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El Salvador THE "DEMOCRATIC PROCESS"
As the FMLN guerrillas settled in for a protracted conflict
marked by economic sabotage, the seizure of lightly defended
towns and other targets, and the establishment of rural zones of
influence, events in El Salvador increasingly began to be driven
by decisions made in Washington. One area in which a consensus
was reached among the Reagan administration, Congress, and
Salvadoran moderates (mainly the PDC) was the desirability of
establishing a legitimate government through a process of free
elections. The Salvadoran right reluctantly joined this process
after it became clear that the administration did not favor a
conservative military coup. Duarte, who had been named
provisional president on December 13, 1980, under a fourth junta
government, announced on September 15, 1981, that elections for a
Constituent Assembly would be held in March 1982. The Constituent
Assembly would draft a constitution that would lay the groundwork
for a presidential election. It also was hoped that the assembly
would incorporate all or most of the reforms decreed by the junta
governments into the new document.
The Constituent Assembly elections were participated in by
six parties, but only three were of major significance. Two of
these were familiar actors in El Salvador, the PDC and PCN. The
third was a new party--the Nationalist Republican Alliance
(Alianza Republicana Nacionalista--Arena)--led by D'Aubuisson,
which represented the interests of the right. The FDR refused to
participate in the elections, citing fears for the safety of
possible candidates, the lack of proper political conditions, and
the inordinate influence of the United States. It maintained that
negotiations between the FMLN-FDR and the government should
precede the holding of elections.
In the three-way contest that developed, the PDC was at a
disadvantage in several respects. Its grass-roots organization
had suffered from inactivity and the crippling impact of death
squad assassinations. Ideologically, its appeal among the
conservative rural population was limited in comparison to that
of the center-right PCN and the rightist Arena, which also
benefited from D'Aubuisson's image as a strong, virile man of
action, or caudillo. The PDC also lacked the funds available to
the other parties, especially Arena.
Despite a clear preference for Duarte and the PDC in
Washington, the Christian Democrats captured only a plurality
(35.5 percent, equating to twenty-four seats) of the balloting
for the sixty-member Constituent Assembly. Although this was the
largest total of any single party, it left the PDC facing a
conservative majority in that body as Arena garnered nineteen
seats and 25.8 percent of the vote and the PCN won fourteen seats
with its 16.8 percent of the total ballots. This result took
policymakers in Washington somewhat by surprise. Advocates of
reform suddenly were faced with the prospect of a new
constitution drafted by a conservative, and presumably
antireform, Constituent Assembly. An even more worrisome
eventuality for the United States was the possible election of
D'Aubuisson as the country's provisional president. D'Aubuisson
had been elected speaker of the Constituent Assembly, and many
observers expected him to win the provisional presidency as well.
The fact that he was passed over for this post in favor of the
moderate independent Alvaro Magana Borja reportedly reflected
pressure both from the United States government, which did not
wish to be put in the position of requesting increased levels of
aid for a D'Aubuisson-led government, and the Salvadoran armed
forces, which shared the Reagan administration's interest in
raising the level of military aid.
Although it had initiated a democratic process of sorts, El
Salvador was still volatile as 1983 approached. The FMLN-FDR had
strengthened itself militarily and continued to press for a
negotiated "power-sharing" agreement that would grant it a role
in a revamped governmental structure. After its successful
response to the poorly coordinated "final offensive," the armed
forces bogged down and seemed unwilling or unable to respond
effectively to the guerrilla threat. Political violence continued
at high levels. The increasing involvement of the United States
prompted comparisons with the early days of the Vietnam conflict.
The ambiguity of the Salvadoran situation from the American
perspective was not improved by the conservative victory in the
1982 elections. As seen from both San Salvador and Washington,
the future for El Salvador appeared uncertain at best
(see Relations with the United States
, ch. 4).
* * *
Comprehensive studies of Salvadoran history are few. Alastair
White's El Salvador, published in 1973 and reissued in
1982, remains the major general work on the subject. Other
authors have produced useful volumes of more limited scope.
Thomas P. Anderson's Matanza: El Salvador's Communist Revolt
of 1932 is a detailed account of a critical event. Twentiethcentury political history is addressed effectively in Stephen
Webre's Jose Napoleon Duarte and the Christian Democratic
Party in Salvadoran Politics, 1960-1972. El Salvador's
political prominence after 1979 drew increased attention to the
subject; the results, however, are mixed. The majority of recent
works are excessively polemicized, mainly as a result of the
polarized atmosphere prevailing in the country throughout the
early 1980s. One exception is Enrique A. Baloyra's El Salvador
in Transition, an illuminating study of Salvadoran politics
after 1948. Duarte's autobiography, aptly titled Duarte: My
Story, is interesting in an anecdotal sense but of relatively
limited value to the historian. (For further information and
complete citations,
see
Bibliography.)
Data as of November 1988
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