Candidate Seen as an Average Joe Retains Presidency for Pro-Business Party

By Mary Beth Sheridan
Washington Post Staff Writer

SAN SALVADOR, March 22 -- Tony Saca, the winner of El Salvador's presidential elections, had everything going for him. He was backed by the country's business barons, by a party in power for 15 years and by a national media tilted strongly toward his conservative party.

And yet, Saca's Nationalist Republican Alliance, or Arena, was running scared as it geared up for Sunday's vote. Many Salvadorans have expressed concern about a lack of economic progress, and showed it in previous elections -- handing a victory in congressional elections last year to a party headed by former Marxist guerrillas. That raised the possibility of a dramatic change of leadership in El Salvador, one of the most pro-American governments in Latin America.

Arena fought off the challenge with its traditional advantages of money and media. But it also renovated its image, distancing the party from the 12-year civil war in which it had been linked to death squads.

The new president is a 39-year-old businessman who had no role in the conflict and no experience in political office. Saca became famous as a TV commentator narrating soccer games, and went on to purchase a string of radio stations. He projected a cheerful, Average Joe style in a party dominated by well-heeled businessmen.

"I represent that Salvadoran who wants to find . . . a pretext to vote for Arena," Saca said in an interview on the eve of the election.

But his overwhelming victory, with about 57 percent of the vote, also reflected the difficulties that El Salvador's former rebels have faced in adjusting to democratic competition since they signed peace accords in 1992, political analysts said. Their party, the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front, or FMLN, ran a former guerrilla leader known for his hard-line views. The candidate, Schafik Handal, 73, failed to gain much support beyond his party's hard-core supporters.

"When they launched Schafik, they terrified the country," said Saca.

Arena supporters launched a media blitz during the campaign that painted Handal as a dangerous ideologue who would turn the country into another Cuba. Television ads and newspaper articles warned that if Handal won, the United States would expel the 300,000 Salvadorans holding temporary working papers and cut off the $2 billion a year that emigrants sent home.

Handal raised concerns among U.S. officials, the Salvadoran business sector and those with relatives in the United States. The former Communist leader promised to review and perhaps roll back some of the country's free-market changes of recent years. He vowed to pull El Salvador's 380 troops out of Iraq and to improve ties with Cuba.

In a controversial boost to the Arena campaign, Bush administration officials and conservative congressmen openly warned that a Handal victory would damage relations.

For many Salvadorans, Handal represented too much risk.

"We didn't manage to overcome this fear of the people," said Handal's campaign manager, Eugenio Chicas, on television Sunday night.

But more was at work than the fear factor. Analysts said that voters wanted to put the 1980-1992 war behind them. Mandiel Santa Maria, 29, who stocks shelves in San Salvador stores, was one of many voters who said Handal was too closely associated with the fighting that claimed about 75,000 lives.

"I'd vote for the Front if they had a different candidate," said Santa Maria, referring to the FMLN. But his father was killed by the rebels at a time when Handal was one of their leaders, he said.

Saca, who takes office on June 1, has promised to continue Arena's free-market policies, which have included privatization of state-run industries, adopting the U.S. dollar as the nation's currency and negotiating a free-trade agreement between Central America and the United States. He said in the interview that he would "be ready to consider" any U.S. request to keep the Salvadoran troops in Iraq beyond their current commitment, which ends in June. And he has pledged to seek more programs for the poor, who make up about half the population, according to official statistics.

In the short term, at least, he faces problems in leading this nation of 6.5 million people. Handal, in an angry speech Sunday night, said his party would fight Arena in Congress, where the FMLN holds the largest bloc of seats. And the FMLN said it would try to block the adoption of the free-trade agreement. The new president will have to deal with a slow-growing economy and a low rate of tax collection, about 11 percent of the country's gross domestic product.

Saca has an unusual background for a Salvadoran leader. The grandson of Palestinian immigrants, he started working at radio stations at 14, when his father went broke in the cotton business. One of his brothers sneaked into California and worked there illegally, sending money home to the family.

"I understand the importance of remittances," Saca said in the interview.

During the campaign, he portrayed himself as a hard-working Salvadoran who has known economic hardship. However, over the years he has purchased nine radio stations and became prosperous. He lives in the capital's well-to-do Escalon neighborhood, wears a Rolex watch and says he collects Montblanc pens.

"The country needs a new leadership that has experience with the themes of the country, a person not contaminated by politics," he said in the interview. "I am not a man from the war. A new, young politician has a better chance to negotiate with the opposition."

© 2004