El Salvador’s new president

El Salvador has a new president-elect, former guerilla commander, Salvador Sánchez Cerén, 69, of the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), the party founded by Marxist revolutionaries from the 1980-1992 civil war. Mr Sánchez Cerén’s razor-thin victory over his right-wing Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA) rival, Norman Quijano (50.11% to 49.89%, a difference of only 6,364 votes out of approximately 3 million ballots), in the second round of voting on March 9, was confirmed by the country’s Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) on March 16.

On June 1, Mr Sánchez Cerén will formally succeed Mauricio Funes, also of the FMLN, under whom he served as vice-president, the first time in the country’s history that a leftist party has been re-elected. On assuming office, he will also become the fourth ex-insurgent head of state in Latin America, along with Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua, José Mujica of Uruguay and Dilma Rousseff of Brazil. He will, no doubt, be regarded as a fully-paid up member of the club of leftist leaders in Latin America, perhaps more so than his predecessor, who was a journalist and not a guerilla and who favoured a moderate, pragmatic, centre-left approach, as opposed to the more radical positions of some of his revolutionary colleagues, eager to align themselves with Hugo Chávez of Venezuela and the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (Alba).

El Salvador is not currently a member of Alba and it was only last September that President Funes announced that his government would analyse the viability of joining PetroCaribe. In his electoral campaign, however, Mr Sánchez Cerén signalled his intention to join both PetroCaribe and Alba, and there appears every indication that he will make good on this promise.

At a time when Venezuela needs all the political and diplomatic support it can muster in Latin America and the Caribbean, this would undoubtedly be warmly welcomed by Caracas. Equally, for El Salvador, plagued by murderous gang violence, with public debt projected to rise to 65% of GDP by 2015 and only 1.6% growth expected this year, PetroCaribe oil on concessional terms and access to some US$640 million to invest in social programmes, through PetroCaribe development mechanisms, would be something of an economic necessity, not to say, windfall.

Demonised by ARENA as a clone of the late Mr Chávez, President-elect Sánchez Cerén is, nevertheless, generally regarded as an honest and modest man. Indeed, he has been described by Diana Negroponte of the centrist, American think-tank, the Brookings Institute, as “a sincere man of the left.” So far, he is making all the right noises.

Following the TSE’s proclamation of his election, Mr Sánchez Cerén called on the country to work towards “an atmosphere of peace and reconciliation.” The next day, he met with the country’s private sector and promised to continue and deepen President Funes’ policies aimed at tackling the deadly gang violence that has traumatised the nation, creating jobs and fighting poverty. In return, he obtained the business community’s commitment to work with the government, within the legal framework, to promote a climate conducive to socio-economic development and growth.

The narrowness of the election and the ensuing bitter legal battle and ongoing accusations of fraud by ARENA – discounted by international observers and rejected by the TSE – have left a deeply divided nation. Mr Sánchez Cerén seems to recognise that he commands the support of barely half of the population and therefore has no choice but to persevere with the pragmatic mixture of free market policies and social programmes pursued by his predecessor. Indeed, this approach appears to be working well in neighbouring Nicaragua, which enjoyed 4.4% GDP growth in 2014. The Nicaraguan model is, however, not perfect, as Mr Ortega’s pro-business pragmatism has been accompanied by considerable political cynicism and the undermining of the country’s democratic institutions.

The close election result may actually prove to be something of a blessing in disguise for El Salvador, forcing the country’s incoming president and major stakeholders to recognise the need for dialogue, compromise and moderation, both in politics and economic policy. At least, that is the conventional wisdom. But as we in Guyana well know and as we are seeing in Venezuela, it does not always work out like that.