The future looks bright in El Salvador?

Twenty years after the "elections of the century," Salvadorans return to the polls today to elect their next president.

A pretty good op-ed from Paige Donnelly and Russell Crandall on El Salvador’s Delicate Balance. I am looking forward to Russell's next book on The Salvador Option: U.S. Counterinsurgency and Nation-building in El Salvador, 1977-1992.

Maybe it is just me but I'd rather have the profiles of FMLN supporters (los que viven en zonas urbanas, los que viven en el AMSS y zona Occidental, Estratos marginales y obrero, personas de 26 a 40 40 anos y de 18 a 25 anos, los que siempre ven, oyen o leen noticias en los medios de comunicacion) rather than ARENA supporters (los que viven en zona rurales, los que viven en la zona Paracentral y Central, Estratos alto y medio bajo, personas de 56 anos a mas, los que nunca ven, oyen o leen noticias en los medios de comunicacion) heading into this election and future ones.

Seth Robbins has a good article for the Christian Science Monitor on Could El Salvador's next president help civil war victims find justice? The courts and attorney general might push to overturn the amnesty and beginning prosecutions for civil war ear crimes but I don't see Sanchez Ceren pushing much here. However, there are lots of other symbolic, financial, and informational ways in which he could help.

Maybe it should be but I'm not sure Salvadorans were debating whether the FMLN or ARENA would be better at Stopping drug cartels (key issue in El Salvador election).

The FMLN should win pretty easily today. They've done a good but not great job which, given all the challenges facing the country, should be the expectation for any government in El Salvador and perhaps in the region. However, it's ARENA's poor governance and worse (?) role in the opposition that has doomed them today and set El Salvador up for another five years of FMLN governance.