Washington is threatening to withhold development aid unless El Salvador adopts economic policies [View all]

[Judi Lynn]

Published on Wednesday, March 19, 2014 by Foreign Policy in Focus / The Nation

A Precarious Victory in El Salvador

Washington is threatening to withhold development aid unless El Salvador adopts economic policies that Salvadorans just voted against.

by Madeleine Conway

After a closely contested election in El Salvador, the progressive Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) has emerged victorious, declaring a narrow victory over a right-wing opposition party that appealed to the military for intervention.

The vote marks a hard-fought victory for the FMLN’s ambitious economic agenda, which has included of a host of new social programs that have improved education and healthcare for millions of Salvadorans. But right-wing forces vigorously disputed the election—one that the Organization of American States called the most transparent in El Salvador’s history—and conditions imposed by Washington are threatening to undermine the country’s gains.

While the U.S. embassy officially maintained a neutral stance in the election, Washington is threatening to withhold development aid unless El Salvador adopts economic policies that are anathema to the ruling coalition of left and center forces that have been working together over the last five years. That threat could end up undermining the very programs that contributed to the FMLN victory in the March 9th poll.

A Landmark Election

Since taking power in 2009, the FMLN—a former guerilla movement that became a political party in the early 1990s—has ushered in a host of popular social programs designed to improve living standards in El Salvador, where over a third of the population lives in poverty.

More:
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2014/03/19-6