SALVADOR WATCH : New Leader, Old Fears

Armando Calderon Sol, president-elect of El Salvador, takes office amid high hopes and deep questions. About 10% of El Salvador’s electorate was prevented from voting in recent national elections, but even Ruben Zamora, the losing candidate, does not claim that a cleaner election would have given him victory. The questions are rather about what Calderon will do after his inauguration.

The new president was the candidate of the extreme right-wing party, Arena, hand-picked for the role by the late party leader Roberto D’Aubuisson. Though Calderon, unlike D’Aubuisson, has not been directly implicated in war crimes such as the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero, he was certainly close enough to war criminals to make him--far more than outgoing President Alfredo Cristiani--a figure of fear on the left.

Those of his supporters who regard Zamora’s party and its leftist coalition allies as “communists” might well welcome a return to D’Aubuisson’s methods. But there is little doubt that Calderon owes his impressive 2-1 electoral mandate to his success in persuading the voters that he would deliver what both candidates promised: namely, the continued implementation of the U.N.-brokered peace accord that ended El Salvador’s brutal civil war.

On the day following his election, Calderon met with Zamora, whose followers hold 21 seats in the 84-seat national assembly. U.S. Ambassador Alan Flanigan joined them. May this conciliatory first step be followed by others in the same direction.