[Marxism] Salvador vote note

["Joaquin Bustelo" <jbustelo@xxxxxxxxx>]

A fellow hack of dubious reputation who claims to have a source inside an
exit polling operation in El Salvador claims that source says that former
CNN correspondent Mauricio Funes has run 6-10 points ahead all day (53-55%
versus 47-45%) against former cop commander Rodrigo Avila in the exit
polling. That's triple or quadruple hearsay, but the bottom-line claim
roughly parallels pre-election polling. 

And, no, it isn't going to be published anywhere, as anywhere that would be
interested in publishing this would arguably be within the jurisdiction of
Salvadoran law which makes it a crime to report this sort of thing (even if
true) between last Wednesday and when the polls close tonight.

Funes is the candidate presented by the FMLN but wasn't associated with the
group until a year and a half ago. He was instead a popular and fairly
courageous journalist who was hounded from one outlet to another by
advertiser/capitalist outrage over his reporting and thus wound up working
for CNN en Español because, really, a media monopoly like Time-Warner
doesn't actually CARE if some coffee-plantation or sugar refinery owner in
El Salvador is upset. (Mexico's Carmen Aristegui, who has a Mon-Fri half
hour prime time interview show on CNN en Español, and recently broke the
"Tellez-gate" scandal that cost a couple of PAN cabinet members their
positions, is a similar case).

IF (notice the conditional, "IF") the report is accurate and IF the trend
holds and IF the governing ARENA party does not steal the election and IF
instead it recognizes Funes's victory, this would be a good thing, a very
good thing. 

Funes has struck me over the years and someone who is genuine and honest and
intelligent and concerned about the well-being of his country and its
working people, to the extent of running significant personal risk and
certainly having a much lower standard of living than he could otherwise
have had. In Latin America, there is nowhere else for someone like that to
go than the left, unless he sells out. And it hardly seems likely the point
of his campaign was to sell out, as his street cred was enough to have
gotten him a multi-million-dollar package as an American propagandist,
without the bother or risks of running for office.

And EVEN IF Funes does not yet understand it, imperialist interests will
soon make it excruciatingly plain.

It is also, I think, a positive sign that the FMLN was willing to bet on a
non-party "populist journalist" who had won the trust of a large segment of
the masses, rather than one of its veteran guerrilla cadres. I think --I
hope-- it means that on some level the FMLN has understood that the real
challenge is to bring together and give expression and shape and direction
the movement for the salvation of the Salvadoran nation, and let the
anti-national forces exclude themselves.

I'll try to update in a few hours, when we should begin seeing official
results rather than rumors in journalistic circles. Not that the former will
be any more accurate than the latter, of course, but they are likely to have
greater standing.

Joaquin


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