El Salvador Mid-term Election - March 1, 2015

[politicus]

Both parliamentary and local elections.

I got no results, so just a reminder to someone knowledgable to write about it.

http://www.iri.org/web-story/el-salvador-pre-election-watch-march-1-2015-mid-term-elections

EDIT: Seems the lack of results is due to a problem with their computer system (could be an excuse, who knows).

http://luterano.blogspot.dk/

[politicus]

Electoral Commission:

http://elecciones2015.tse.gob.sv/

[Hash]

Brief primer on the parties:

The left-wing FMLN is the current ruling party, holding the presidency since 2009 and narrowly winning a second term for itself in last year's presidential elections. The FMLN is the former far-left guerrilla group founded in 1980 during the civil war, which transformed itself into El Salvador's main left-wing opposition party following the peace accords in 1992. Until the 2009 election, the FMLN remained a largely radical party which many moderate centrist voters (and Washington DC) found unpalatable because of its lingering association with avowed communists and other far-left types. In 2009, the FMLN won the presidency for the first time ever thanks to the candidacy of Mauricio Funes, a moderate and popular former investigative journalist who broke with party dogma and ran on a very moderate platform which promised mostly social justice rather than chavismo and anti-capitalism (the FMLN's 2004 candidate was a communist guy). FMLN critics contend that while this was all quite nice, the FMLN retains a very large left-wing base which is influential and disliked Funes for his lack of leftist credentials (there were rumours that the presidency thought the palace was bugged by FMLN comrades). Funes' presidency was very moderate, he didn't rock the boat much in terms of diplomacy or economic power structures, but he did do lots of good work on social policies (especially for women). But the economy was sluggish and the FMLN has been accused of lacking any actual policy on criminality which is really, really high; although in 2012, the FMLN government, at arm's length, played a role in brokering a controversial gang truce which reduced killings but didn't do anything to stop violence. In 2014, the FMLN candidate was Funes' VP, Salvador Sánchez Cerén, a former communist guerrilla and member of the party's hard left. However, he ran on a moderate platform which promises 'deepening and amplifying the changes' and other social justice/social investment stuff, and ran a disciplined and calm campaign with a moderate running-mate. Despite the opposition objectively being ghastly and horrendous, Sánchez Cerén only won with 50.1% and a 6,634 vote majority in the runoff. Despite the FMLN remaining distant from Venezuelan-style socialism, the FMLN's critics - the domestic right, American conservatives, US congressmen etc - claim that the party's democratic credentials are dubious, that it has ties to Venezuela and drug traffickers.

The right-wing ARENA is the current leading opposition party. The party was also founded in the 1980s right in the midst of the civil war. It was founded by major Roberto d’Aubuisson/'Major Bob', a former intelligence chief turned far-right death squad mastermind which even the Reagan administration found to be beyond the pale (some US diplomat called him a pathological killer). The psychopath was responsible for ordering the assassination of several high-ranking reformists and vaguely left-wing people, most famously the 1980 assassination of archbishop Óscar Arnulfo Romero, a harsh critic of the military repression and American support for the government. Otherwise Major Bob's death squads also murdered a bunch of civilians in cold blood. The party toned it down a bit by 1989, more tolerant of democracy (as long as it controlled it, mind you), and with lightweight athletic playboy Alfredo Cristiani it won the presidency that year. Despite being a less disreputable party which no longer runs on platforms of mass murder, ARENA is still very proud of its legacy and that it was founded by a psychopathic killer. Ironically, it was under Cristiani's ARENA government that the right and the left got serious about peace, which was a very slow process basically requiring continued violence by both sides as proof that neither side could win militarily. ARENA as a civilian, neoliberal anti-communist party dominated politics in the country until 2009, with 3 different presidents after Cristiani. ARENA governments pursued neoliberal policies including mass privatizations, liberalization of the economy (allegedly placing control of the economy in the hands of big business), lowering taxes on the rich (and raising taxes like the VAT which impact the poor most) and remaining very very close allies of the US (adopting the dollar and sending troops to Iraq). ARENA mostly plaid lip service to poverty and inequality. The one exception is Antonio Saca, the president from 2004 to 2009, who was more populist and created a $15-20 monthly subsidy program for very poor families, although Saca was otherwise an incompetent corrupt clown whose hard-line crime policy caused the sh**t to hit the fan and make El Salvador one of the world's most places. Since losing the presidency in 2009, ARENA has had a lot of problems including desertions, defections and corruption scandals. During the 2014 campaign, the FMLN and ARENA dissidents presented serious corruption allegations against former President Francisco Flores, accused of embezzling $15 million in earthquake relief funds from Taiwan. Flores was the campaign manager of ARENA candidate Norman Quijano, the mayor of San Salvador, who stuck by him until Flores fled the country. Quijano's campaign proved that ARENA still behaves as if the country is still at war, warning of impeding Venezuelan-style disaster, communism and the end of democracy if the FMLN won. When Quijano somehow came very close to winning the runoff (49.9%), he behaved like a sore loser and refused to concede for a long time and said a bunch of unsettling fascistic things like 'we will fight for this victory, if necessary, with our lives' or even better 'the armed forces are ready to make democracy'.

