Ethnographic Explainers The FMLN’s Electoral Implosion in El Salvador: A Fiasco Foretold? April 15, 2019 0 comments Embed from Getty Images Supporters of the Great National Alliance (GANA) celebrate their candidate Nayib Bukele’s victory in the presidential elections in San Salvador on February 3, 2019. Nayib Bukele, the popular former mayor of San Salvador, claimed victory on February 3 in the Central American country’s presidential elections. (Photo by Luis ACOSTA / AFP / Getty Images) By Ralph Sprenkels El Salvador’s 2019 presidential elections wreaked havoc on the party in government. The Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional (FMLN) suffered its worst electoral defeat ever, a 70% decline in votes with respect to the previous presidential ballot. Ten years earlier, the FMLN became Latin America’s first non-triumphant former guerrilla movement to take power by the ballot. After FMLN candidate Mauricio Funes defeated the long-time governing anti-communists from the Alianza Republicana Nacionalist (ARENA), scholars of Salvadoran politics viewed his first-ever left-wing government as the dawning of a new democratic era, echoing the Salvadoran left’s high hopes that change was afoot. Hence, foremost among the questions raised by the FMLN’s electoral implosion is: what went wrong? In 2009-10 I conducted ethnographic research on former Salvadoran rebels, documenting part of what in retrospect foreshadowed problems to come. My first observation was that different FMLN offices were flooded with people looking for work. Job seekers waited around for hours to buttonhole one of the leaders entering or Current PoLAR Issue November 2018 September 2018 May 2018 November 2017 May 2017 September 2016 Utopia / Dystopia and Contamination: Conferencing in the Wake of the “Refugee Crisis” The Sea as Paradigm Sea Reflections: How is it to be connected through water and sea? ‘The ‘Terrible Paradox’ of EUtopia: A View from the Aegean Islands Between Utopia and Capitalism: Launching FLOATS, Venturing Beyond Terracentrism Authority, Confinement, Solidarity, and Dissent Part III Teaching Tools PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review Journal of the Association for Political and Legal Anthropology AFP | LUIS ACOSTA Issues > Forum > The Role of Anthropology in Public Debates on Climate Transformations B V A ^