The January 2009 elections

The final count from Sunday's elections is not yet in, but the results are different than I (and many others) predicted.

Here are some of the major points to take away from the elections:

1) The balance of power in the National Assembly is staying the same. The FMLN increased its seat from 32 to 35-37 seats. That leaves it short of the 43 seat majority. It appears that ARENA will have 32 seats (down from 34) but since its traditional ally the PCN should have 11 seats, the right wing should continue to have majority control of the National Assembly.

2) The FMLN is the most popular political party in the country. If we look at the votes for deputies to the National Assembly which are allocated on a party basis, we get the best look at the population's preference. In the most recent results posted on the Supreme Electoral Tribunal website, the FMLN received 49.5% of the votes for deputy, ARENA received 40% and no other party received more than 3.1% of the vote. That should be a good sign for Mauricio Funes and the FMLN in the March presidential elections, but there may be a possibility that Funes might have a struggle to win in the first round of the election.

3) The election in San Salvador may show signs of a maturing democracy. Despite the popularity of the FMLN in the country this year, the party could not manage to get the incumbent mayor of San Salvador, Violeta Menjivar, re-elected. The FMLN claims that the result was caused by a massive illegal influx of voters from outside of the capital. I don't think so. What happened in San Salvador is that a certain portion of the voters appeared to decide to split their votes on National Assembly and mayor. People who voted for the FMLN for the National Assembly also voted for Norman Quijano of ARENA for mayor. In other words, they were voting based on who they thought (rightly or wrongly) was the best able to govern, rather than voting strictly on party lines. This result was foreshadowed in polls late last year which showed voters favoring Quijano over Menjivar when it came to the question of ability to govern the capital city. I also saw evidence that ARENA may have had a better organized get out the vote campaign in the capital to get its supporters to the polls.

4) The results in San Salvador re-energized ARENA. Since the polls going into the mayor's race in San Salvador showed Menjivar with a reasonable lead, the solid victory by Norman Quijano has given ARENA new reasons for hope as it heads towards the March presidential election. We will hear much more rhetoric about the fallibility of polls.

5) Expect a nasty presidential political campaign between now and March 15. The tone was set by Rodrigo Avila as he spoke after Norman Quijano's victory speech. Avila attacked the FMLN as communists, terrorists,Venezuela-lovers and enemies of democracy. We'll hear more of that in the weeks to come.

6) Regarding mayors in the rest of the country, both major parties could claim victories. ARENA holds the mayor's office in the greatest number of cities, but the cities in which the FMLN holds the office have a greater number of total residents.

Personal note -- most regular readers of the blog probably noticed my sudden silence for the past several days. Here's the explanation. I was in El Salvador as an election observer. The night before the elections, after touring several voting centers in San Salvador, I took a severe fall and fractured my knee and had to have surgery. So I spent a few nights in the hospital in San Salvador and didn't have the energy to blog. I'm back home now and recovering and plan to get back to a regular blogging pace in the near future.