Victory in El Salvador: an inspirational sign along the path

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5 responses to “Victory in El Salvador: an inspirational sign along the path”

1. 

   Anonymous

   May 11, 2009

   Answer: He’s a lackey of transnational capitalism.

   http://www.analitica.com/va/internacionales/opinion/7578306.asp

   What is going on with Mauricio Funes?
   by Omar Montilla

   Translation by Diana Barahona

   Funes puts his hopes in the IMF, the World Bank and Mexican oligarchs

   El Salvador’s president-elect, Mauricio Funes, will participate in the joint
   general assembly of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. “I am
   going to express my opinion, present what the priorities [of the country] are,
   so that they can explain to us the state of the relationship with the
   government, what it is that they see,” Funes said in brief statements to
   journalists after meeting with business leaders of the country. He will also
   speak at a regional forum titled “Latin America and the Global Crisis.”
   Evidently pleased, he said, “So I will be the only Latin American president
   attending this forum, as a president-elect.” Has Funes asked himself why the
   rest of the presidents of Latin America won’t be at that meeting?

   These statements by Mauricio Funes are not in the bit surprising since they are
   in line with his pre- and post-election behavior. It is not necessary to go into
   a lot of detail about the quality and attributes of the institutions from which
   Funes expects so much, which in the current world crisis are among the most
   discredited because of the haughty policy they adopted toward the poorest
   countries in the world. Is this candor or ignorance? Neither one nor the other.
   Before the elections in El Salvador, Funes was distraught over the fierce
   campaign of the right against the FMLN, where the recurring theme was precisely Hugo Chavez. In order to conjure away that campaign of discredit no better notion occurred to him than to court foreign capitalists: “Mauricio Funes, the FMLN candidate for president, returned to El Salvador this Thursday after
   concluding a tour through Mexico, where he met with Mexican businessmen, among them Carlos Slim and Ricardo Salinas Pliego […] [T]he presidential hopeful of the party of the left pitched to investors the economic proposals that are part of his plan of government” (La Pagina, Feb. 19, 2008). In other words, in order to pacify the Salvadoran right he gave an accounting of his program to the rottonest Mexican oligarchy. It would be good to ask Funes if he won the
   election in spite of the shameless negative use of the figure of Chavez and the
   FMLN in the campaign, or in spite of having ingratiated himself to Slim and
   Salinas.

   Funes worries about the remittances



   According to Telesur’s
Web site on March 18, 2009, that is to say, immediately
   after the election, “Thomas Shannon said that his country ‘will respect’ the
   sovereign decision of the government of President-elect Mauricio Funes if it
   decides to open diplomatic relations with Cuba. ‘Our focus at this time is on
   the bilateral relationship between the United States and El Salvador,’ Shannon
   said, [adding that] his country is interested in maintaining ‘that marriage’
   that the two nations have, in the hope that El Salvador brings about the advance toward democracy with President-elect Mauricio Funes … [There] is a great future for El Salvador,’ said Shannon during the meeting with Funes, at the same time that he expressed his desire to work ‘closely’ with his administration.”

   We can understand that Funes is worried about the enormous population of
   Salvadorans that the right expelled from their country to go to work in the most
   humiliating way in the United States. That’s fine. We can understand that he is
   worried about the reduction of the flow of remittances that Salvadorans send to
   their country, and one must not underestimate the importance of this source of
   revenue. But Funes knows that that reduction of the flow of dollars is due to
   the tremendous crisis that the United States is going through, which El Salvador
   has nothing to do with. To the contrary, it has been the millions of Salvadorans
   who have contributed with their hard and poorly paid work to the economic
   progress of that ungrateful country.
   

   We must note that countries such as Nicaragua, Ecuador and Bolivia have many
   more emigrants than El Salvador, and as far as I know they have never prostrated themselves before the IMF or the World Bank asking for handouts. Funes wants these voracious international institutions to explain to him “the state of the relationship with the government.” That will never happen and as a journalist he knows it. So why all the pirouettes with those pirates?

   Funes also confirmed that before receiving the presidential sash on June 1, he
   has meetings planned with Chilean President Michelle Bachelet, Spanish President Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, German Chancellor Angel Merkel, the presidents of the Central American countries and Mexican President Felipe Calderon, among others.


