Candidacy of Ex-Rebel Sparks Vicious Battle Of Campaign Ads, Slurs

By Mary Beth Sheridan
Washington Post Staff Writer

SAN SALVADOR, March 20 -- To Cesar Lopez, a young construction worker, the presidential vote Sunday in El Salvador isn't just another election. It is the first time that a leader of the country's former Marxist rebel movement could win. And that makes Lopez tremble.

"Unemployment. Communism. There could be another war," said the 22-year-old, his dark predictions contrasting sharply with his surroundings, an outdoor food court where Salvadorans were relaxing on a sultry tropical evening, to a pulsating merengue tune.

Twelve years after the end of a brutal civil war, two groups that once clashed with bullets are now locked in a vicious battle of campaign ads and slurs. The reason is the popularity of Schafik Handal, a former revolutionary and current presidential candidate, whose unabashed admiration of Cuba's President Fidel Castro has caused concern among the governing party, voters such as Lopez and U.S. officials. Handal has pledged to reevaluate some of El Salvador's free-market reforms and pull its 380 troops out of Iraq.

Recent opinion polls have shown Handal trailing by 5 to 20 percentage points behind Tony Saca, candidate of the ruling National Republican Alliance, or ARENA, and a political novice. Handal has mounted the stiffest challenge to the governing party since it came to power in 1989. That has led to a Cold War slugfest, with ARENA supporters charging that this country of 6.5 million people could turn into another Cuba.

Handal, 73, has flatly denied planning any such thing. He has pledged to maintain the country's democracy and keep strong relations with the U.S. government. His supporters say a victory by the party would strengthen El Salvador's democracy and give millions of poor people a voice in a country long dominated by a tiny, wealthy elite.

But U.S. authorities have said they are uneasy about Handal's economic policies and worry whether he would continue El Salvador's cooperation in the fight against drugs and terrorism. Salvadoran analysts say there is little chance of a shift to communism in this Massachusetts-size country, but some raise another concern: that a victory by Handal could lead to the sort of confrontations that have occurred in Venezuela under President Hugo Chavez. Such analysts cite both Handal's strong, uncompromising style and the fierce opposition he would face from powerful political and economic groups in El Salvador.

"He won't be able to govern," predicted the Rev. Rodolfo Cardenal, a historian at the Jesuit-affiliated Central American University.

The explosion of Cold War sentiment in this campaign has taken some international observers by surprise. Many consider El Salvador a model of peaceful political transition after a bitter decade-long war between the guerrillas and the U.S.-backed government, which claimed 75,000 lives. The conflict ended in 1992 with the signing of peace accords.

Since then, El Salvador has been transformed not just politically but also economically, with the ARENA government winning plaudits from international financial institutions for privatizing industries and opening the country to international trade. Saca, the ARENA candidate, has pledged to continue such policies.

"El Salvador is immeasurably better than it was 20 or 15 years ago," Saca said at a news conference on Friday.

But economic growth has been slow under the current government, in part because of two massive earthquakes and low world prices for coffee, a key export. Many Salvadorans complain of rampant crime and the high cost of living since the dollar was adopted as the national currency.

"We've had 15 years of this government already, and it hasn't done anything to improve the conditions of the people," said Francisco Gonzalez, 45, a doctor, as he sipped a beer at an open-air cafe. "It's healthy to have a change in the party in power."

Last year, Handal's Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front, or FMLN, the former guerrilla umbrella group turned political party, had its best showing ever, winning the largest bloc in Congress -- 31 of the 84 seats. Nearly half of Salvadorans now live under mayors from the FMLN party.

"We are at a moment in Latin America and the world where the wind is in favor of change," Handal said at a campaign rally last week.

But many voters appear uncertain about whether Handal is the right man to bring change. Under his leadership, the FMLN has expelled some moderate reformers from its ranks. The candidate has pledged to work with the business sector, but investors have expressed concern about his campaign pledges to review the privatizations of Salvadoran industries and reopen recent negotiations on a free-trade agreement with the United States.

In a recent poll by the Central American University's public-opinion institute, 44 percent of voters surveyed said they would never vote for Handal.

In contrast to the FMLN, ARENA has chosen a candidate with no direct ties to the civil war. Saca, 39, is a sportscaster who built a network of radio stations and became head of the national industrialists' organization. "My hands are clean," he has said on the campaign trail, holding up his palms to illustrate what he calls his honesty and distance from the massacres that became a hallmark of the war. During the conflict, his party, ARENA, was linked to death squads, a connection raised by the FMLN during the campaign.

The race also features candidates from a center-left coalition and a small conservative party, but neither has scored strongly in polls.

Several U.S. officials have raised doubts about a government led by the FMLN. During a recent visit here, Roger Noriega, the assistant secretary of state for hemispheric affairs, said Salvadorans should consider "what kind of relationships a new government could have with us."

Supporters of ARENA, concerned about a tight race, have seized upon such declarations and have launched an aggressive ad campaign featuring images of the war and raising the specter of the country going communist. One newspaper ad shows a color picture of a Salvadoran store bursting with bananas, apples and other food, contrasted with a black-and-white photo of an empty store. "A future like Cuba's?" asks the ad. "Under communism there are no markets. Everything is controlled by the state."

The governing party has also taken aim at one of the most sensitive subjects for Salvadorans -- their relatives in the United States and the billions of dollars they send home. ARENA supporters have warned that if Handal wins, U.S. authorities could expel the roughly 300,000 Salvadorans who have temporary working papers and block immigrants from sending remittances.

No such scenario is likely. But in a country where much of the media is controlled by supporters of the governing party, the statements have received huge play, apparently swaying some voters.

"I could support the Front if it had a different candidate," said Salome Gallardo, 21, using the nickname for the FMLN. But her family sometimes received money from relatives in Virginia, she said, and she didn't want to risk casting a vote for Handal. "The United States could take away our aid, and we would be a government like Cuba," she said, echoing the ads.

© 2004