By CLALS Staff

The two elections held last weekend reflected different states of mind in El Salvador and Costa Rica. In the former, FMLN candidate Sánchez Cerén didn’t win the majority necessary to avoid a runoff, but the rejection of the ARENA party was strong and almost nationwide. ARENA candidate Norman Quijano not only trailed by 10 percentage points; his party’s victory in only one of the country’s 14 departments – remote Cabañas – was a serious blow to its image.  According to press reports, party infighting is intensifying.

In Costa Rica, the eleventh-hour surge of a left-leaning progressive – Legislator José María Villalta – gave rise to a unified effort by the traditional parties to cast themselves as essential to warding off “Chavismo” and even Communism. Commentators judged that Citizen Action Party candidate Luis Guillermo Solís ran a mediocre campaign, but he denied ruling National Liberation Party candidate Johnny Araya – whose large campaign coffers gave him a significant edge – a first-round victory, beating him by about 1.5 percent (but still far short of the 40 percent to avoid a runoff). Both candidates’ red-baiting tactics apparently got people out to vote – abstentionism was not higher than in the past as feared – and popular cries for change shifted to a mandate for the status quo.

Jockeying for the second- round elections – on March 9 in El Salvador and April 6 in Costa Rica – has begun in both countries.  The FMLN’s Sánchez Cerén appears likely to win even without a pact with former President Saca, formerly an ARENA standardbearer. In Costa Rica, Solís is widely believed likely to win, as Araya is burdened by a lackluster record as San José mayor for 21 years and by his party ties to President Laura Chinchilla, whose disapproval ratings have broken records in the history of polling in the country.

Neither new president will have an easy time governing. Their legislatures are deeply fractured, and corruption and weak Executive Branch institutions will plague them as they’ve plagued their predecessors. ARENA appeared as weak as ever and, already showing signs of crisis, will need to retool. As it loses its access to the lucre of government treasury, it’s going to lose the glue that holds it together and infighting will persist and intensify. Costa Rica’s legislators, including those of the majority National Liberation Party (PLN), have in recent years shown little willingness or ability to put aside venal interests and engage in the serious business of policymaking. Insofar as they construe voters’ last-minute rejection of Villalta as a rejection of change, Costa Rican politicians probably judge that the coast is clear for business as usual.