El Salvador: A Political Scorecard

Against the Current, No. 53, November/December 1994

Mike Zielinski

Parties referred to in this article include:

* FMLN (Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front), the party formed to carry on the revolutionary military-political alliance that fought the U.S.-backed Salvadoran regime from 1980-1991. Its five constituent parties are:

* FPL (Popular Forces of Liberation), formed in the early 1970s as a split from the Salvadoran Communist Party and the first of the armed organizations as well as a major force in the popular movement.

* ERP (Expression of the People’s Renewal, previously the Peoples Revolutionary Army). Radical Christian in origin, a highly effective military force during the war, now representing the “moderate” wing of the movement.

* RN (National Resistance), an early 1980s split from the ERP and today generally aligned with it politically.

* PCS (Salvadoran Communist Party).

* PRTC (Central American Revolutionary Workers Party), the smallest of the groups.

* ARENA (Republican Nationalist Alliance), the ruling party of El Salvador, formed initially by the late Roberto d’Aubuisson, godfather of the death squads and organizer of the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero.

* DC (Christian Democrats), the party in power and favored by the United States through most of the 1980s.

ATC 53, November-December 1994