Mauricio Funes was never a revolutionary, he never fought as a guerilla, but he is now El Salvador’s first leftist president. On March 16, El Salvador joined a rapidly expanding list of Latin American countries electing leftist leaders.
“I want to be the real president of the real reconstruction of the country, which starts with the reconstruction of people,” said Funes at a news conference.
Funes, the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front’s (FMLN) candidate, beat his opponent Rodrigo Avila by a narrow margin with 51.3% of the vote.
During El Salvador’s civil war that raged for 19 years until a peace treaty in 1999, the FMLN fought the right-wing military government that controlled El Salvador.
Funes ran on a moderate platform, worrying some about the legitimacy of the FMLN posing leftist change to El Salvador.
“I am cynical that the FMLN has a radical plan,” said Assistant Professor of History, Anore Horton. “One of the reasons that Funes won was because he ran as a moderate.”
Further, Horton said that the FMLN might have chosen Funes precisely for the reason that he was not seen as threatening. The FMLN is densely populated with figures that fought in the Salvadorian civil war, including Funes’s running mate, Sánchez Cerén.
“They’ve had to accommodate to these new structures that are brought by the West,” said Daniel McCurdy, a junior from Nicaragua. “Both the FMLN and El Salvador have had to restructure due to the media which has led to new focuses, like community.”
Funes, a former television journalist, was already a popular face in El Salvador prior to the elections when the FMLN asked him to run as their candidate.
The FMLN, whose Marxist policies originated in the late 1960’s in opposition to governmental oligarchy, are being challenged by some for changing their policies.
“I am sure if you look at a Latin American newspaper that you would probably find a lot of criticism of Funes,” said McCurdy.
Horton agreed, saying, “It’s understandable why they chose that tactic, but the question is: is it going to make any difference to the people of El Salvador.”
In the 1970s, the right-wing policies of the Salvadoran government continued to oppress the people, especially those in the lower classes, known as campesinos-farmers without their own land forced to either propagate wild land or labor for larger farms.
The man honored in the FMLN’s name, Farabundo Marti, was a social activist from the 1930s who gathered support for the lower class by fighting against major coffee corporations’ imperialist techniques in El Salvador.
“If you examine the economies of these countries-Guatemala, Nicaragua, and El Salvador-you’ll find that they’re very similar,” said McCurdy. “They’ve all been taken advantage of because of their coffee crop.”
The election of a FMLN candidate comes at an unstable time. The world recession presents a new economic problem during Funes’ upcoming years in office.
“My only worry would be if they started seizing private property like Chavez,” said Associate Professor of Political Science Ken Gilmore. “But, let’s watch and see what he does.”
Economic and militaristic repression were the principal causes of the Salvadoran civil war, meaning that many expect Funes and the FMLN to stimulate the economy through socialism.
“These countries have people who have been repressed for so long that now governments are slowly incentivizing people in smaller communities to participate in a democratic system,” said McCurdy.
Another question however, is the relationship that the FMLN and Funes will form with the United States.
“It’s hard to tell with Obama what he might do,” said Gilmore, “In Central America, though, he will be more respectful of leftist leaders than Bush ever was.