The Election Observation Project

OBJECTIVE:

To contribute to strengthening transparency in the election process in El Salvador and to have an impact on an informed debate on electoral reforms.

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If you have questions or coments you can write us at:

English Email:

electionmission@ cis-elsalvador.org

Spanish Email:

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The Electoral Process Marches On

2012 electoral campaign begins

Amid complaints of electoral violence and plagiarism of slogans, the campaign to elect deputies officially began on 10th of January.

 The electoral machines of the participating parties were set in motion in different parts of the country, with caravans of cars, distribution of political advertising, and rallies.

FMLN to issue proceedings against the Mayor’s Office in the capital for destruction of propaganda         

Employees of the Mayor’s Office of San Salvador this week began the removal of FMLN propaganda as part of the fulfilment of a municipal ordinance that prohibits propaganda in public places. The FMLN is to present a claim for damage and destruction of political campaign material in various districts of the capital, confirmed Damian Alegria, head of the campaign of the candidate Jorge Shafik Handal. Handal and his team classified the act as ‘arbitrary’, as they assure that the propaganda of other political institutions, mainly that of ARENA, is not removed from the same areas. 

PDDH hands over proposal of pact of non-violence

The Human Rights Ombudsman has presented a draft, of what he hopes will become a pact of non-electoral violence, to leaders of the political parties.

The pact proposes, among other things, that the parties take internal measures to sanction militants that provoke violence within the framework of the electoral campaign.

Politicians will receive copies of the draft so as to make observations. The pact will then be signed the following week.

Delays in the electoral calendar will cost $7.1 million more

Delays in the development of the electoral calendar have elevated the costs initially proposed in the budget of the General Election Plan (PLAGEL). In principal, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal needs a further $7.1 million for training and the transmission of results.

Walter Araujo, magistrate of the TSE for ARENA, criticised the delays in the electoral calendar and declared himself worried that important elements of the orientation process are still not ready.  

ACRONYMS

TSE– Tribunal Supremo Electoral (Supreme Electoral Tribunal)

DUI– Documento Único de Identidad (Unique Document of Identification)

RNPN– Registro Nacional de Personas Naturales (National Registry of Naturalized Persons)

PGR– Procuraduría General de la Republica. (National Attorney General)

JED– Junta Electoral Departamental (Departmental Election Board)

JEM– Junta Electoral Municipal (Municipal Election Board)

JRV– Junta Receptora de Votos. (Vote Receiving Table)

The Parties

Candidate of ARENA accused of threatening behaviour

On the eve of the start of the electoral campaign, the night of Monday 9^th January, the ARENA deputy candidate for the department of Sonsonate, Colonel Humberto Hurtado, threatened members of the FMLN with a firearm. Those threatened alerted the police and presume that the weapon would be seized; they will now go before the area’s Attorney General for their claim to be filed.

However the ARENA deputy of Santa Ana denied that there were threats, and said that the candidate acted in self defence, in the face of supposed aggression that he received from militants of the leftist party. 

20th anniversary of the Peace Accords

The FMLN and ARENA take two different readings of the theme of electoral debt arising from the signing of the Peace Accords in 1992 in Mexico. Eugenio Chicas, president of the TSE and member of the FMLN, indicates that the conformation of plural municipal councils is one of the outstanding issues still to be realised.

“We still have the agenda of electoral reforms arising from the Peace Accords. One of the issues is plural municipal councils, for example. We are the only country in Latin America that does not have plural municipal councils. I believe that Salvadorian society has been ready for this for a while,” said the head of the TSE.

Other aspects that still have not been resolved in the country following the signing of the Peace Accords is the law governing political parties and voting from abroad.

However, according to the magistrate in the TSE for ARENA, Walter Araujo and Alfredo Cristiani, president of the National Executive Council of ARENA (COENA), the conformation of pluralist councils did not even form a part of the accords in matters electoral.