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International Elections Observation Mission: Day Six
Sunday, March 15th, 2009
By J.R. Claeys
The streets are filled with party loyalists. Gun shots ring out every few minutes as horns blare and chants are repeated. As we left the polling center this evening the two parties marched toward each other and national police ran out in time to create a barrier between the two crowds. The incident ended peacefully with nothing more than insults thrown.
The day started early at 4:45 a.m. to oversee the poll setup and delivery of the ballots. With a rich history of creative voter fraud in El Salvador, the nation has a intricate system of voting that uses several methods to prevent fraud, rather than one. I would readily suggest one more method. Eliminating the chaos.
Each polling station only receives a maximum of 450 voters. In this election about 65 percent of the voters in my voting center showed up. The unique part about the vote is that there are hundreds of polling stations in a voting center. Each station has four poll workers, with two coming from each party, then two alternates to serve during breaks for the others. The station also has two voter advocates, with one coming from each party. Add a few voters and a couple of parties with a history of battling with guns rather than votes and you get a chaotic environment.
In addition to photographing the polls we also videotaped at the polling center. I'll post some of that after I return. It is like nothing we see in the United States. Partisan parades march through the voting centers, chants begin around polling stations where disputes are being fought out, and there is media waiting to pounce on anyone with a good story.
While I was watching the polls this morning a dispute began over the quality of one man's Voter I.D. card. It turned into a partisan battle that ended with the revelation that the man was not from this country. Instead, he was a Nicaraguan attempting to steal a vote. It happened by the busload in January's legislative elections. We will see if the same turns out to be true this year.
I was also at the polling station where ARENA vice-president Ana Vilma De Escobar voted, with her media entourage. Presidential candidate Rodrigo Avila also stopped by, though he does not vote in this polling center. And, the final celebrity to vote here was former president Armando Calderon Sol. I have some video of that to post as well.
In the observation process, most of what I saw today was low on the scale of infractions and none, outside the Nicaraguan, was malicious. But there are many reforms that I will recommend tomorrow to the Supreme Electoral Tribunal. That is, if I can sleep through the chants and gunfire.
As of this writing at 11:55 p.m. in Kansas, the results are still too close to call. Either ARENA will pull off a victory in an election they are supposed to lose, or FMLN will make history by finally beating ARENA for the presidency after decades of being knocked out at the polls. Early indications point to FMLN.
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