Election Day

It’s ‘Domingo Quince’ meaning Sunday the 15^th: the day of the presidential elections. There was no escaping the suspense with all the political campaigning on the streets, TV/radio and off course in everyday conversations. The rivalry is between FMLN, the left, and Arena, the right party.

As we try to stay neutral and understand as much as possible about the context, we are mostly surrounded by FMLN supporters, the left party. According to a lot of people the left has never had a candidate as strong as Mauricio Funes. From the military rulers and two decennia of the right calling the shots, the left has never been in power. In the polls the left was winning, so the anticipation about this historic change was huge. As we learned more and more about the history; fraud, repression and tricks implemented during elections we began to realize the possibility of a big anti-climax.

The government, businesses and the people organized a lot of options for people to vote, like free public transportation, discounts in different restaurants for the voters, etc. So on this Sunday everyone was gone for most of the day. In the evening the results started coming in. The final result was the FMLN winning with a close 51%.

We were invited by our friends from the hotel to the celebration of this historic day in El Salvador. A gathering at Plaza Masferrer could best be described with visual aid.

We’re entering our second week with this historic event,
Keep on checking our blog, Salut!