Authorities tighten noose around Mauricio Funes

From Insight Crime:

Former President Mauricio Funes has reportedly left El Salvador on business as authorities raid properties in search for evidence he committed acts of corruption while in office, a case likely to test the new attorney general's resolve to combat impunity for high-level politicians.

On August 17, El Salvador's Attorney General's Office raided seven properties belonging to Miguel Menéndez, known as "Mecafé," in search of documents that would reveal corrupt acts committed by Funes during his 2009-2014 presidential term, La Prensa Grafica reported. Mecafé led the "Friends of Mauricio" movement that supported Funes during his 2009 presidential bid. He is also the owner of the company that won the greatest number of private security contracts awarded by the Funes administration, according to the Salvadoran news outlet.

When I was in El Salvador last summer, I questioned some people why the FMLN was sticking with Mauricio Funes when it sure seemed that he and several members of the Friends of Mauricio used their positions to enrich themselves at the expense of the state. The latter years of the Funes administration and first year of the Sanchez Ceren administration sure looked like a great opportunity to distance themselves from Funes, especially as he was never a member of the FMLN. The FMLN instead calculated that they needed Funes' help to get them elected in 2014. They also believed that turning their backs on Funes once he left office would not absolve them of their complicity in standing behind them during his five-year term. Funes and the FMLN probably also had enough dirt on each other to keep their alliance intact. They had made their bed and now had to lie in it.

The Funes and FMLN administrations have proven, to a certain extent, how difficult governing is in El Salvador: budget challenges, crime and insecurity, weak rule of law, corruption, weak institutions, international dependence, etc. The mixed performance of the FMLN has demonstrated that the argument one heard that ARENA does not care about the people and therefore did not try to pursue policies that benefited the Salvadoran people was overly simplistic.