   Funes also puts his hopes in Felipe Calderon and distances himself from Chavez

   He was particularly cloying with Felipe Calderon with whom he said he would
   discuss an “excellent experience in combating drug trafficking [and that] he
   also has excellent experience in poverty reduction programs that we are going to share and programs of cooperation, above all cultural.” Funes: Are you a fool or are you pretending to be one? How can Mexico help you with the problem of drug trafficking when it is a drug-producing country? How can Calderon help you with that problem if he is under the guns of numerous bands of criminals, whom his government protects and supports under absolute impunity? How is Calderon going to help you to reduce poverty in El Salvador when it is growing in his own country? The Mexican government has not even dared to maintain the so-called San Jose Agreement to supply petroleum and derivatives to Central America, while the Venezuelan government implemented PetroCaribe, in which even the government of Belize participates, and assisted the Salvadoran people through FMLN mayors against the government of that country. Is it possible that this experience will be repeated with the Funes government?

   Chavez overture met with insult

   The day after Funes won the election, Chavez saluted the “unarguable and
   forceful victory of the courageous journalist, Mauricio Funes, and of the …
   FMLN. This victory consolidates the historical current that has risen up in all
   of Latin America and the Caribbean in this first decade of the twentieth century
   and opens the doors to other brother nations in the challenges they have ahead
   of them.” Funes’s response didn’t take long. On March 30 it was reported that
   “Salvadoran President-elect Mauricio Funes made his debut in the international
   arena with praise for “the changes” in the United States and the warning that
   “he will not allow the Venezuelan president, Hugo Chavez, to stick ‘one finger’
   into the political process in El Salvador [as] he participated with outgoing
   President Antonio Saca in a meeting of Central American leaders with U.S. Vice
   President Joe Biden.”

   As far as anybody knows, and it is known, Chavez has never intervened; he has
   only helped, and for that behavior he has been censured from inside and outside of Venezuela by the usual enemies, who are no longer concentrated in one territory but are the same everywhere. While Funes vehemently insults Chavez, whom he doesn’t even know, he allows himself to praise some “changes” that have not materialized. Can it be that he was happy about having predicted that Obama was going to “free” some restrictions so that Cubans could travel to their country, while he kept them in place against U.S. citizens?

   Uribe explains his “democratic values” to Funes



   In the Colombian magazine Semana, we read the following: “Uribe met with
   Mauricio Funes, president-elect of El Salvador, to whom he expressed his
   interest in continuing to strengthen political, economic and cultural relations
   with the Central American country. The encounter, which took place in Puerto
   España, lasted 30 minutes, during which time President Uribe explained to Funes the democratic values that the Colombian government practices. Funes
   ‘congratulated Uribe for the work he has done’” (April 18, 2009).

   Let us break it down so we don’t choke: Uribe explains to Funes the “democratic values” of his government. What would those be? Possibly they are the human rights violations, which have been so widespread that even the U.S. Senate (with a Democratic majority) refused to pass the Free Trade Agreement with Colombia, mainly because of the murder of thousands of labor leaders, carried out with the vain illusion of silencing the protests of the Colombian people. It is possible that Uribe has convinced Funes that the thousands of murders of innocent victims, the so-called “false positives,” are part of the “democratic values” of his government.


   We agree that it is necessary to promote commercial exchange with any country. Business is buying and selling. But what they spoke of least, because evidently they didn’t have anything to say, was precisely commercial exchange. That is why Funes only limited himself to “congratulate him” for the work done, which not even Semana, owned by the Santos family, dared to elaborate on.

   Am I classical or romantic? I don’t know


   Question and answer from the Spanish poet, Antonio Machado, who would end up explaining, “I would like to leave my verse like the captain leaves his sword:/
   famous for the virile hand that brandished it,/ not for the learned trade of the
   blacksmith honored.” But Funes has a particular appetite for etiquette. He is
   anxious to be considered a “moderate” in order to distinguish himself from
   “radicals” like Hugo Chavez, Evo Morales or Daniel Ortega. Don’t even mention
   Fidel or Raul Castro. Why the eagerness? The answer came on March 21: “Brazilian leader Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva will be the model for the government of … Mauricio Funes. ‘For me President Lula and his government constitute a model of democratic practice of a leftist government that can send signals of confidence to foreign investors and also to national investors’ [and] he said that when he took office as president next June he would immediately seek bilateral accords between his government and that of Lula.
   

