Delayed results show opposition conservatives win El Salvador vote

[Judi Lynn]

Fri Mar 27, 2015 11:58pm EDT
Thomson Reuters
World | Fri Mar 27, 2015 11:58pm EDT

Delayed results show opposition conservatives win El Salvador vote

SAN SALVADOR

(Reuters) - El Salvador's main conservative opposition party narrowly won the most seats in legislative elections earlier this month, electoral authorities said on Friday, a result which could force the ruling leftist government to seek a middle ground with the newly elected lawmakers.

The bungled March 1 vote provoked a major vote-counting delay, even sparking allegations of sabotage before an investigation failed to substantiate them.

Legislative results showed that the conservative Nationalist Republican Alliance (Arena) won 32 seats while the ruling Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) party claimed 31.

The Grand Alliance for National Unity (GANA) party came in third with 11 members of the legislative body.The FMLN party previously held a 4-seat plurality in the 84-member body. ARENA also won the majority of the mayoral races that were also up for grabs, but the FMLN did retake the capital.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/03/28/us-el-salvador-election-idUSKBN0MO04N20150328?rpc=401

(Short article, no more at link.)

[bemildred]

1. Sounds like GANA greatly improved their position. nt

[Judi Lynn]

2. Mixed results in Salvador vote: Big win for FMLN in capital

Mixed results in Salvador vote: Big win for FMLN in capital
by: Special to PeoplesWorld.org
March 26 2015

~ snip ~

Underlying these events are historical tensions that date back to El Salvador's 12-year civil war. With right-wing military-aligned governments bankrolled by the United States to the tune of $1 million a day, the war claimed 70,000 lives before combatants agreed to a permanent truce in 1992.

The current president, Salvador Sánchez Ceren, was comandante of a constituent group of the left-wing guerrilla coalition, Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional (FMLN). With the 1992 peace accords, the FMLN became a political party. Until 2009, however, Salvadoran voters consistently backed right-wing presidential candidates from the Alianza Republicana Nacionalista (ARENA). FMLN won the presidency in 2009, and in 2014, with the barest of margins, voters elected Sánchez Ceren.

Preliminary results in this most recent election suggest that ARENA holds the greater number of National Assembly seats - 36 to FMLN's 31, out of 84. But if past events are any indication, FMLN will negotiate with smaller parties to earn the necessary 43 votes for assembly presidency. There is also talk of the parties ceding the position to a deputy of the center-right Partido de Conciliación Nacional (PCN).

Biggest win for FMLN was mayor of the country's economic and political power center, San Salvador. Youthful, dynamic Nayib Bukele trounced the sitting mayor, Norman Quijano, last year's divisive ARENA presidential candidate.

After last-year's white-knuckle final vote count, when the TSE declared Sánchez Ceren victorious, Quijano used the F-word - "fraud" - and called upon the military to rise up and nullify the election. Military leaders took the extraordinary step of holding a press conference to announce they would respect the TSE's authority.

More:
http://peoplesworld.org/mixed-results-in-salvador-vote-big-win-for-fmln-in-capital/