There is little or no joy to be gleaned from the recent El Salvador presidential election. Perhaps the least unfavorable observation is that although spiced with inflammatory rhetoric, the campaign was generally peaceful. After 20 years in power, the incumbent center-right ARENA party had become stodgy and less than energetic or sensitive to popular needs and wishes, while its hardcore leftist FMLN opponents were fueled by massive funding courtesy of Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez.ARENA and its avuncular, refreshingly uncorrupted candidate, Rodrigo Ávila, were outspent by at least three to one and perhaps much more. A fountain of Venezuelan petro-cash, plus numerous hardcore foreign advisors, allowed the communist FMLN to squeak out a 51 percent majority, placing El Salvador on a probable road to reckless, one-party governance of a devastating nature.With El Salvador in tow, Chávez has moved one step closer to creating a corridor that extends from Ecuador to the Rio Grande, over which narcotics, arms, Islamist terrorists, and illegal immigrants are already being transported. Next stop for the mercurial man from Caracas: Panama, where presidential and legislative elections are due to be held on May 3.↓ Keep reading this article ↓ _version=10; _version=11; if (navigator.appVersion.indexOf('MSIE 3') != -1){ document.write(''); } else if (_version < 11) { document.write (''); } Hemingway: A Dubious ChoiceMcCarthy: Spain's 'Universal Jurisdiction' Power PlayDe Lion: Subverting Latin DemocracyEditors: Obama's LemonNordlinger: Czech, please! &c.Dunphy: Not 'Senseless' At AllPitney: The Next EnemySowell: A Rookie PresidentLowry: CEO PresidentLetters: In the Count's ThrallKudlow: A 'Truly Breathtaking' DepartureFreddoso: Populism on the HudsonJacobs: Jump-Starting Border SecurityBandow: When Workers Say NoLopez: Dawn of the LeftNordlinger: Negroponte at Large, Part V For a decade, Chávez has won — by hook or by crook — three presidential elections plus several lesser but important contests in Venezuela. He has also actively meddled in presidential elections in Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Peru — losing only in Peru. In the process, he has mastered a bevy of time-honored electoral tricks — both legal and illegal — and developed several new ones along the way.Lest he be accused of pumping funds directly into the recent Salvadoran campaign, Chávez ordered Venezuela’s state-owned petroleum monopoly, PDVSA, to sell large quantities of oil to FMLN mayors at deep discounts. These mayors obligingly resold the fuel at close to market prices and used the proceeds for personal and political gain. The Venezuelan autocrat had developed this trick over several years, initially doing a mutually rewarding business with Joseph Kennedy in Massachusetts (although perhaps not mutually rewarding in a monetary sense, it was a smooth way to secure silence from America’s most widely known political family). Chávez’s oil largesse, together with late campaign contributions from interested Guatemalan and Brazilian businessmen, allowed the FMLN to fulsomely fund campaign rallies, advertising, transportation to polling places, and anything else deemed necessary to win.At the top of the FMLN ticket stood popular former TV newscaster Mauricio Funes. Well-trained foreign operatives indoctrinated FMLN officials on how to put their case in a non-contentious way, essentially using a “Time for a Change” approach. Salvadoreños should have been skeptical of such rhetoric, given the history of the FMLN and the record of its vice-presidential candidate, Salvador Sánchez Cerén, who is not only a hardline communist but also a former top guerrilla general. During the 1980–1992 civil war, Sánchez Cerén masterminded the killing of at least 1,200 of his own guerrillas, in a campaign scarily similar to that employed by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. FMLN combatants were encouraged to report anyone they thought might be an enemy spy, and the accused were summarily executed, usually without the pretense of a trial. As many as 2,000 of the country’s six million citizens perished.Considered one of the most hardcore leftists in the party, the vice president-elect (whose guerrilla alias was “Leonel Gonzalez”) is not alone. The party’s secretary-general, Melando Gonzalez (terrorist moniker, “Milton”), is considered his soul mate, together with most of the rest of the FMLN leadership.There are some indications that Mauricio Funes is not a hardliner. His first contact with a foreign leader after the election was with Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, not Hugo Chávez. (Funes’s wife attended school with Lula.) Some sources contend that Funes is well aware that he is surrounded by criminals and radicals of the worst sort and that he is the only barrier to their taking full control of the country. In fact, his exposed situation led Funes to seek — and receive — protection from Brazilian guards, following the suspicious murder of one of his drivers.President Lula has little more than a year left in power owing to term limits, and there is no indication that a new Brazilian administration will be as supportive. Chávez, on the other hand, has recently overthrown Venezuelan constitutional law and can run for president as long as he wishes after his current term expires in 2013.CONTINUED 1 2 Next > adsonar_placementId=1448671;adsonar_pid=1609767;adsonar_ps=-1;adsonar_zw=300;adsonar_zh=250;adsonar_jv='ads.adsonar.com'; * * *
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