El Salvador Perspectives

El Salvador has one of the strictest abortion laws in the world, allowing no exceptions for rape, incest or the health of the mother.   Mothers can be, and are, sent to prison for as many as 30 years for having an abortion.  El Salvador's Supreme Court refused yesterday to vary from that strict law in the case of Beatriz,  a woman who needs to terminate her pregnancy to save her own life.   But her life may still be saved, as this AP report in the Miami Herald describes:    A seriously ill Salvadoran woman whose struggle to get a medical abortion drew international attention received permission on Thursday to end the troubled pregnancy with a cesarean section.  El Salvador's Health Minister on Thursday approved the C-section for the 22-year-old woman suffering from kidney failure and lupus, a day after the Supreme Court ruled that she could not have an abortion despite her lawyers' appeal that the pregnancy was life-threatening.  Ultrasoun...

TSE launching the vote from the exterior of the country. Salvadorans living outside of El Salvador can now enroll to vote in the 2014 elections.   To be able to vote, an ex-pat from El Salvador will need a national identity document (DUI) with his or her foreign address outside of El Salvador.   With that DUI, you can go to the  website of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal  where there is a form to register to vote in this manner.   With two million or more Salvadorans living outside of the country, the vote from the exterior could be a major wild card.  (I don't think any of the polls published in recent months in El Salvador make any attempt to include them).  While I do not have the statistics on how many DUIs have been issued with foreign addresses, I have my doubts that we will see more than 100,000 votes from outside of the country.   In the 2009 elections, which was the first time that Salvadorans living outside of the country could vo...

According to the recently released CIOPS/UTEC poll , the leading presidential candidates have very similar levels of support in the country.   When asked which party/candidate respondents would vote for, the results were: ARENA -- Norman Quijano -- 29.5% FMLN -- Salvador Sanchez Ceren -- 28.5% UNIDAD -- Tony Saca -- 23.4% But another poll question gives a little more insight into these results.  Respondents were asked if they had a favorable or unfavorable opinion of each of the candidates: NORMAN QUIJANO     Favorable 61.2%     Unfavorable 31.7% SALVADOR SANCHEZ CEREN      Favorable 38.3%      Unfavorable 53.6% TONY SACA      Favorable 61.9%      Unfavorable 31.5% At this point, I wouldn't want to forecast who will win between Saca and Quijano.   Quijano currently has a lead that reflects the traditional ARENA party faithful, but his lead is slipping.   Saca's support i...

A look at the websites for international development agencies, shows a great deal of attention being paid to public-private partnerships. In El Salvador, a  public private partnership law (the "P3 Law") supported by the Funes administration and the United States, would create a legal framework allow an increased use of such partnerships.  The National Assembly just passed the law on a unanimous 84-0 vote. What is a sometimes known as PPP or 3P, public-private partnerships can take a variety of forms. At its simplest, the government can hire a private contractor to perform a task which might otherwise be performed by government employees. For example, the government could hire a private contractor to build a highway rather than using Government employees to build the highway. The deals can grow increasingly more complex with the private entity making on more and more functions which are traditionally performed by government entities with public employees. An example of thi...

Salvadoran president Mauricio Funes visited Pope Francis at the Vatican today where they talked about the possible canonization of Oscar Romero. Our friend Polycarpio at the SuperMartyrio blog as always has complete coverage : Pope Francis received Salvadoran President Mauricio Funes in a private audience in which they discussed Archbishop Oscar A. Romero’s canonization cause. The Salvadoran president gave the Pope a reliquary containing a piece of garment that Msgr. Romero was wearing when he was assassinated. At the center of the garment, clearly visible, is a bloodstain. The reliquary monstrance is in the shape of a cross, with the arms depicting stylized human figures, representing the participation of the people of God in the death of his bishop. The case is the work of the Sisters of Divine Providence Hospital in the chapel where Romero was killed.  The President pointed out among other things that he was a pupil of the Salvadoran Jesuit Father Rutilio Grande,...

President Mauricio Funes complete his fourth year in office on June 1.   A poll from the Universidad Tecnológica  asked Salvadorans how the president was doing. On a scale of 1 to 10, respondents gave Funes a grade of 6.5.    Almost 52% agreed with the statements that Funes' actions were focused on addressing the needs of the poorest members of Salvadoran society.    When asked who president Funes' decisions had favored, 34.2% said the people, 27.0% said Funes himself, 12.7% said "the Left", 3.5% said "the Right," and 8.8%  said the business sector. One interesting question is how much Funes' favorable approval rating will help the chances of his vice president, Salvador Sanchez Ceren in his run for president in 2014.   They have not really been seen as part of the same team, despite being part of the same political party.   I can't think of the last time they made a public appearance together.

There was a lot of reaction over the weekend to the news that the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court had ruled that the Minister of Public Security and the Director of the National Civilian Police (PNC) were both named invalidly because both were ex-military officers. President Mauricio Funes indicated in his weekly radio call-in show that he would comply with the ruling of the Constitutional Chamber.  While he criticized the judges for having an anti-military philosophy, he said that democratic order required that he comply with the ruling whether he agreed with it or not. Former president, and current presidential candidate, Tony Saca applauded Funes' decision to promptly comply with the decision as the appropriate one and indicated agreement with the court's ruling. Vicepresident, and current presidential candidate, Salvador Sanchez Ceren, stated that the court's ruling would complicate the public security policies of the country.    Without directly...