Salvador Bomb Hurts 7; Rebels Renounce Attacks in Vote Today

A bomb exploded beneath a police truck in the capital’s central market Saturday, injuring seven civilians on the eve of El Salvador’s presidential elections.

Witnesses and Red Cross officials said the seven, one of them a boy of 11, were hit by shrapnel after leftist guerrillas put the bomb under the pickup truck while its occupants were in the market buying vegetables.

The attack was the most serious since Wednesday, when a rebel ban on public transportation went into effect.

The ban was issued by the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front in an attempt to paralyze traffic and keep voters away from the polls. Most of the nation’s roads were deserted Saturday. Rebel attacks on power installations overnight also left much of El Salvador without electricity and water.

The rebels earlier warned that all polling places would be considered “military targets” and vowed to turn “each street into a battleground” during today’s elections to choose a successor to President Jose Napoleon Duarte, the dominant figure in Salvadoran politics for the past eight years.

However, on Saturday, the rebels assured the nation’s nearly 1.8 million voters that they will not be attacked. Recent surveys indicated that most Salvadorans would indeed go to the polls.

A U.S. team of observers, led by Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Florida Republican Gov. Bob Martinez, arrived late Saturday in the capital, which remained tense as troops began distributing ballots to voters.

Salvador officials said there is no plan to distribute ballots to the 24 municipalities under rebel control.

Armed forces chief Col. Rene Emilio Ponce has said the military would guarantee the security of voters, and that it would provide trucks to take people to the polls.

Opinion polls show voters are expected to favor rightist candidate Alfredo Cristiani of the Nationalist Republican Alliance, or Arena, although a runoff is expected.

Millionaire businessman Cristiani has promised to seek a national dialogue to end the nine-year guerrilla war.

He is opposed by Fidel Chavez Mena of the Christian Democratic Party, a former foreign and planning minister. But Chavez Mena has had to fight off accusations of corruption and incompetence against his party.

The election also is the first this decade in which a candidate of the left has taken part. Guillermo Ungo of the Democratic Convergence, a coalition of parties of the left, has focused his campaign on the need for a negotiated end to the war.