Rebel Leader’s Candidacy Frightens Establishment : Salvador Election Could Turn Leftist Into a Kingmaker

Irrationality is often the reality in El Salvador, and nothing seems to be as irrational as the presidential candidacy of Guillermo Ungo.

Ungo is a non-Marxist democratic socialist seeking acceptance within the political system while he is officially allied to a Communist-led guerrilla organization that is killing people in order to destroy that system.

Moreover, Ungo, a 55-year-old lawyer and educator, was once a member of a non-elected, military-dominated junta. And he ran for vice president on a ticket with Jose Napoleon Duarte, who is now the president of El Salvador. Now Ungo calls Duarte a traitor.

Yet Ungo, as head of a three-party leftist coalition called the Democratic Revolutionary Front, could win as much as 25% of the vote in the election scheduled for next March.

Potential Kingmaker

This would not put him in the presidential palace, but any showing of more than 15% could make Ungo a potential kingmaker in an expected runoff between the candidates of the other two major parties--the centrist Christian Democrats and the right-wing Nationalist Republican Alliance.

The prospect of that happening frightens nearly every segment of the Salvadoran Establishment. The army is threatening to prevent Ungo from taking any role in the electoral process. Elements of the Republican Alliance--the Arena party, it is commonly called--are threatening to kill him. His guerrilla allies are unsettled by the idea of their main civilian political spokesman taking any meaningful role in Establishment politics.

Nevertheless, the very fact that Ungo and his political allies have announced for the election, and are being taken seriously, has implications beyond the election.

Most political historians and political analysts agree that in 1972, when Ungo was rector of the National University and ran with Duarte at the head of an anti-military coalition, they probably won the election, but that the military stole it from them.

Then, after a military coup in 1979, carried out by a group of reformist young army officers, a five-member junta of civilians and soldiers was named to run the country. One of the three civilians was Ungo, by then the head of a moderate socialist party named the National Revolutionary Movement.

For a number of reasons, the junta was not able to come to grips with the nation’s problems. Faced with a leftist insurgency, the government became increasingly repressive. On the extreme right, death squads began hitting out at politicians such as Ungo.

In 1981, when the political system showed no sign of responding to what Ungo saw as a military-rightist bid for power, and as the death squads began killing moderate and leftist politicians in increasing numbers, Ungo went into exile.

Together with Ruben Zamora, another former associate of Duarte, and a few others, Ungo allied himself with the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front, an umbrella organization of five guerrilla groups that had launched an armed insurrection in the countryside.

Ungo and the others argued that the situation in El Salvador was so corrupt that only armed pressure by the guerrillas, coupled with a moderate political approach, could bring about a negotiated sharing of power, and they saw this as necessary to end the fighting.

But now, after refusing to return and take part in previous elections, Ungo and Zamora are back in El Salvador, one of them leading the ticket and the other organizing and directing the campaign. Why now?

When he returned for a brief time in May, Zamora said that next year’s election “will not settle the issues, but our participation could move the country toward a negotiated solution.”

A few weeks ago he came back to stay, and in an interview at his home the other day he echoed that sentiment.

“I don’t have great expectations,” he said. “The situation here is still too difficult. You can’t have a fair election in wartime, but at the same time, we are in a new situation that could work in our favor.”

The “new situation” includes the disappearance of an effective center in Salvadoran politics. The Arena party occupies the right and the Christian Democratic Party, traditional holder of the center, is growing weak in the face of public repudiation because of corruption, inefficiency and a potentially crippling leadership split now that President Duarte is known to be terminally ill with stomach cancer.

“The Convergence (the Ungo-led coalition) has occupied a great deal of space since Zamora and Ungo came back,” a European diplomat commented. “People are disgusted with the (Christian Democrats) and they remember Ungo and Zamora as respected and responsible leaders.”

American officials, who have criticized the two men for their connections with the guerrillas and for refusing to take part in past elections, now talk about them more favorably.

“We have always seen them as democrats,” one U.S. official said. “We take at face value their interest in democracy. Eventually they will use the system.”

The Americans and several other elements here sense an impending split between the Ungo forces and the hard-line guerrilla leaders, and they want to exploit any such division by praising and encouraging Ungo.

“The Americans feel public opinion turning against the (guerrillas), and they would like to strip them of any respectability by driving a wedge between Ungo and Zamora and the guerrillas,” another European diplomat said.

Ungo denies that there is a split. In the interview, he said that while “we are not Siamese twins, in fact it (their alliance with the guerrillas) has grown. If we break the alliance the government gets something for nothing. . . . We can’t break away because then there would be nothing to guarantee our participation, even our survival.”

Still, the perception that Ungo and his group could distance themselves from the guerrillas is shared by many diplomats and many Salvadoran supporters of Ungo’s Democratic Revolutionary Front.

“They are different animals,” Ricardo Stein, a respected political analyst, said.

And while Ungo and Zamora pledge fealty to the guerrillas, they are increasingly critical of guerrilla tactics, particularly the mining of roads and fields and the killing of mayors.

Some Western diplomats argue that Zamora and Ungo recognize that the guerrillas and some of their other civilian allies, notably the Communists, have no interest in a power-sharing reconciliation, that they accept the electoral process only as a tactic to destroy it.

Differences Underlined

The differences between the Democratic Front and the guerrillas were underlined at a recent meeting of Ungo and Zamora with Rep. Stephen J. Solarz (D-N.Y.), who is deeply interested in Central American affairs. The two Salvadorans reportedly acknowledged that they want to take part in the government, to be members of the Cabinet.

“When Solarz asked if (Joaquin) Villalobos (one of five guerrilla commanders) wanted to be a Cabinet member, Ungo and Zamora had to admit that he didn’t and wouldn’t want that,” one source said.

One reason for any differences between the guerrillas and their political allies could be the unexpected popularity of the Democratic Revolutionary Front.

“The Convergence is creating a solid political base,” Stein, the political analyst, said, “and for the first time, people are seeing the possibility of a new political option. That has not been in the scenario for a long time. The (guerrilla front) has ample reason to be concerned.”

In some ways, according to another diplomat, the Democratic Front’s acceptance means that “the aim of a negotiated solution has been overtaken by the electoral process.”

The decision by Ungo and Zamora to take part in the political process could run into difficulty. Col. Juan Orlando Zepeda, commander of the army’s 1st Brigade, has in his office a chart that describes the two as “terrorist personalities.”

Ungo and Zamora both fear for their personal safety. Zamora even wears a bullet-proof vest.

“We are the common enemy,” Ungo said. “All the parties are against us.”