The centre-right GANA was founded in 2009 by outgoing ARENA president Antonio Saca who was expelled from ARENA, allegedly for corruption. Saca's more maverick populist style was opposed by people within his party. GANA is basically a Moderate Hero party which campaigns on vague centre-right platitudes, and which wants to be a more modern right-wing party than ARENA which it accuses of living in the past and having a very black and white view of stuff (which is true). ARENA still largely hates Saca/GANA as traitors and there's lots of bad blood between the two. In 2014, Saca only won 11.4% in the presidential election, something of a failure given the high hopes they had of replacing ARENA on the right (although honestly that was always a wet dream).

The right-wing PCN is an old conservative party founded in the 1960s by the then-military regime as their establishment conservative, anti-communist party, and the PCN ruled the country until a military coup in 1979, by which time the country was slowly but surely going down the sh**tter as the left turned to armed struggle and the right/the government responded in kind with repression and counterinsurgency/paramilitary techniques. The PCN slowly declined after losing power, with most of its people and the party's mass support going over to ARENA; it has, however, remained a small party since the peace deals in 1992. In 2014, it allied with Saca's GANA.

The centre-right PDC is a Christian democratic party founded in the 1960s as a centrist, reformist alternative founded by urban middle-class and upper-class activists who disliked the right’s ideology of repression and hostility to any reform and the left’s Marxist principles. Its most famous figure was José Napoleón Duarte, mayor of San Salvador from 1964 to 1970 and president from 1984 to 1989. During the pre-civil war chaos and civil war years, the PDC's moderation was obviously squeezed between two extremes and got nowhere, and the party moved to the right during the 1980s, becoming the Reagan administration's party of choice - especially in the 1984 elections, which were won by Duarte with high hopes that his reformist agenda would undercut FMLN support, but while he did some work on agrarian reform, his government was unable to do much otherwise.

Apparently in way of results the FMLN has gained San Salvador (Quijano retired) with a young, hip and likable candidate who ran without publicizing his party's colours; the FMLN also gained San Miguel from GANA but ARENA regained Santa Tecla, where their candidate was the son of Major Bob.

[politicus]

Status:

- The Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) computer system for compiling and disseminating preliminary results completely broke down.  

- TSE is giving up on having preliminary results.  

- They are doing the final scrutiny of 31,000+ vote tally sheets (actas) manually. This process could reportedly take two weeks.

- Through their networks of vigilantes and poll workers at polling tables the big parties have their own vote tallies. Based on those it is known who won the race for mayor in several cities and the losers have conceded. Both ARENA and FMLN claim to have won 36 seats in parliament, but this is much more unreliable.

In the local elections:

San Salvador was won by the FMLN's Nayib Bukele, a youngish businessman, who is the current mayor of Nuevo Cuscatlan. Bukele's vote total was in all likelyhood much closer than most of the recent polls were predicting.

Santa Tecla (Nueva San Salvador prior to 2003) went to ARENA. Despite the upcoming beatification of Archbishop Oscar Romero the son of the man who ordered his assassination became mayor! Roberto D'Aubuisson Jr. ended two decades of FMLN rule.

In San Miguel in the east long time mayor Will Salgado from GANA lost to Miguel Pereira from FMLN.

[politicus]

Hash, do you happen to know Bukele's ethnicity? The Arab first name + an almost African surname is confusing. He looks Lebanese, which would be natural in that region, but the surname is odd.

[MaxQue]

His father, Armando Bukele Kattán is of Palestinian ancestry.

