Apparently the FMLN candidate is the favourite to win. Last IUDOP poll (Jan 15):
Salvador Sánchez Ceren (FMLN) 46.8%Norman Quijano (ARENA) 32.8%Elías Saca (Unidad) 14.7%I've overlooked this thread. Given that today's the election and I didn't pay too much attention this, so I'll translate some lines of a press article as a sort of preview
The main problems in El Salvador right now are the violence between gangs and the stagnant economy. The contest between ARENA and the FMLN reproduces again the polarization of the Salvadorian politics between the right and the left, an antagonism inherited from the war in the 80s (guerrilla vs Army and oligarchy) and that goes back historically to the problem that has burdened the development of this small state of Central America (population 6 million): the original inequity between a Creole elite and the rural masses.
During the campaign, the left and the right have used a rudimentary rhetoric of clash. The FMLN (Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front) presents ARENA as a cenacle of powerful businessmen that wants to appropriate of the wealth in El Salvador. To the right, the Front represents the menace of totalitarian socialism: the right-wing press makes untimely references to Mao and Stalin.
The reality is that FMLN is not revolutionary anymore. Incumbent president, the moderate Mauricio Funes, never had to do with the guerrilla and former fighter Sánchez Ceren (aged 67), vicepresident and candidate, is not going to represent a radical turn in policies (Funes defines FMLN as a "pragmatic team").
Funes administration has applied mild center-left policies with some accent in social policies. Critics like a certain UN functionary who coordinates the HDI report in El Salvador consider that FMLN has represented the continuity of "the economic model followed in previous years, which we qualify as immoral". According to that, the government took advantage of remittances from emigrants to feed "a slightly productive politics of internal consumption", instead of developing a socioeconomic global mid-term development. Funes approach to social politics is described as "asistencialista", a compensatory model to alleviate inequities limited to "groups in critical circumstances", not so different from social policies developed by previous right-wing administrations. The most relevant action of the FMLN government was the delivery of school material, uniforms and shoes to poor children. Funes says these measures are not focused patches, but urgent measures inscribed in a strategy to transform the poor sectors in middle class and claims that he's following "the Lula's experience in Brazil".
ARENA was proposing more economic growth and security. In a campaign advertisement, Norman Quijano looks to the camera with a rude boy expression and says he knows "what is necessary to do" with the maras (gangs in El Salvador). He comes to say that firm hand is the only way to deal with gangs. Funes thinks such strategy will only encourage the final explosion of the gang war. After a truce agreed by leading racketeers in exchange for penitentiary benefits, the homicide rate fell from 70 per 100,000 to 39. A rate above 10 is considered an homicide epidemic for the UN. The continuity of the truce would be in danger if ARENA wins and Quijano acts as he promises but, on the other hand, there are no guarantees of the contrary if FMLN remains in power. The truce is elaborated on a weak basis. As a gang leader states, they don't kill member of other maras if they don't enter in his territory; "if the enemy comes here, you can kill because he is in your territory."
