Democracy Update: El Salvador
By Kathryn Pyle*
FLMN_cheering_crowd Salvadorans who live in the United States don't yet have the right to cast absentee ballots in Salvadoran elections, so 35,000 have secured a special identification document that will permit them to vote in person in El Salvador's presidential election this Sunday, March 15. The ruling party, ARENA, is challenged by the FMLN, the political party created from the guerrilla forces that fought the government during a twelve-year civil war. For the first time since the war ended in 1992, the opposition has, by all accounts, a strong chance to win; polls have given the FMLN as much as a 17 percent advantage. But as the election nears, the spread has apparently eroded and there is widespread fear of fraud. "Every vote will count," says Oscar Andrade, consultant for American Jewish World Service for the Meso-American region (Photo: Contrapunto.sv.com)
Airlines have offered special discounts and flights are packed with Salvadorans returning home to vote, though it's impossible to predict how many actually will. About 4.2 million Salvadorans living in El Salvador are registered; 60 percent of the population is under the age of 18, but to date youth have not participated proportionally in elections. This one could be different, as both parties have tried to bring young people into the process. Salvadorans have formed strong transnational bonds, cemented by remittances that account for as much as 20 percent of GDP, so there is intense interest in the outcome among Salvadorans in the U.S.
An estimated two thousand international observers are also arriving this week and will join about the same number of Salvadoran observers to help ensure that the election is free and fair. Rumors abound of buses bringing citizens from bordering countries to vote with false IDs. As the head of the European Union observers mission, Luis Yánez, noted in an interview published here this week, the fact that neither the election oversight body nor the agency that issues the identification documents required to vote are independent of the ruling party increases the chances of irregularities and, worse, casts doubt on the entire process. Such involvement on the part of the state in favor of one political party "is not a normal practice in democratic countries," added Yánez.
I'm part of a delegation organized by Salvadoreños en el Mundo (SEEM), a transnational project initiated by El Rescate, a Los Angeles organization formed in 1981 to help Salvadorans fleeing the war. El Rescate has served more than half a million people over the past twenty-nine years -- the vast majority of them Latinos but increasingly including Asian and other ethnic groups -- with legal assistance and related services. SEEM is working to build a transnational agenda around the vote and other policy issues.
The members of the SEEM delegation -- fifteen of us in all, including business leaders, professors, community organizers, professionals and students -- will be trained on Saturday by the Social Initiative for Democracy, a nonprofit organization located in San Salvador that was created in 1992 following the Peace Accords to promote democratic processes. SEEM observers will be assigned to the Flor Blanca stadium, in San Salvador, where the returning Salvadorans are assigned to vote. It promises to be an historic and exciting day, and I'll report back with my observations when I return to the States next week.
A regular contributor to PhilanTopic - Source:PhilanTopic
FLMN_cheering_crowd Salvadorans who live in the United States don't yet have the right to cast absentee ballots in Salvadoran elections, so 35,000 have secured a special identification document that will permit them to vote in person in El Salvador's presidential election this Sunday, March 15. The ruling party, ARENA, is challenged by the FMLN, the political party created from the guerrilla forces that fought the government during a twelve-year civil war. For the first time since the war ended in 1992, the opposition has, by all accounts, a strong chance to win; polls have given the FMLN as much as a 17 percent advantage. But as the election nears, the spread has apparently eroded and there is widespread fear of fraud. "Every vote will count," says Oscar Andrade, consultant for American Jewish World Service for the Meso-American region (Photo: Contrapunto.sv.com)
Airlines have offered special discounts and flights are packed with Salvadorans returning home to vote, though it's impossible to predict how many actually will. About 4.2 million Salvadorans living in El Salvador are registered; 60 percent of the population is under the age of 18, but to date youth have not participated proportionally in elections. This one could be different, as both parties have tried to bring young people into the process. Salvadorans have formed strong transnational bonds, cemented by remittances that account for as much as 20 percent of GDP, so there is intense interest in the outcome among Salvadorans in the U.S.
An estimated two thousand international observers are also arriving this week and will join about the same number of Salvadoran observers to help ensure that the election is free and fair. Rumors abound of buses bringing citizens from bordering countries to vote with false IDs. As the head of the European Union observers mission, Luis Yánez, noted in an interview published here this week, the fact that neither the election oversight body nor the agency that issues the identification documents required to vote are independent of the ruling party increases the chances of irregularities and, worse, casts doubt on the entire process. Such involvement on the part of the state in favor of one political party "is not a normal practice in democratic countries," added Yánez.
I'm part of a delegation organized by Salvadoreños en el Mundo (SEEM), a transnational project initiated by El Rescate, a Los Angeles organization formed in 1981 to help Salvadorans fleeing the war. El Rescate has served more than half a million people over the past twenty-nine years -- the vast majority of them Latinos but increasingly including Asian and other ethnic groups -- with legal assistance and related services. SEEM is working to build a transnational agenda around the vote and other policy issues.
The members of the SEEM delegation -- fifteen of us in all, including business leaders, professors, community organizers, professionals and students -- will be trained on Saturday by the Social Initiative for Democracy, a nonprofit organization located in San Salvador that was created in 1992 following the Peace Accords to promote democratic processes. SEEM observers will be assigned to the Flor Blanca stadium, in San Salvador, where the returning Salvadorans are assigned to vote. It promises to be an historic and exciting day, and I'll report back with my observations when I return to the States next week.
A regular contributor to PhilanTopic - Source:PhilanTopic
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que original esa chemis!
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