Schafik Handal is Dead

A struggle between the different wings of the leftist FMLN is bound to ensue, but not before the elections of 12 March, says Jaime López, director of the Salvadoran NGO Probidad

By Eva Rasmussen

27. January 2006

Schafik Handal, the historical leader of the Salvadoran guerrilla and president of the FMLN parliamentary bench died on Tuesday 23 January. “It was a fact that his person maintained the unity of the FMLN, as the person with the longest historical, international and ideological trajectory in the party”, says Jaime López, independent political consultant for MS in El Salvador and director of the Salvadoran anticorruption NGO Probidad.
 
“I believe that party discipline means things will stay calm until after the parliamentary and municipal elections. After that will come the struggle between the different currents in the party. Essentially there are two possibilities: There can be a restructuring of the hard core in the FMLN, which implies an agreement to coexist with the more pragmatic sectors in the party, accompanied by a thoroughgoing reform of the political programme, with a view toward fitting better into global power relations – or there can be, to the contrary, a breakdown of the entire structure as a result of the opportunism of some of the leaders. Unfortunately, I think the latter is more likely.”

“The death of Schafik Handal will hardly change how people vote. However, his absence will certainly be felt in the negotiations to establish the governing board of the National Assembly and in the agreements to be reached by the FMLN’s municipal councils. This is where we will see the direction the FMLN has decided to take”, explains Jaime López, adding that “As a Salvadoran I would like to say that regardless of whether or not one agrees with the FMLN’s ideas or positions, what many of us would like to see is an intelligent and strong opposition party capable of coming to power and breaking up the antidemocratic alliance formed by the government, the private sector and the communications media”.

From guerrilla leader to politician

Schafik Handal suffered a massive heart attack immediately upon arrival in El Salvador from Bolivia, where he had attended the inauguration of Evo Morales as first indigenous president of that South American country.

A political activist since adolescence, Handal was exiled from El Salvador on several occasions, and lived clandestinely within his country for decades. He was the president of the Communist Party, one of the four groups that made up the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), which during the civil war that ravaged El Salvador from 1980 to 1992 came to be one of the strongest guerrilla movements in the history of the continent. After the signing of the Peace Accords in 1992, Handal changed his military attire for civilian clothing, and the FMLN became a political party.

In the last presidential elections Shafik Handal was the FMLN candidate. He lost to the current president Antonio Saca, a populist from the right-wing ARENA party. This increased the pressure on the old guerrilla leader, who remained loyal to his communist ideals, but was considered intransigent, dogmatic and old-fashioned by younger members of his party.