Venezuela Ally Sanchez Ceren Seeks Presidency in Salvadoran Vote
Venezuela Ally Sanchez Ceren Seeks Presidency in Salvadoran Vote
COA’s Eric Farnsworth comments on Salvador Sánchez Ceren’s candidacy as El Salvador’s run-off elections approach.
El Salvador Vice President Salvador Sanchez Ceren is favored to win the presidency this weekend amid a spike in gang violence and investor concerns about the government’s embrace of Venezuela’s socialist government.
Sanchez Ceren, a 69-year-old former rebel commander with the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front, narrowly missed a first-round victory in El Salvador’s Feb. 2 election, winning 49 percent of the vote. He leads Norman Quijano of the Arena party by a 55 percent to 45 percent margin ahead of the March 9 runoff, according to a Feb. 5-9 survey of 1,400 voters by CID-Gallup. The poll had a margin of error of 2.7 percentage points....
School Lunches
Sanchez Ceren is seeking to extend the FMLN’s rule after the party won the presidency for the first time under Funes, who isn’t eligible for re-election. As education minister, Sanchez Ceren instituted free school lunches that included daily glasses of milk for children. About 43 percent of El Salvador’s population lives in poverty, according to the International Monetary Fund.
Sanchez Ceren has also promised deeper ties with Venezuela to fund social programs, though it’s unclear how much aid might flow as the South American country struggles to contain four weeks of street protests, said Eric Farnsworth, head of the Washington office of the Council of the Americas.
“El Salvador has this way of drawing out extremes and everyone’s viewing Sanchez Ceren through their own lens,” Farnsworth said in a phone interview. “The truth is no one know really knows how he will govern....”
