El Salvador's leading parties spar as ex-president Francisco Flores' corruption trial looms.
| Autor | Witte-Lebhar, Benjamin |
The upcoming launch of a landmark court case against former President Francisco Flores (1999-2004), together with recent developments in neighboring Guatemala and Honduras, have combined to push the issue of corruption to the political forefront in El Salvador and exacerbate deep-seated antagonisms between the country's two leading parties.
Those divisions were very much on display on Oct. 3, when, for the second time in a month, demonstrators held rival anti-corruption rallies in San Salvador, the capital. The protests garnered a fair amount of media attention, not so much because of the turnout, which was low, but because of the less-than-subtle political undertones of competing gatherings.
One of the demonstrations was organized by the supposedly nonpartisan De 5 en 5 movement, a name that refers to the five invitations each affiliated person is expected to extend to potential new members. Formed in late August, the group demands solutions to the country's gang-driven violent-crime epidemic (NotiCen, Sept. 10, 2015) and calls for the establishment in El Salvador of a foreign-backed judicial instrument akin to Guatemala's Comision Internacional contra la Impunidad en Guatemala (CICIG). The UN-supported investigative body has made headlines in recent months for a corruption inquiry that led to the resignation last month of President Otto Perez Molina (NotiCen, Sept. 3, 2015). Former vice president Roxana Baldetti resigned four months earlier (NotiCen, May 28, 2015).
"We're gathered here to demand once again the installation of a commission against the crimes of impunity of the past 25 years," Jose Portillo, one of the movement's principal organizers, told the Agence France-Presse (AFP) news agency.
The group's call for a Guatemala-style anti-impunity apparatus echoes demands made by lawmakers from the hard-right Alianza Republicana Nacionalista (ARENA), El Salvador's main opposition party. ARENA members have been pushing the idea since July, when Thomas Shannon, a top-level US State Department advisor, visited the country and suggested to reporters that El Salvador and Honduras would do well to follow Guatemala's lead in this regard (NotiCen, Aug. 13, 2015).
The governing Frente Farabundo Marti para la Liberacion Nacional (FMLN), a left-wing party that began during the country's dozen-year civil war (1980-1992) as a coalition of guerrilla forces, adamantly opposes the possibility, calling it a threat to national sovereignty. "We need to...
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