgoing president, Duarte, and of the PDC. In the absence of a sufficiently credible left alternative, the tactical vote against Duarte went to ARENA, as in the 1988 legislative elections.
Finally, ARENA focused its campaign against Duarte, temporarily putting aside its line of confrontation with the mass movement and the FMLN. It even claimed to be in agreement with the popular movement, moderating its privatization proposals.
In the days preceding the elections, Washington seemed to have given up on a Christian Democratic victory (and the massive electoral fraud that that would have involved). A US spokesperson said that he was awaiting the result of the elections tranquilly because, while the Christian Democrats were not being abandoned, he was pleased to note that that ARENA had "moved toward the center." 1 Nonetheless, ARENA's victory is going to increase the social polarization. ARNOLD BERTU
T HE FMLN's political and military offensive dominated the presidential election. For nearly two months, the FMLN has been taking a daring political initiative. For the first time in nine years, it pledged not to boycott the elections if they were postponed for six months so that they could be held in a democratic way. That meant ending the repression; no intervention by the army during the election campaign and that it stayed in barracks on voting day; including Convergencia Democratica into the Central Elections Commission; amending the election law to make it more democratic; and finally making it possible for exiled Salvadorans to vote (at least 500,000 live in the US).
This proposal aggravated the crisis of the ruling-class parties and put the new Bush administration on the spot. In fact, it caused such disarray that all the political parties and authorities of the regime, including the army general staff, had to take positions and act in the greatest confusion.
Initially, President Duarte declared that the FMLN's proposal could not be considered because it was unconstitutional. (According to the constitution, Duarte has to turn over his office to his successor in June 1989). He had to go back on this quickly, when US vice-president Quayle visited El Salvador and said that the FMLN proposal had some positive points.
So as not to be left behind, ARENA, which could expect to win if the elections were held on March 19 as scheduled, proposed a temporary amnesty to enable the FMLN commanders to come to the capital to participate in dialogue with the Legislative Assembly. Of course, this was a maneuver designed to mollify the US and the Salvadoran people, who are enthusiastic supporters of dialogue.
Existence of real dual power
Nonetheless, the mere fact that such a proposal was made — for welcoming "terrorist criminals," as they are called in the propaganda of all the right-wing parties, into the Legislative Assembly - reflects quite well the existence of real dual power in the country.
Finally, the ruling-class parties [see box], unable to reject the FMLN's offer out of hand, went, together with Convergencia Democratica, to Mexico February 21-22 to meet the guerrilla commanders. After many other vicissitudes, the elections went ahead on March 19.
At the same time, in the people's camp, an initial form of unity a very fragile one, to be sure) was achieved between the main anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist mass organization, UNTS, and what remains of the people's organizations that supported Duarte — the National Workers' and Peasants' Union (UNOC). UNTS, which has
EL SALVADOR more than 400,000 members (wage workers, peasants, students, and so on) and UNOC, which has about 200,000 members and is subsidized by the US, joined together on February 11 to declare that there had to be dialogue with the FMLN and to challenge the ruling parties' monopoly on representing the masses.
While the UNOC leadership for the first time, under the pressure of its rank and file, joined with UNTS, it nonetheless continued to support the PDC's official candidate, Fidel Chavez Mena. For their part, the Christian Base Communities, which organize major sections of the masses through the parishes, were preparing the people for action. "Our people are preparing the decisive blow"
In a long communiqué published in the daily El Mundo of February 9, the Christian Communities draw a parallel between the Biblical past and the present that did not beat around the bush?: "Moses [the vanguard] did consciousness-raising and organizational work...A verbal confrontation took place with the pharaoh. The people put forward their demands, and they were rejected. Repression increased....A section of the people hesitated, the majority remained determined....In the face of the pharaoh's refusal, the people resorted to violence in its most painful form. Through this violence, the people attacked sections of the regime....The people undertook the march toward the promised land.....The pharaoh took the road of defeat.
"Our people are passing through the same process. Today, our people...are preparing to strike the decisive blow. The God of the poor has been and will be victorious.
"Against the people's struggle, the regime is hardening its position....This hardening is the result of fear of losing all the labor it exploits. It is making the regime act in a blind and irrational way and take the road leading to its defeat...
"The Salvadoran regime is taking a harder line. It is resorting constantly to more repression, and it is less and less inclined to honest negotiation....The importance of what is emerging here exceeds the Salvadoran framework. This is a confrontation with the American empire.