   One can infer, then, that the success of Funes’s government will depend on
   “foreign investors.” If that’s the way it is, he had better be prepared for some
   tough times. El Salvador is not the best territory for maquiladoras, a stage
   that frankly has been surpassed on this continent, which can be verified by
   merely looking next door at Guatemala. It is necessary to remember Uruguayan
   patriot Jose Gervasio Artigas, who advised us to depend on our strengths, not on what others may or may not do, not on what may or may not happen to others, and who would have driven the point home with this, his expression: “A country for all or a country for none.”

   On March 23 Funes ratified his closeness to the “moderate left” and the
   “analysts” believe that he will have the dilemma of following Chavez or Lula:
   “Funes’s first trip … was to Brazil to meet with Lula … Funes will soon have
   to face a dilemma in his style of government: follow the model of the moderate
   left in the style of Lula in Brazil, or the radical left in the style of Hugo
   Chavez … Funes has said that his model will be the Brazilian one and not the
   Venezuelan one.” The “analyst” is Moises Naim, who was a minister under Carlos Andres Perez, member of that economic team that plunged Venezuela into the most serious economic crisis of the twentieth century. The Spanish newspaper El Pais publishes this analysis, titled “The axis of Lula and the axis of Hugo,” where it says that the crossroads that Funes will face “now boils down to this alternative [align himself with Chavez or Lula]. His party is to the left of him and will pressure him to lean towards the Axis of Hugo.” To this day Funes has not said anything about these views, possibly because he shares them.

   But in this terrain Funes is, as in football, playing forward of the game,
   because nobody has brought up this alternative to him. Quite the opposite; it
   has been the object of attention, of deliberation, of interest and of
   comprehension on the part of many. The newspaper La Prensa Grafica published this headline on April 16: “Funes receives invitation to meet with Chavez,” and the article said Funes “revealed today that he has received an invitation from Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez to hold a meeting before taking office on June 1. ‘There is talk of a meeting that has not yet been arranged.’”
 In order to immunize himself and avoid comments that could damage his hypersensitive skin, he clarified, “The meeting was requested by him, I have not requested it. He has to be the one explaining to the press what topics he is interested in discussing with me.”
   

   At the same time, Funes did explain that the meeting he has planned with Lula
   would serve to “review the possibility” that the National Social Development
   Bank of Brazil could finance “some” social project in El Salvador. Nobody seems
   to understand, not even Salvadorans, the reason for this evasiveness of Funes
   with Chavez, as seen when Salvadoran legislative deputy Roberto Lorenzana said that as a party “we cannot but be respectful of the diplomatic initiatives of
   each country” and that the only thing they know about them is that Funes has
   kept a distance from policies coming from Caracas.

   


   Nobody has asked Funes to align himself with Chavez, who never mentioned it
   during the electoral campaign, in spite of the fact that he was mentioned as
   often as the candidate himself. The Salvadoran daily La Prensa said on March 17
   that “On his first day as president-elect of El Salvador, Mauricio Funes
   reaffirmed his commitment to ‘not align himself under the leadership of
   Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, to build a government of national unity and not allow the … FMLN to interfere in affairs of state beyond what the law
   allows.”
   

   In an interview given to CNN in Spanish, the corporation he worked for as a
   correspondent from 1991 to 2007 (16 years!), Funes insisted over and over that
   he had no obligation to follow Chavez: “The Salvadoran left has its own identity
   and will respond to its own circumstances. It has to respond to the demand, the
   aspiration and the desire for change that the Salvadoran people have expressed
   to it. It has no reason to align itself with the process of the Bolivarian
   revolution that Chavez leads; that process responds to Venezuela. The elections
   were in El Salvador, not in Venezuela.” That is correct, but is that the real
   reason for so many protests of innocence to the gringos? 


   On March 21, the Web site El Salvador.com points out that “In the FMLN no leader wants to give his opinion about the statements of President-elect Mauricio Funes, in which he claims that his “model” is Brazilian leader Luiz Inacio “Lula” da Silva and not … Chavez. The mayor of Apopa, Luz Estrella Rodriguez, second-in-command in the party, declined yesterday to give an opinion. Her argument was that they haven’t discussed that subject in the FMLN.”

   


   … and so what am I?
   


   The right-wing Spanish daily, ABC, under the headline, “Funes insists on
   demarcating himself from Chavez” published the following commentary: “My
   discourse is not that of the traditional left, because I don’t represent it. I
   do not come from there. El Salvador cannot become a socialist nation because it is not even capitalist; it is almost a feudal society. We have to build. And
   afterwards, a long time afterwards, we can begin to imagine a socialist
   country.” The same newspaper notes, “Mauricio Funes, the president-elect of the small Central American nation, insists on demarcating himself from the club founded by the Venezuelan Hugo Chavez, which has more and more members on this continent, which poverty and the failure of neoliberal policies progressively tilted leftward.”

