The Foreign Service Journal, September 2012

electoral process and our commitment to work closely with whoever won. Each candidate showed us polling data that assured us of his own victory. (Our view was that the forecasts were within the margins of error of the most respectable polling organiza- tions.) We joined publicly with civic leaders appealing for calm and for the loser to graciously accept the results. The embassy didn’t just pay lip service to fair elections, either. We fielded a team of observers that cov- ered the entire country, equipped with modern communications gear that allowed us to track them from a command center in the chancery throughout the day. I was invited with the diplomatic corps to watch the 6 a.m. opening of the downtown San Salvador polling center, near the site of the data processing for tabulating results. In addition to official observers, in- cluding Federal Election Commis- sioner Steven Walther, there were teams from the Organization of American States and other non- governmental organizations, such as the National Democratic Institute, which deployed a monitoring team led by retired FSO Jim Swigert. A Peaceful Process El Salvador was blessed with great weather for Election Day, and turnout was brisk. Our observers reported nor- mal conditions in every corner of the country. What most concerned us was the possibility of results so close that the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE, in Spanish) would be unable to declare a winner without provoking a challenge from the loser. FMLN candidate Vio- leta Menjivar’s election as mayor of San Salvador in 2006 had been by an ex- tremely narrowmargin, with the vote re- count cut short because the venue was surrounded by a menacing partisan mob. Just after dark, my wife, Carmen (an embassy election observer), and I made our way to the hotel serving as a media center. The drive took us through areas where large groups of FMLN support- ers were roving in the streets — preparing for either a mega–victory party, or as some reports indicated, an aggressive protest were Funes to lose. Police set up a perimeter around the hotel, marked by 10-foot-high coils of barbed wire. Once inside the lobby, we could see many representatives of ARENA and FMLN, as well as Salvadoran and in- ternational media. The FMLN’s antici- pated victory was going to be a big story, for obvious reasons. At intervals of roughly half an hour, the TSE would release election returns. At about 9 p.m. TSE President Wal- ter Araujo invited a small group to his suite to report that the results still pending were not going to be enough to overcome what by then had become an insurmountable lead for Funes. Araujo was ARENA’s top man on the TSE, so this was essentially a preview of ARENA’s concession speech. To his credit, Araujo followed through on schedule with statistical announce- ments that made it clear that Funes was going to be the winner. (The final re- sult was: Funes, 51.3 percent; Avila, 48.7 percent.) At this point, our objectives were threefold: help validate the election re- sults; congratulate the winners (and console the losers); and lobby our own government for top-level congratula- tory calls. The embassy’s public affairs team helped organize the journalists’ swarm in such a way that Federal Elec- tion Commissioner Walther and I could tell the media that we were con- vinced of the fairness of the election and the validity of the results. We added that the U.S. govern- ment looked forward to continued, ex- cellent relations with El Salvador, which was echoed by the State De- partment’s press spokesman at the next day’s briefing. That may seem like a very standard line; but given U.S.-Sal- vadoran history, it needed to be re- peated many times before it sank in. Congratulating the Winner Moments later, I crossed paths with FMLN spokesman Sigfrido Reyes, who later became the legislative as- sembly’s president. At my request, he called Funes to tell him we wished to meet him before he addressed a vic- tory rally, and off we zoomed, arriving in time to be the first representatives 44 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 2 Salvadoran President Mauricio Funes and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton at their joint press conference on the day of Pres. Funes’ inauguration. Sarah Currlin