A Salvadoran Middle Road

Last month’s legislative and mayoral elections in El Salvador provide optimism for the growth of democracy in that beleaguered Central American country. Salvadorans went to the polls and awarded a virtual tie to two parties that were radical enemies during the civil war of the 1980s. The leftist Farabundo Marti Front (FMLN) came out with 39% of the vote, nipping the ruling rightist Arena party of President Armando Calderon Sol by one percentage point.

From a political perspective, the even vote should be understood as the people’s mandate for a government based on consensus. Neither party can rule successfully without the other, and to interpret the ballot results as evidence of a divided country would be a mistake with serious consequences. What the vote signals is that only through concerted governance by the two dominant political forces can the little country attempt to begin solving its economic and social problems.

The fact that the FMLN, which for decades practiced violence as the route to power, and Arena, the party that created El Salvador’s infamous death squads, campaigned for allegiance of the political center supports our optimism. The results constitute an enormous step forward as a willful renunciation of radicalism.

But both parties will need more than good will to solve the problems of poverty, economic inequality, unemployment and rampant criminality. Arena’s political platform advocates a free market economy that, in its view, would allow the party and the nation to reassert itself as a regional economic power. The FMLN insists that social programs could protect the most fragile sectors of society. Both agendas have merit and are not mutually exclusive.

If either party ignores the political clout of the other, El Salvador will once again be dragged into paralysis. This is the time to pull together, from the top down through the ranks.