The unprecedented gains by the FMLN in the 1997 elections are a victory for "people politics". While voter apathy was high in the March 16th elections, the FMLN increased its support by 100,000 votes despite the 20 percent decline from the 1994 total voter turnout.

While in-fighting and ideological differences were evident within the ARENA camp long before the elections, this factor does not take away from the growth of support for the left in Salvadoran society. What is especially significant about the 1997 results as compared to 1994, is the strategy applied by the FMLN. After the 1994 elections a US international observer group analysed the spending power of ARENA versus FMLN in that campaign. The broad conclusion of this report was that in common with US election campaigns, the party with the most money inevitably won.

However, in these latest elections, the FMLN came very close to winning and money was not the reason. On the contrary the lack of funding for advertising and campaign memorabilia, T-shirts, caps, schoolbags etc. was capitalised on by the FMLN. They returned to the street hailer as a method of getting their message across. In the words of a campaign worker for these elections "we are going back to the people, back to the grassroots.....we are concentrating our efforts here with the people and less on the international front".

The results of this ‘back to the people’ strategy paid off and was reflected in many communities who punished the ruling National Republican Alliance (ARENA) and gave a solid mandate to the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN). Santa Marta, in the department of Cabanas, was one of many such communities who celebrated the shift to the left throughout the country.

In the early 1980’s more than 600 campesinos from Santa Marta were murdered as they fled to nearby Honduras to escape an army assault. After some six years in exile, the survivors gradually returned home. Each year on March 18th (the day of the massacre) the community retrace their steps to the river Lempa and celebrate a memorial mass. This year the priest recalled the past and thanked God for the ‘historic result’. In this remote and conservative corner of the country, the FMLN had won the local council by 17 votes. The people of Santa Marta felt they had reason to celebrate.

Isaias Sandoval, a member of the FMLN National Council and re-elected mayor of Suchitoto, said "Those holding power have become an even more elite group. Privatisation is one way they are achieving this. Antel (state telephone network, due to be sold to private investors in April) is profitable and generates funds for public works and social needs. These growing profits will now go to individuals.........ARENA’s economic plan is for big business and foreign investors. Their plan for us, the poor, is to offer ourselves as slave labour to this sector. This vote was punishment for these policies"

However, he believes the FMLN’s success was not simply a vote against ARENA. "The 1994 election gave us an opportunity. From the assembly, FMLN deputies have criticised the government’s policies and corruption, and at the same time offered alternatives. On a local level, here in Suchitoto for example, we have worked with the community to develop a regional development plan. That’s why we won their vote".

The PD was formed in 1995 from two of the organisations which split from the FMLN, the ERP and RN. Although these two factions had many members and supporters and the PD was prominent in the election campaign, it won only 1% of the vote.

Though requests for International Observers was not forthcoming because the Salvadoran government did not extend invitations, the communiqué by the EU parliament shortly before the elections was a welcome action on behalf of the Salvadoran Electorate.

While congratulations and celebrations are in order, the FMLN face huge obstacles if they are to fulfil their manifesto. Political life has seen great changes but the social and economic structures continue to exclude the vast majority of Salvadorans. These socio-economic injustices coupled with continued death squad activity are still a fact of life in El Salvador.

The Irish El Salvador Support Committee will continue to campaign in solidarity with the people of El Salvador and Latin America.