Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, March 11, 1991 TAG: 9103110178
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: SAN SALVADOR, EL SALVADOR LENGTH: Medium
A leftist coalition also appeared to have made gains. Early results showed the left would have a strong presence in the National Assembly for the first time since El Salvador's civil war began 11 years ago.
For the first time in the war, the leftist guerrilla movement had granted legitimacy to the elections and did little to interfere with the voting. The rebels urged their supporters to vote for the leftist coalition, the Democratic Convergence, and oust the rightist Republican Nationalist Alliance.
But Armando Calderon Sol, the rightist party's president and the incumbent mayor of San Salvador, said the party retained its majority in the National Assembly, which was expanded from 60 to 84 seats.
The party has 32 seats in the current legislature. It won at least 43 seats in the new legislature, to be installed May 1, Calderon said, basing his statement on the party's projections.
Roberto D'Aubuisson, the cashiered former army intelligence major who founded Arena, said the rightist party also had won most of the country's 262 municipalities. He provided no details and neither man provided other figures.
Official results were not expected until today.
The Democratic Convergence, an alliance of three leftist parties, said its projections put it in third place nationwide, behind Arena and the Christian Democratic Party, which governed El Salvador from 1984 to 1989.
Local television said the left apparently finished second behind Arena in San Salvador province, which includes the capital with its 1 million residents. The returns showed Calderon was re-elected mayor of the capital.
Convergence leader Ruben Zamora said he was "deeply satisfied" with the results. The Convergence got only 3.8 percent of the vote in the 1989 presidential election.
Zamora, in a radio interview, said that even if Arena controlled the new legislature, left-wing participation would change things.
"An important number of legislators for the opposition will convert the assembly in a real tribunal and a force in favor of progress in peace negotiations," he said.
The guerrilla leadership, which has suggested recently it is abandoning its identification with Marxism, declared a weekend truce for the elections. It said the prospect of denying Arena its legislative majority made this election different from previous ones.
Rebel chiefs had said Arena's defeat would facilitate negotiations to end the war that are being held under the auspices of the United Nations.
The rebels did not allow voting in a few sparsely populated regions under their control, and the army said one soldier and nine guerrillas died in scattered attacks elsewhere. But voting in the capital and other population centers was not disrupted.
A survey of about 30 voting centers indicated between 55 percent and 60 percent of the electorate voted in San Salvador. Early reports from the countryside indicated turnout was lower there. There were 2.15 million registered voters in the country.
Ricardo Perdomo of the Central Electoral Council said voting "has been normal and tranquil in general terms, except for some problems in the zones of greatest conflict."
by CNB