wfn.org | Presbyterians Help Oversee Presidential Elections in El Salvador

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15-March-1999 
99103 
 
    Presbyterians Part of International Team 
    Overseeing Presidential Elections in El Salvador 
 
 
    by Evan Silverstein 
 
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - For Presbyterian mission co-worker Stan de Voogd, El 
Salvador's name evokes images of the 1980s, when a corrupt hard-line 
government favored death squads over free elections - and ballot boxes were 
stuffed, stolen and generally controlled by gangs and thugs that ravished 
the small Central American nation during a brutal civil war. 
 
    "Tremendous corruption ... just a joke, an absolute joke," de Voogd 
said of elections held during his days in El Salvador with Alfalit, a 
literacy and education organization supported by the Presbyterian Church 
(U.S.A.). 
 
    DeVoogd, now the education coordinator for the Presbyterian Border 
Ministry, recently returned to El Salvador along with nine other 
Presbyterians to oversee the nation's March 7 presidential election. They 
joined nearly 900 other international election observers. 
 
    Francisco Flores, a 39-year-old former philosophy professor and the new 
standard bearer of El Salvador's principal right-wing party, was declared 
the election winner, although his victory was diminished somewhat by low 
turnout. Less than 40 percent of El Salvador's 3.1 million registered 
voters went to the polls. 
 
    While the new system may not be perfect, it is a big improvement over 
past elections, according to Voogd, whose border ministry focuses on 
fostering growth for Mexico's faith communities and coordinates PC(USA) 
missions in Mexico. He said balloting for the most part was calm, and there 
were no reports of serious irregularities. 
 
    "On the day, things really went quite well," said de Voogd, also office 
manager of Christians for Peace in El Salvador (CRISPAZ),  an ecumenical 
organization that leads educational pilgrimages to El Salvador. "There were 
lots of checks and balances, and there seemed to have been very little 
fraud, great cooperation amongst party people. We heard of a few tussles 
some places in the country. But there were no reports coming out about 
anything major." 
 
    The delegation was sponsored by PC(USA)'s Worldwide Ministries Division 
and the Presbyterian Peacemaking Program. Some financial support came from 
Presbyterian Disaster Assistance. The Area Office for Mexico, Central 
America and the Caribbean, and the International Involvement Experiences 
Office worked collaboratively to create and prepare the PC(USA) team. 
 
    The request for an election-monitoring delegation came from the 
Ecumenical Council of Churches in El Salvador, which includes the Reformed 
Church and the Lutheran Synod of El Salvador. The PC(USA) has a working 
relationship with both churches. 
 
    The lead organizer in the U.S. and liaison with El Salvador's 
Ecumenical Council of Churches was Roy Barnes of Seminole, Texas. De Voogd 
assisted in team preparation. 
 
    Many delegation members were Presbyterian elders, like Laurie Kluth, an 
elder at St. Stephen Presbyterian Church in Houston, Texas. While the 
proceedings on the surface appeared peaceful enough, she said there were 
unsubstantiated reports of vote-buying. 
 
    "The Salvadorans are conscious that [vote fraud] can be happening, and 
they're definitely looking for it," she said, "but they weren't finding the 
evidence." 
 
    The election -- El Salvador's second presidential ballot since the 
country's 12-year civil war ended in 1992 -- came at a time when Central 
America's smallest nation is beset by rampant crime, grinding poverty and a 
panoply of other social problems. Such troubles have soured many 
Salvadorans on the political system, which they say has not helped them 
fulfill their hopes of a more peaceful and prosperous life after the 
ruinous war, which claimed an estimated 75,000 lives. 
 
    Election officials reported that, with more than 95 percent of the 
ballots counted, Flores, of the ruling Nationalist Republican Alliance 
(ARENA), had received 52 percent of the vote, while his main challenger, 
Facundo Guardado, 44, a former guerrilla commander and the candidate of the 
left-wing Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN), received 29 
percent. Final election totals were not available at press time. 
 
    The margin, voting officials said, gave Flores the simple majority 
needed to claim victory and avoid a runoff that had been tentatively 
scheduled for next month. Five smaller parties also were on the ballot. 
 
    "Over all, I thought for a young democracy they did very well," said 
Douglas Grace, associate for outreach in the PC(USA)'s Washington office. 
"Our presence helped to keep it tranquil and helped the people (voting) 
feel comfortable. When you've been through so much civil war like this, 
there's so much mistrust in the government, mistrust in each other. Just 
knowing that there's observers there helps calm some of those feelings of 
mistrust." 
 
    Voters at nearly 400 polling places faced, at least symbolically, a 
ballot-box version of El Salvador's civil war. On the one side was Flores, 
who served as speaker of the Legislative Assembly. His ARENA party, which 
is heavily funded by the country's small economic upper class, was linked 
to civil-war death squads that killed suspected supporters of the leftist 
rebels. But Flores has sought to distance himself from the organization's 
past, saying, "This is a new generation. It's a new way of working, a 
system based on merit rather than privilege." 
 
    Most delegation members visited El Salvador March 4-9 and attended a 
training session to familiarize themselves with the electoral process. 
 
    "You have a real serious problem for poorer people and rural people to 
get to their poling booths," de Voogd said. "There's a  lack of 
transportation and then there's no regulation as to who can bring them. So 
the ARENA party has the money to hire buses to bring people in, but then 
there's the pressure to vote for ARENA." 
 
    The group also traveled to the locations of some of El Salvador's most 
horrific civil war atrocities. 
 
    They visited the site where six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and 
her daughter were murdered in 1989. They also saw where El Salvador's 
popular archbishop Oscar Romero was assassinated in 1980, and where four 
American church women were raped and killed the same year. 
 
    "It was very difficult for me to visit the church where Romero was 
killed and where the four nuns were discovered," said Kluth. "I purposely 
did not go where the Jesuits had been killed because I knew how graphic 
that area was, and I thought, `I can't stand anymore than that.'" 
 
    Despite the move toward democracy, she said, chilling testimonials are 
everywhere in El Salvador. 
 
    "To see the evidence of the ammunition, the houses that are 
pock-marked, and to see a hill where the guerillas were ... the evidence is 
still so graphic," Kluth said. "You realize what those people have had to 
go through." 
 
(Information for this story was also gathered by "The Washington Post.") 

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