El Salvador’s Old Hostilities Resurface in Mayoral Election

SAN SALVADOR â€”  A leftist former guerrilla was declared the winner of the mayor’s race in this capital city Thursday, following a disputed, razor-close finish that exposed the continuing divisions in El Salvador between right and left.

Violeta Menjivar of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front, or FMLN, won the race by a scant 44 votes, following a tense night of protest and street battles in San Salvador three days after Sunday’s election.

Supporters of Menjivar had marched Wednesday night to the hotel where El Salvador’s electoral tribunal was counting the final batch of disputed votes. The president of the tribunal is a member of the ruling National Republican Alliance, known as Arena, and the FMLN denounced as fraud the body’s initial resistance to certifying the FMLN candidate’s narrow victory.

In the weeks before the election, the Arena and FMLN candidates engaged in a bitter campaign tinged with increasingly incendiary rhetoric reminiscent of this nation’s 12-year civil war, which ended in 1992. Back then, the two factions fought with bullets.

“These hatreds still exist between people who remember the war, people who are now in their 50s and 60s,� said Leonel Gomez, a political analyst here. “These older leaders are passing on a culture of violence to the youth.�

Arena mayoral candidate Rodrigo Samayoa conceded defeat at a news conference Thursday. In a gesture of reconciliation, El Salvador’s president, Tony Saca of Arena, called Menjivar to congratulate her.

But the FMLN lost its dominance of the national legislature to Arena, as well as its control of city hall in several provincial towns and cities, which were won by Arena and other parties.

The FMLN’s narrow victory in San Salvador also was taken as a sign of the weakening of the former guerrilla movement, which has held the capital in three consecutive elections since the first post-civil war elections in 1997.

Political analysts said the dispute over San Salvador’s mayor’s race would only feed a growing disillusionment with the democratic process. More voters -- 45% of the electorate -- stayed away from the polls than voted for any single party, said Napoleon Campos, a political analyst here.

“The bigger winner in this election was absenteeism,� he said. “The big losers were the people, reconstruction and democracy.�

Menjivar and the FMLN, Campos added, will rule San Salvador with a politically impaired administration that faces increasing municipal debt and pressure from a powerful union movement to raise public employee wages.

The FMLN fought a series of right-wing governments in the 12-year war during which 75,000 people were killed. Peace accords were signed in 1992. The FMLN gave up guerrilla warfare and formed a political party that has been highly critical of El Salvador’s close ties with Washington.

The Arena party, once linked to the country’s notorious death squads, has won every presidential election since the civil war.

Several people were hurt in the clashes Wednesday night, in which police say protesters opened fire against them. The officers responded with tear gas and rubber bullets, injuring seven.

“We are on the verge of another conflict,� political analyst Gomez said. “There are people who are starting to talk about taking up arms again, people saying they can’t put up with the economic situation. People are desperate.�

Times staff writer Tobar reported from Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, and special correspondent Renderos from San Salvador.