   But Funes returned to the subject: “My government has to respond to its own
   identity. It has no reason to align itself with the Bolivarian revolution.”

   Unfortunately for Funes, in spite of all of his protests they still don’t
   believe him. To his fright, the same daily ABC states, “More than a few see in
   Funes a straw man behind which is hiding the hard core of a guerrilla … that
   achieved through the ballot box what it didn’t with arms. A revolutionary
   movement that, according to predictions of its rivals during the electoral
   campaign, will lose no time in copying its Sandinista neighbor, which in barely
   two years has turned Nicaragua into the private farm of Daniel Ortega. And for
   that they remind people that many city halls ruled by the FMLN have been
   receiving direct aid from Caracas for years.”


   

   The vice president-elect of El Salvador, a bit disappointed, and I don’t dare
   guess the reason, indicates that “Everything will not be carried out in full as
   the FMLN thinks.” Further on he says, “The next government will not be of the
   FMLN, but one that will give room to other thoughts,” and clarifies that he will
   not arrive at the vice presidency to be the guardian of the faith of the FMLN in
   the Funes government. The same journalist, somewhat surprised, says that Mr.
   Sanchez Ceren “may disappoint in this interview [both] followers and
   detractors.” The surprising thing is that he can cede so much territory to the
   adversary when he says, “My position is not going to be that of a defender of
   the ideology.” If that is true, what is it that he is going to defend?

   El Nuevo Diario of Nicaragua reports that in Puerto España Funes supported the
   idea of “proposing to the U.S. government that it contribute to the
   strengthening of regional banks, particularly the Interamerican Development Bank and the Central American Bank of Economic Integration,” and that “he expressed his confidence that the democratic transition that he and President Saca are carrying out in El Salvador constitutes the best calling card in the
   consolidation of democracy in the country. Funes shared the opinion of Saca that the economic crisis may cause a setback to development in El Salvador.”
   Definitively in ideological questions, Funes is, as the popular saying goes, “as
   confused as a chicken without a head.” How can he expect Obama, who is up to his ears with his banks, most of them in bankruptcy or on the verge, to “strengthen” the Central American banks? The last straw is asking for “aid” for the IDB, where absolutely nothing is done without the consent of the boss.

   On its part, the daily La Prensa Grafica says, “Funes requests aid for regional
   banks at summit,” insisting again on the theme, with which the way the president elect is going is made clear, even though doesn’t seem to understand what is happening in the world, where the banking institutions that docilely serve capital and the capitalists are collapsing. 

   


   Epilogue in adagio, ma non troppo

   The first “unsolicited” interview of Barack Obama in Trinidad was with Chavez,
   which caused an international sensation because of the “warmth of the
   encounter,” and about which the international press still comments in all
   aspects. Obama had no embarassment about meeting with Chavez.
 Funes on his part explained that “because of scheduling problems” it was not possible to set up a meeting in Puerto España with Chavez. Whatever happened? Can it be that Chavez finally tired of so much inconsistency? What we do know is what La Prensa Grafica says: “[Funes’s] broad schedule leaves Chavez out of encounters [because Funes] is not sure that he will be able to comply with some additional
   invitations that have arrived at his office. One of them is that of Venezuelan
   President Hugo Chavez.” The curious note is what the article says farther down:
   “Funes had planned a bilateral [meeting] with Chavez at the V Americas Summit, which was held in Trinidad and Tobago, but it was cancelled. ‘Because of scheduling reasons, he [Chavez] ended up cancelling it,’ he explained.”
   

   The Salvadoran daily El Mundo refers to “The five greatest challenges of Funes,”
   which would be: 1. Crisis management; 2. The government for the crisis; 3.
   Relations with the FMLN; 4. The crisis in public finances and 5. Relations with
   the other parties. Independently of the posture that Mauricio Funes may maintain regarding Hugo Chavez, the important thing would be, it is hoped, that he rise to the occasion to confront what is coming, which will not be at all good, because during four long months the outgoing president, Antonio Saca, has had more than enough time to “scrape the pot clean.” Funes should not believe his own words when he said that “the democratic transition that he and President Saca are carrying out in El Salvador constitutes the best calling card in the consolidation of democracy in the country.” 


