Fighting begins as Salvador’s polls close

Press, 2 April 1985, Page 10

Fighting begins as Salvador’s polls close

NZPA-Reuter San Salvador President Jose Napoleon Duarte has won a badly needed majority in El Salvador’s national assembly, according to election predictions issued yesterday by a private survey. Leftist rebels launched attacks in San Salvador and several other towns in attempts to disrupt yesterday’s voting, but generally they kept a low profile. A survey by the Miamibased Spanish International Network, which accurately forecast Duarte’s victory in last year’s presidential election, said his Christian Democratic Party had won 32 of the assembly’s 60 seats. It said the Christian Democrats had taken eight seats from minor parties. His Right-wing opponents would maintain their strength with 22 seats. As the polls closed, large parts of the capital were blacked out and reports began to circulate of heavy

fighting in the north of El Salvador.

Military officials had earlier reported sporadic rebel attacks in 10 towns and in the capital, where guerrillas opened fire briefly near the cathedral just after Mass, wounding a passer-by. The election is for the assembly and the country’s 262 mayors. Some of the 140 foreign observers for the election estimated the turnout of voters at 45 per cent, compared with 80 per cent in last year’s presidential ballot. They blamed the low turnout on voters’ apathy rather than on guerrilla attempts to disrupt the poll — the fourth election in three years. Leftist guerrillas sabotaged electricity cables and machine-gunned traffic in isolated attacks. The guerrillas moved out of some towns without challenging the army patrols which moved in to guard the polling stations.

The Army could not guarantee public transport service, however, and many voters had to walk to the polling offices. A diplomat acting as an observer said Salvadorans were tired of elections and empty campaign promises. President Duarte needs to win to push through the reforms aimed at ending the five-year-old civil war which has killed more than 50,000 people, most of them non-combatants. The Right-wing coalition linking the Nationalist Re-. Sublican Alliance and the National Conciliation have been blocking his planned concessions to the Left and have opposed his efforts to pursue peace talks with the. rebels. The fighting, said to have erupted as the polls were closing, was believed to be responsible for the blackouts in the capital. First reports said it was heavier than the earlier scattered incidents which left at least one civilian dead and two wounded.