Salvador Right-Wing Gains Confirmed

Official preliminary results from Salvadoran elections confirmed Saturday that the opposition party had won a majority in the National Assembly, defusing a dispute over alleged cheating.

The results give the right-wing Nationalist Republican Alliance (Arena) 31 of the 60 seats in the Assembly.

The governing Christian Democrats, who before the elections had 33 seats, now have only 23. The Party of National Reconciliation won six seats.

Arena garnered more than half of the nearly 850,000 votes cast in the legislative and mayoral elections last Sunday.

They also won the important post of mayor of San Salvador, defeating President Jose Napoleon Duarte’s son, Alejandro, who was standing for the Christian Democrats.

The outcome, which is still subject to appeals, was given after a week of often bitter argument.

Arena had charged that President Duarte’s Christian Democrat party was tampering with the results to deny it a majority.

Arena leader Roberto D’Aubuisson had warned that his supporters would take to the streets if they were cheated of victory, and the conservative National Assn. of Private Enterprise had threatened a businessmen’s strike.

Senior Arena member Sigifredo Ochoa said the results ended the squabbling.

“We have the majority now,” he told reporters. He said Arena is willing to work with the Christian Democrats to find a solution to the war against leftist rebels and to reactivate the economy.