FMLN looks to rebound in El Salvador
Hilary Goodfriend carries out a bit of a post-mortem on the FMLN following the recent election for Jacobin with El Salvador’s Left in Crisis.
For some of my earlier takes on the FMLN's battles with itself and with Salvadoran society, you can check out Unity and Disunity in the FMLN (2012) with Alberto Martin Alvarez and Why Splinter? Parties that Split from the FSLN, FMLN and URNG (2016). Let me know if you would like a copy of either article.
During the war, the FMLN was a motley crew of people from all different political persuasions who agreed on overthrowing the unjust system supported by the military, elite, PDC, and the US. The coalition began to break down following the end of the war as the FMLN could no longer agree on who was the enemy and what it was exactly they were fighting for. You could say that the coalition broke down earlier as the FMLN lost supporters as the war dragged on (former supporters participated in elections and civil society during the 1980s).
While the FMLN has kicked out most of its moderates, thus making the party more ideologically cohesive, it has yet to really nail down what it stands for in practice or figure out how to accomplish its goals without killing its people in the process. 21st century Salvadoran socialism?
The resounding rebuke of the FMLN and its government, led by former guerrilla commander President Salvador Sánchez Cerén, resulted in significant gains for the quasi-fascist Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA) opposition party. ARENA, the principal instrument of El Salvador’s oligarchic capitalist class, took additional seats in the legislature and swept the capital.
Already beset by an antagonistic judiciary, a right-wing majority in the legislature, and a hostile corporate media, the FMLN will enter the 2019 presidential campaign with a discontented base and an invigorated opposition as right-wing elites reclaim power throughout the region. In this context, major gains achieved under the FMLN will be imperiled and as-yet-unrealized parts of their program, like the partial decriminalization of abortion, will be set back by years.
But the midterm vote was more the FMLN’s loss than ARENA’s victory. In fact, the election saw a major decline in votes for all political parties, including a significant drop in voter turnout and a huge increase in deliberately annulled ballots.
The elections revealed growing cynicism and disaffection with partisan politics, channeled most successfully by former San Salvador mayor and independent presidential hopeful Nayib Bukele. Bukele’s slick, post-ideological brand poses as an innovative alternative to obsolete right-left divisions, but its messianic style and neoliberal content is a weak substitute for the militant, collective left struggle that has marked El Salvador’s history.
As the FMLN leadership reckons with its shortcomings, some within the party would dilute its historical radicalism and follow Bukele to the right. At stake in the FMLN’s response to the current crisis, both within party structures and in government, is not just electoral power but the legacy and future of the FMLN’s revolutionary project.The article is worth checking out in its entirety.
For some of my earlier takes on the FMLN's battles with itself and with Salvadoran society, you can check out Unity and Disunity in the FMLN (2012) with Alberto Martin Alvarez and Why Splinter? Parties that Split from the FSLN, FMLN and URNG (2016). Let me know if you would like a copy of either article.
During the war, the FMLN was a motley crew of people from all different political persuasions who agreed on overthrowing the unjust system supported by the military, elite, PDC, and the US. The coalition began to break down following the end of the war as the FMLN could no longer agree on who was the enemy and what it was exactly they were fighting for. You could say that the coalition broke down earlier as the FMLN lost supporters as the war dragged on (former supporters participated in elections and civil society during the 1980s).
While the FMLN has kicked out most of its moderates, thus making the party more ideologically cohesive, it has yet to really nail down what it stands for in practice or figure out how to accomplish its goals without killing its people in the process. 21st century Salvadoran socialism?
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