   It is good to remember in these moments Shafik Handal, whose shadow blanketed Mauricio Funes: “We do not come like lost sheep returning to the pen, but like vigorous reformers and fighters for changes;” and never forget either the exemplary words of Bolivar: “Let us no longer be the mockery of these miserable ones who are only superior in wickedness, such that they do not surpass us in valor; if they seem big to us it is because we are on our knees.”

   http://www.analitica.com/va/internacionales/opinion/7578306.asp

   —
   “If we do not bring an end to the capitalist system, it will be impossible to
   save the Earth.” Evo Morales

2. 

   Dianne

   May 10, 2009

   The social movements in El Salvador have opposed the imposition of a neoliberal agenda. The far-right ARENA party lost in the recent election last march, but the critical factor is that these movements continue to grow. That means we in the United States need to express our solidarity whenever that’s needed.

   Below is a call from CISPES, the U.S. organization in solidarity with the people of El Salvador, asking that we write to Adidas and demand that the company compensate the workers whose plant was shut down in 2005. Please read the message below and take action today.

   *****

   On Sunday, March 15, the people of El Salvador mobilized to defend democracy, resulting in the election of the FMLN candidate Mauricio Funes — the very first leftist head of state in the county’s history. This historical shift in power is due to the Salvadoran social movement’s resistance to the right wing’s repressive economic and military policies.

   Labor unions and solidarity organizations’ fight against neoliberal free-trade agreements like the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) have been a primary manifestation of this resistance. Integral to El Salvador’s resistance movement is a group of workers from the Las Hermosas maquila (or sweatshop) who are currently holding multinational corporations, like Nike, Adidas, and Russell, accountable for the myriad of labor rights violations in El Salvador’s maquila industry.

   In May 2005, the Las Hermosas workers began to organize to change unjust working conditions in the factory. However, immediately after the workers began to organize, the factory owner closed the factory, leaving over 64 workers and organizers unemployed, blacklisted from neighboring maquilas, and owed over $825,000 of unpaid wages, social security, and severance pay.

   Four years since the closure of the Las Hermosa’s factory, organizers are still without formal jobs or access to basic medical care through the state medical system; moreover, they have only received a very limited contribution towards the $825,000 of outstanding wages, overtime payments, and severance legally owed to the workers.

   As a contractor at Las Hermosa’s factory, the Adidas corporation has the responsibility to ensure the workers are compensated or directly compensate them for the money owed and to reinstate blacklisted and fired workers. In fact, at meetings held with President Antonio Saca in December of 2005 and April of 2006, Adidas committed to ensuring that the Las Hermosa’s case is a clear example of CAFTA’s promotion of labor “flexibility”: corporations profiting from the hiring and firing of cheap labor, while suppressing workers’ right to organize in the maquila industry throughout Central America.

   The success of the new Funes government in standing up to neo-liberal free trade agreements like CAFTA will be dependent on the mobilization of the social movement to demand change and accountability not only from officials but from the transnational corporate system. workers would receive full compensation, but have never followed through with their promise.

   In the wake of this historical moment in El Salvador, join CISPES in standing in solidarity with the Las Hermosas workers by calling Adidas and demanding that they comply with the workers’ demands. Your action is critical in defending workers’ rights to organize, and in supporting the social movement’s continued struggle for change in El Salvador.

   TAKE ACTION:

   1) Fax or email Adidas Corporate Social Responsibility Officer Gregg Nebel at (360) 394-1661 or Gregg.Nebel@adidas-Group.com and demand that he comply with the Las Hermosas Workers’ demands.

   2) Get your organization to sign on to a letter to Adidas. You can download the letter here: http://www.cispes.org/documents/Organizational_letter_Adidas.doc

   —————-

   You can use the following sample letter to contact Gregg Nebel

   Dear Gregg Nebel and Adidas Corporate Responsibility Office:

   I am writing because I am very concerned about the Adidas corporation’s role in the Las Hermosas Manufacturing Case in El Salvador. Four years since the sudden closure of their factory the workers that were involved in defending their rights at Hermosa Manufacturing are still without formal jobs, not do they have access to the state medical system for employees. Meanwhile, they have only received a very limited contribution to their outstanding wages, overtime payments and severance pay.

   I understand Adidas made a public commitment in 2007 to pressure the Salvadoran government to bring justice to the Las Hermosas women in the trial between the factory owner Montalvo and the workers, but your company has yet to follow through with their promise.

