EL SALVADOR: FMLN'S "FULL-COURT PRESS" AGAINST

C O N F I D E N T I A L SAN SALVADOR 001643 SIPDIS SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 06/22/2016 TAGS: ES PGOV PREL KMCA SUBJECT: EL SALVADOR: FMLN'S "FULL-COURT PRESS" AGAINST MCA PROJECT Classified By: DCM Michael A. Butler, Reasons 1.4 (b) and (d) ¶1. (C) SUMMARY: The hard-left opposition party Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) has launched an offensive against the Salvadoran Government's proposed Millennium Challenge Account (MCA) project. An FMLN delegation to be led by FMLN Deputy Jose Salvador Arias plans to travel to Washington to lobby against funding the proposed northern road, the backbone of the proposal; the delegation will also meet with representatives of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) to voice opposition to loans in the amount of $357 million needed for El Salvador's 2006 federal budget. The FMLN junket is part of a larger effort to block the ruling ARENA party's agenda at every turn, in hopes that President Saca's inability to move ahead in addressing the country's pressing social problems will pay off at the polls in 2009. A legislative insider told the Ambassador June 21 that the MCA project enjoys support among FMLN local leaders, but that the party's leadership was campaigning against it (and other GOES priorities) in an effort to extract political concessions. END SUMMARY. ¶2. (SBU) The FMLN has launched a domestic and international strategy to gut the Salvadoran government's proposal for a compact with the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC). President Saca announced in early June that he had formally presented the proposal to develop the country's northern zone through human and productive development activities made possible by the completion of a backbone east-west highway facilitating travel and trade throughout the region. On June 15, FMLN deputies proposed a motion in the Legislative Assembly to eliminate the highway, and reorient the funds to environmental activities. The motion was made in the name of the Salvadoran Ecology Union (UNES) and the Environmental Action Network, and was sent to committee (in this case, chaired by the National Conciliation Party, an ARENA ally) for deliberation. ¶3. (C) The FMLN has alleged that its mayors in the region and other stakeholders were not adequately consulted on the proposed MCA project, and that in any event the project is only intended to benefit wealthy business interests. In fact, mayors across the country, representatives of NGOs, and political parties were included in the lengthy and comprehensive consultative process conducted by the National Development Commission and the Government's MCA core team. Several themes did emerge as concerns, among them the impact of the project on a region that is the source of the vital Lempa River, and these concerns are being addressed. While the official record of those consultations is still being compiled, it is clear that FMLN mayors as well as their ARENA counterparts recognized the project as a concrete opportunity to finance a road discussed for decades, which would help the area catch up with the nation's more-developed central and coastal regions. After it became clear that its mayors in the region supported the MCA project, the FMLN leadership moved to invoke tighter internal discipline and obedience to the Front's larger national agenda, which includes the reintroduction of the Colon, and opposition to mining development as well as the construction of new ports, hydrolectric projects, and a San Salvador beltway. ¶4. (C) Ambassador raised the question of FMLN opposition during a June 21 conversation with former Assembly President Ciro Cruz Zepeda Pena. (Zepeda, who was not reelected in March, continues as a formal adviser to his party, and has maintained his role as deal-maker among El Salvador's political leadership.) According to Zepeda, the FMLN's opposition was formal and political rather than substantive, part of an "all-out opposition" approach deployed by the FMLN to win concessions from Saca's government. Zepeda believed there was support for the project among FMLN leaders in the North, and that the FMLN central leadership's opposition would not threaten the project. ¶5. (C) COMMENT: Having witnessed FMLN hardliners' 2005 expulsion of all dissenting voices and abolishment of open primaries, the northern-region mayors may be convinced to toe the party line, notwithstanding their earlier enthusiasm for the project. However, the FMLN's latest moves to oppose so vigorously the nation's continued development could backfire. Past polls have shown that voters are far more perspicacious than the FMLN thinks when it comes to recognizing who is creating gridlock and forestalling the nation's progress. END COMMENT. Barclay