"It will mean not only our victory but that of many Latin-American peoples and of the poor in general."
By its radicalism, this message broke from the official line of the Catholic hierarchy, which is holding to a temporizing position far behind that taken by Monsignor Romero, who was assassinated nine years ago, in March 1980. In such a polarized situation, this sort of language is striking a greater and greater chord.
The FMLN's proposal not only exposed the impasse of the PDC, which is supported by the US, but also that of ARENA, which had to maneuver to reject the
FLN's offer while trying to show that it was well disposed to dialogue.
The way in which the proposal was formulated could not help but attract the support of the masses and create big problems for the regime and the US. Subsequently, at the time of the meeting in Mexico, the FMLN posed a new condition, a purge of the government's armed forces and a drastic reduction in their numbers (from 60,000 to 12,000). This proposal got an enthusiastic reception in the popular camp, and put the army in a tight corner.
The FMLN made its proposal from a position of strength. Militarily, it is continuing to increase its firepower. This is shown by its tighter control over more than 30 percent of national territory, and the range of its action, which includes the entire country (the cities as well as the countryside).
On Monday, February 21, when the dialogue began in Mexico, the FMLN launched attacks in all 14 departments of the country and managed to cut off the electoral supply to 60 per cent of the territory. Over and above this military aspect, what is essential is the FMLN's capacity to appear in the eyes of the masses to be the lever for achieving peace and deepgoing social changes.
### Removing remaining obstacles to struggle
The refusal of the regime and of the United States to offer a positive response to the FMLN's proposal and their inability to make counter-proposals that could appear credible to the people are improving the conditions for unleashing an insurrection.
Nonetheless, neither the FMLN's military strength nor the extent of organization and consciousness of the working-class sectors of the masses nor the impasse of the regime are sufficient to convince the masses to throw themselves into an insurrection. The great firepower of the goverment's armed forces continues to be a substantial obstacle to a mass uprising.
The memory of the massacres of 197982, still present in everyone's mind, and selective repression (several hundred political murders a year, to say nothing of the casualties caused by the army's attacks in areas controlled or disputed by the guerrillas), make the masses think carefully before openly taking sides with the FMLN.
The strategy followed by the FMLN is removing the remaining obstacles to a decisive struggle one by one. The rest is a matter of time. * 1. Such "tranquility" may not be shared by all the US congressmen. They may question US aid to El Salvador. It is in fact greater than the income of the Salvadoran state itself, which is in third position (after Israel and Egypt) in the hit parade of countries getting the most US "aid" (in absolute figures). 22 Andrains from the Book of Exodus, chapters 4,5, 7/ 2. Quotations from the Book of Exodus, chapters 4, 5, 12 and 14.
EL SALVADOR
The main political forces FMLN (Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front), the main revolutionary organization. It Includes five political military organizations - the Revolutionary Socialist Party (PRS) and its military arm; the Peo ple's Revolutionary Army (ERP); the People"s Liberation Forces (FPL); the National Resistance (RN), and Its armed wing, the Armed Forces of National Resistance (FARN); the Salvadoran Communist Party (PCS), which commands the Liberation Armed Forces (FAL); the Central American Revolutionary Workers' Party (PRTC). FDR (Revolutionary Democratic Front) Is the legal civilian political ally of the FMLN. It Includes the Social Christian People's Movement (MPSC, a split from the PDC at the beginning of the 1980s) led by Rubén Zamora; and the National Revolutionary Movement, led by Gulllermo Ungo (which Is linked to the Second International). Convergencia Democratica, an alliance of the FDR and the
Democratic Socialist Party.
Its candidate in the March 19 election, Gulllermo Ungo, got only 4% of the vote. It was prevented by repression from waging a real campalgn. It also suffered from the boycott. PDC (Christian Democratic Party) of outgoing president
Napoleon Duarte. It held an absolute majority in parliament from 1984 to 1988. It was one of the key players In
US strategy, but its canddate, Chavez Mena, got only
30%. ARENA (Alllance for National
Renewal) was In power in the early 1980s, until the US opted for the PDC. It has had a majority In parliament since
1988. Its candidate, Cristian, won the presidential election with 54% of the vote. PCN (National Reconciliation
Party), the former party of the oligarchy and the army, won only 1.8%. MAC (Authentic Christian Movement), led by Rey Prendes, a former minister under Duarte. 8
It got 0.3%. *