A bit on the election!

Hey all! Here is a short entry two of my friends and I wrote this afternoon for the SIT blog... I´ll write more about it soon!

After twenty years of National Republican Alliance (ARENA) leadership, on March 15, 2009, the Salvadoran people succeeded in electing a candidate from the opposing political party, the Farabundo Marti Front for National Liberation (FMLN). Mauricio Funes, the moderate FMLN candidate, has gained national respect for his work as a journalist, most well known for his independent and reliable reporting, and his candidacy has brought a fresh face to the traditionally militant FMLN party. Rodrigo Avila, the right-wing ARENA candidate, perpetuated his party’s tactic, instilling fear in the people and accusing the FMLN of being an enemy of the United States in order to dissuade voters from voting for Funes. Not only was the FMLN victory significant for their party, it was a momentous achievement for Salvadoran democracy. According to Jaime Sanchez, a reporter from Radio Victoria, a community radio station in Cabanas, this election “was an exercise in democracy for the country…For the first time, the Salvadoran people have brought about an alternation of power, which is essential for a healthy democracy.”

Five days before the election, the students from SIT Nicaragua arrived in El Salvador to be trained as international election observers. Through the Social Initiative for Democracy (ISD), we received our credentials and left for Cabanas, a department to the north of San Salvador on the Honduran border. As observers, we were instructed to pay close attention to the opening and closing of voting sites along with any suspicious activity throughout the day. For example, in San Isidro, some students witnessed a confrontation between election officials regarding fraudulent identification cards; the FMLN representatives accused nearly ten people of posing as deceased members of their community in order to vote. Another student observed an ARENA official “accidentally” tearing FMLN ballots during the counting process, which according to electoral law, nullifies them. These isolated anomalies and others of their nature, while significant, did not prevent the nation from successfully holding a democratic election. Our group ended the night alongside student reporters from Radio Victoria—celebrating hope and change with our Salvadoran counterparts!

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