ARENA: COENA NAMES THREE PRESIDENTIAL FINALISTS

C O N F I D E N T I A L SAN SALVADOR 000238 SIPDIS SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/25/2018 TAGS: PGOV PREL KDEM ES SUBJECT: ARENA: COENA NAMES THREE PRESIDENTIAL FINALISTS REF: SAN SALVADOR 147 AND PREVIOUS Classified By: The Ambassador, for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d). ¶1. (C) Summary: Rodrigo Avila, Luis Mario Rodriguez and Ana Vilma de Escobar were named February 26 as the three finalists in the race to become ARENA's presidential candidate. There is unhappiness and worry in COENA, ARENA's executive board, over President Saca's heavy handed management of the process. End Summary. ¶2. (C) COENA, the Executive Board of the ruling ARENA party, reportedly met February 24 to agree on the final list of three competitors to be the party's candidate for President of El Salvador. The decision eliminates former Foreign Minister Francisco "Pancho" Lainez and ARENA founding member Eduardo Barrientos from consideration. Lainez' exclusion from the list of candidates moving forward was floated in the press February 25. COENA announced the unanimous decision formally February 26. ¶3. (C) Not surprisingly, given their ties to President Saca, former PNC director Rodrigo Avila and former Presidential Legal Advisor Luis Mario Rodriguez made the cut. VP de Escobar also made it onto the list of finalists, though few observers believe she will become ARENA's candidate. ARENA founding member Eduardo Barrientos' elimination came as no surprise (even to him, apparently) given his low level of name recognition and lack of a defined base of support inside the party. ARENA still plans to select its candidate on March 15. ¶4. (C) POLOFF discussed ARENA's candidate selection process with Roberto Murray Meza, COENA member, February 26. Murray repeatedly said a significant number of COENA members are quite upset at President Saca's handling of the process, a sentiment shared by a number of businessmen and a large segment of the middle class. Hours before the decision was announced, Murray said the decision to include Rodriguez as a third candidate was still up in the air, saying it was possible COENA would announce only two finalists. ¶5. (C) Murray said he believed Saca was convinced he had sufficient power within ARENA and access to sufficient financial resources in order to force the selection of his preferred candidate -- Rodrigo Avila -- and fund the resulting campaign, even if ARENA's traditional donors balked. Murray described himself and others in COENA as disappointed with the process and the result. Saca, he said, hadn't even gone through the motions of genuinely consulting with the party. Salvadoran presidents, he continued, have maneuvered to support their preferred candidates in the past, but have never been this blatant. Murray said he was quite concerned that Salvadoran business interests that have traditionally supported ARENA will be sufficiently angered at being expected to fund a candidate without consultation or support that they may be strongly tempted to refuse. ¶6. (C) Murray said Saca has told COENA members the U.S. Embassy and Washington support Rodrigo Avila as ARENA's candidate. PolCouns noted that while the USG has had a long, productive working relationship with Avila, we do not "support" his or any other candidacy. Murray said while most on COENA recognized that, some were probably more comfortable supporting Avila based on Saca's assertions, even though they strongly suspected they were false. Murray, reflecting on an Avila run for President, said "well, we have time to teach him to talk, but not to think." Murray said he hoped the time remaining until the presidential vote in March 2009 would give ARENA time to heal its wounds, win the election, and then set out to ensure this never happens again. Murray said there were already some quiet discussions of amending ARENA's statutes to prevent a sitting Salvadoran president from serving as President of COENA. In the end, he acknowledged, COENA members had no one to blame but themselves for allowing this to take place. ¶7. (C) Murray said he understood businessman Ricardo Poma, a patron of VP de Escobar, had approached Saca to argue against excluding her from the list of ARENA finalists. Murray said that approach appears to have paid off. ¶8. (C) Finally Murray was struck by the irony that when he was considering standing as a candidate, he had spoken with Arturo Zablah (then and once again a putative presidential candidate for an FDR-PDC-CD alliance) who had suggested he would throw his support to ARENA to prevent an FMLN victory. Murray had reported this to Saca, who dismissed the offer. Now, Murray said, it seems Saca has managed to replace a likely scenario of everyone against the FMLN with just the opposite. A Zablah run now would likely attract disenchanted ARENA supporters. ¶9. (C) Commment: Inside and outside ARENA, most observers believe the fix is in and Rodrigo Avila will be selected as the party's candidate on March 15. But ARENA insiders (aside from Saca and his inner circle, it seems) are concerned about Avila's candidacy and eventual government. Avila is a well known quantity to the USG; our experience suggests he would need a strong chief of staff to make his administration successful, given the relative weakness of his organizational and administrative skills versus his leadership qualities. ¶10. (C) Comment continued: Once ARENA's improvised, cloudy, and in many ways flawed candidate selection process, the party will have its work cut out for it, not just in the upcoming campaign, but in repairing the damage that has been done inside the party. Saca's apparent manipulation of the candidate selection process has resulted in broad resentment inside the party, and could well diminish financial and other support during the campaign. Under these circumstances, a Zablah run could easily force a second round for the presidential vote in April 2009 and ARENA might be unintentionally incubating a future center-left force in Salvadoran politics. GLAZER