   I also understand some brands have made a contribution to an emergency fund set up by the Fair Labor Association (FLA), and while I appreciate the effort, I am disappointed that the fund does not explicitly intend to cover the amount legally owed to the workers.

   I urge you to meet the demands of the workers to:

   1. Contribute, or increase your contribution to the fund administered by the legal organization FESPAD for the workers until the workers have received their outstanding wages, overtime payments, and severance pay;

   2. Require your suppliers in El Salvador to hire the former Hermosa workers on a priority basis in order to facilitate these workers gaining employment and to address the illegal discrimination in the form of a “Black List” that has occurred;

   3. Prevent further retaliation against these workers by your suppliers in the form of illegal intimidation and hiring discrimination;

   4. Continue to pressure the Salvadoran government to enforce the legal rulings in favor of the workers, ensure payment of the outstanding wages, and respect the laws of their Constitution and international conventions that guarantee the right to organize in a union.

   I look forward to hearing what action you have taken in this case. I wish to inform you that I pledge solidarity to the Hermosa workers’ struggle, and I will support pressure actions against your company to comply with their demands.

   Sincerely,

3. 

   Redchuck

   March 18, 2009

   Does anyone have information on the current state of the popular organizations in El Salvador– especially the unions? They will be crucial if the FMLN leadership begins to bow to pressure from imperialism and domestic reactions (as have the Brazilian PT, Chilean SP, Bolivian MAS, etc.). Do they have the capacity to act independently (and, if necessary, against) the FMLN?

4. 

   Dianne

   March 18, 2009

   The election of FMLN candidate, Mauricio Funes, as president is surely an victory for the left in El Salvador. It follows the FMLN victory in the January 2009 elections where they increased the number of representatives in the legislative assembly from 32 to 35 and won 96 out of the 262 mayoral offices, including five departmental capitals. Previously the FMLN held 58 mayoral offices.

   However the extreme right ARENA party captured the mayor’s office in San Salvador, where almost 6 million of the country’s 7 million live. This was a blow to the FMLN, who had held office there for 12 years.

   The ARENA victory was won through concentrating the majority of their funds and their campaign workers on that race. They also systemically relocated their activists to the capital to increase their vote (not illegal). Additionally, they siphoned off governmental resources and most likely provided false documents to Central Americans not eligible to vote. (FMLN representatives say they have photographic and video proof to back up this accusation.) Nonetheless, ARENA only won San Salvador by 5,780 votes.

   But municipal power means relatively little and the FMLN gains in the legislature, while important, do not shift the balance of power. ARENA can add to their 32 votes (dropping from 34) those of the National Conciliation Party (PCN), which received 11 votes through the assigning of what are “leftover votes.”

   What is new and important, though, is the citizen mobilization that began with the January elections. Previously people had protested electoral fraud, but after the fact. This time around residents of towns on the Honduran border organized a people’s watch. They coordinated with Honduran municipalities to run public announcements on radio stations, warning that checkpoints would be set up to prevent illegal voting. These were set up four days before the election by community members who took turns checking vehicles that passed.

   In San Isidro, Cabanas, where the community, over the last two years, has been organizing to prevent harmful mining operations by the Pacific Rim Company, they set up a surveillance operation to monitor the election. They managed to delay the election and although they didn’t succeed in the end, just that week-long delay as a result of their organizing represented a victory.

   Obviously the FMLN victories in the January and March elections is tempered by the continued weight of the right-wing parties. Hopefully the FMLN victory will embolden the grassroots movements!

5. 

   Gunni

   March 18, 2009

   Thanks for this excellent report. Unlike Chavez, Funes cannot rely on indigenous resources and any semblance of economic self-reliance, nor even a majority government. The FMLN will face a majority right-wing parliamentary opposition when all is added up, so expectations for Funes should be modest. It seems reasonable to expect more of the same defense of social institutions (like the health care fight) without many new gains, with a view to winning more parliamentary seats in the short term. As you note, under difficult conditions of neo-liberalism in crisis, the party and Funes, as the friend of the people, will be faced with “managing” challenges he cannot readily solve. While Obamaesque, there is a crucial difference: the FMLN is a mass party with an effectively organized base of longstanding. Along with the political pressure the party will exert from the left on the Funes government, the opportunity still remains to continue to define a long-term program for when power can be consolidated. Unlike the US example, the FMLN has credibility and offers real hope. La lucha continúa…