[politicus]

With 97,5% of polling places counted the National Assembly results are:


ARENA 852,176.21375 Votos (38.76%)
FMLN 815,521.09023 Votos (37.10%)
GANA 206,554.54090 Votos (9.40%)
PCN 150,273.39072 Votos (6.84%)
PDC 54,437.12203 Votos (2.48%)
CD 34,726.29168 Votos (1.58%)
DS 18,306.54671 Votos (0.83%)
PSD 16,050.25071 Votos (0.73%)
PCN/DS 3,658.51667 Votos (0.17%)
ARENA/PCN 37,690.08333 Votos (1.71%)
PCN/PDC 6,453.08333 Votos (0.29%)

[politicus]

The municipal election has been fully counted, but there is no seat distribution on the TSE website, but left wing majority in the capital.

http://escrutiniofinal2015.tse.gob.sv/concejos/mun001.html

San Salvador:

ARENA 82,288  46,5%
FMLN 85,789  48,5%

GANA 1,389  0,8%
PCN 736 0,4%
DC 1,108 0,6%
CD 1,303 0,7%
DS 1,019 0,6%
PSP 3,375  1,9%

[politicus]

Central American Parliament:

FMLN 40,1% 8
ARENA 39,8% 8
GANA 9,0% 2
PCN 5,8% 1
PDC 2,1% 1

http://escrutiniofinal2015.tse.gob.sv/parlacen/

[RFayette]

I don't know too much about the ARENA party, but this is one of the best political ads/jingles I've ever seen:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhLrb66BzVU

I'm fluent in Spanish, and I personally love political ads in Latin-American countries.  They have such a positive feel.

[politicus]

Final legislative election result:

ARENA 32 (+4)
FMLN  31 (-)
GANA  11 (+1)
PCN     4 (-3)
PDC    1 (-)
CD    0 (-1)
DS    0 (-)
PSD    0 (-)
PCN/DS 1 (+1)
ARENA/PCN 3 (+3)
PCN/PDC 1 (+1)
Unidos Por El Salvador - (-5)
Independents 0 (-1)

Total 84

The ARENA/FMLN balance with total seats in brackets (combo lists not counted)

SAN SALVADOR 11/10 (24)
SANTA ANA 3 /2 (7)
SAN MIGUEL 2/3 (6)
LA LIBERTAD 5/4 (10)
USULUTAN      2/2 (5)
SONSONATE 2/2 (6)
LA UNION 1/1 (3)
LA PAZ 1/1 (4)
CHALATENANGO 1/1 (3)
CUSCATLAN 1/1 (3)
AHUACHAPAN 2/1 (4)
MORAZAN 1/1 (3)
SAN VICENTE  1/1 (3)
CABAÑAS 1/1 (3)


Result in percentage:


ARENA 874,169 (38.77%) Conservatives
FMLN 840,619 (37.28%) Leftist/Centre-Left
GANA 208,851 (9.26%) Centrist
PCN 152,632 (6.77%) Moderate Conservatives
PDC 55,698  (2.47%) Chistian Democrats
CD 36,396 (1.61%) Social Christians
DS 19,210 (0.85%) Liberals
PSD 16,647 (0.74%) Social Democrats


Combo-lists:

PCN/DS 3,658  (0.16%) Conservative/Liberal
ARENA/PCN 37,690 (1.67%) Conservative
PCN/PDC 6,453 (0.29%) Conservative/Christian Democratic

[politicus]

So:

Conservatives:

ARENA + PCN 39


Conservative/Centrist:

PCN/PDC +  PCN/DS 2


Centrists:

GANA + PDC (Christian Democrats - José Napoleón Duartes old party) 12


Left:

FMLN 31


Clear right wing majority. Hash wrote that there was a GANA/PCN alliance, but they are the only right wing parties that have not fielded common candidates, so that sounds a bit odd.

Democratic Change which lost their only seat was a small Social Christian party founded by PDC left wingers and FMLN moderates + Union of the Democratic Centre, which was mostly based on the old Social Democratic Party (PSD). PSD ran independently this time.

Partido Democracia Salvadoreña (DS) is a liberal ("progressive and humanistic" according to themselves) centre-right party that ran candidates for the first time in this election. They were joined by one (maybe two) of the Union por El Salvador MPs (an ARENA breakaway) after Union por El Salvador voted to dissolve itself and rejoin ARENA in autumn 2014.