El Salvador Perspectives

A new university-sponsored poll shows a much larger Funes lead than previous polls : Public support for Mauricio Funes of the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) is high in El Salvador, according to a poll by Universidad Francisco Gavidia. 47.4 per cent of respondents would vote for Funes in next year’s presidential election. Rodrigo Ávila of the governing conservative Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA) is a distant second with 23.8 per cent. Less than five per cent of respondents would vote for other candidates, and roughly one-in-four are undecided.

The growing financial crisis in the US could have major negative ramifications for El Salvador. "We are in the presence of a big hurricane and we don't know whether it will grow to a Category 5 or whether it will end as just a tropical storm" said economic analyst Carlos Acevedo in La Prensa Grafica. As the banking and finance centers throughout the world are in turmoil, it is worth remembering that all the major banks in El Salvador are foreign-owned . A direct effect of the economic slowdown in the US may be a decline in remittances from Salvadorans in the US back to their families. Statistics from the Central Reserve Bank of El Salvador are beginning to show remittances dropping off. Remittances have fallen for three straight months from the previous month, and remittances in August 2008 were lower ($305.7M versus $312.2M) then in August 2007. Since remittances make up more than a sixth of El Salvador's economy, any slowdown of remittances could be a problem...

The US Customs and Immigration Service announced that TPS -- Temporary Protected Status -- has been extended again for Salvadorans: WASHINGTON – U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced today that it will extend Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for nationals of El Salvador through Sep. 9, 2010. The extension will make those who have already been granted TPS eligible to reregister and maintain their status for an additional 18 months. There are approximately 229,000 nationals of El Salvador (and people having no nationality who last habitually resided in El Salvador) who are eligible for reregistration. TPS does not apply to Salvadoran nationals who entered the United States after Feb. 13, 2001. The program is a humanitarian measure based on a policy decision not to return people to a country suffering from natural disasters. For Salvadorans, TPS only applies to Salvadorans in the US as of the time of the 2001 earthquakes who obtain the necessary registration. ...

My friend Kelly Burns works with the SHARE Foundation in El Salvador and recently posted on her blog "Guacamole Chronicles" an essay she wrote about a project which SHARE helps support to teach Salvadoran farmers techniques of organic agriculture. Here's an excerpt: Raul Morataya says he stopped using chemical fertilizers and insecticides five years ago when he began having liver problems attributed to his exposure to harmful chemicals. He said he tried growing the first year without anything and lost nearly his entire crop to worms. He started asking around and got some tips from different people on ways to grow naturally. He spent the previous day at a workshop on organic growing techniques. He says he’s excited about what he’s learned, but also feels encouraged that other people are out there doing the same thing. The group says that when they first started, people laughed at them. They didn’t believe you could grow crops without heavy-duty chemical pesticides and f...

There is a new blog focused on monitoring the upcoming elections in El Salvador. Called the Free and Fair Elections in El Salvador Blog , the blog is following developments in the election races with links to both the Salvadoran press and other sources. So if you don't get enough coverage of the elections here, check this new blog out as well.

US financial institutions were not the only entities getting downgraded by rating agencies last week. Standard & Poor's revised the credit outlook for El Salvador to "negative" from "stable" with an overall rating of BB+. A lower rating implies higher risk and makes it more expensive for a government to borrow funds from world financial markets. According to the Reuters story : S&P did say the rating, one notch below investment-grade, was supported by a stable monetary environment which benefited from dollarization in 2001. It also benefited from a track record of predictable, market-oriented policies that has created a favorable investment environment, sustained economic growth, and led to gradual debt reduction. But the rating agency added that inefficient gains in productivity and rising inflation, peaking at 9.5 percent in 2008, undermine the country's competitiveness. "Addressing these macroeconomic challenges will not be easy, given the ...

Fans of soccer across the world are starting to take notice of El Salvador's national team. After recent victories over Surinam and Haiti, the blue and white team is poised to advance to the next round of World Cup qualifying for 2010 in South Africa. As this article on the Bleacher Report website describes, much of the credit goes to Mexican coach Carlos de los Cobos: Tiny El Salvador is now poised to make the final qualifying round for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. At the head of this unexpected development is Mexican coach Carlos de los Cobos, a "homegrown" manager who found success at the helm of C.D. FAS, leading the club to two finals in 2006.... Working wonders with the country's confidence level so far, de los Cobos has deflected questions about eventually working with Mexico's national team by saying that he is "very happy in El Salvador, the people treat me so well here." For a football-mad country starved of any real success for more ...