EL SALVADOR

PUBLIC POLICY, PUBLIC POLITICS
Beyond Polarization in 21st-century
El Salvador What Is Different? BY CARMEN AÍDA LAZO
MY FATHER WAS A CIVIL ENGINEER WHO WORKED
for the government during the civil war
years. He specialized in roads and had to
spend several days a month traveling to
remote places in El Salvador.
I was 10 in 1986, and I remember my
mom asking my dad several times when he
returned home at the end of the day: “Tell
me, did those communist guerrilleros stop
you today?” and my dad used to answer:
“No, the muchachos (the boys), they didn’t
stop us and they didn’t do anything wrong.”
My mother was convinced that if
the Farabundo Martí Liberation Front
(FMLN) guerrillas won the war, El Salvador
would become like Nicaragua or Cuba.
In contrast, my father always expressed a
more progressive political point of view:
he felt a sense of empathy for the guerrilla;
I guess he believed they were fighting for a
legitimate cause.
These family conversations led me to
constantly wonder what the differences
were between this so-called left and right
that made my parents differ so much
in their political views. What were both
sides—and their international allies—really
fighting for? What values were they supposed
to be defending?
I believe our conflict was largely viewed
as part of the Cold War; after all, in 1981,
former U.S. Secretary of State Alexander
Haig recommended increasing military
assistance to El Salvador to “draw a line”
against the Soviet communist advance in
Latin America.
Peace accords were signed in 1992,
and after 20 years of consecutive rightwing
ARENA party governments, the first
left-FMLN government was democratically
and peacefully elected in 2009. After
decades of speculating about what changes
the left would bring to our country, we
finally were witnessing a major transition.
Time had finally come to contrast rightand
left-wing policies in El Salvador in
practice.
Now, after more than six years of the
left in power, what is different in El Salvador?
In my opinion, not that much has
changed. Indeed, the left-wing government
so far seems to have more similarities
than differences with its right-wing predecessor—particularly
with the last ARENA
administration. For the last six years, the
FMLN government has delivered orthodox
left-wing rhetoric, while at the same
time continuing with most economic and
social policies from the previous rightwing
governments. Many Salvadorans
are disappointed; others are relieved; and
some others think the lack of radical acts is
just a façade, and that the risk of becom-
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