Salvador: deadly attack targets FMLN activists in the midst of electoral campaign
Police stand guard around the vehicle of FMLN militants targeted by a gunshot attack in San Salvador on January 31, 2021. AFP - MARVIN RECINOS
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In the midst of the legislative and municipal elections scheduled for the end of February in El Salvador, an attack targeted a left-wing party convoy on Sunday, leaving two dead and five injured.
The president is accused of stoking tensions in a country that emerged from a long civil war less than 20 years ago.
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He is one of the signatories of the 1992 peace accords who was targeted by an attack on Sunday.
In the center of the capital San Salvador, masked men shot at a caravan of militants from the former FMLN guerrilla, the Farabundo Marti Front for National Liberation, which has become a political party represented in parliament.
"
We have never experienced something so dramatic in 29 years of peace agreements
", reacted Óscar Ortiz, the secretary general of the FMLN,
Three people have since been arrested.
"
Those responsible will undergo all the weight of the law
", hammered on Twitter the Salvadoran President
Nayib Bukele
, whose party Nuevas Ideas is in the head of the voting intentions for these legislative ones, but whose rhetoric is very criticized.
Since the start of the campaign, he has stepped up the attacks against these 1992 peace accords, even going so far as to replace, in mid-January, the traditional commemorations with a day for victims.
After these attacks, the secretary general of the FMLN described the president as "
savage
".
Part of the private sector also condemns Nayib Bukele and accuses him of fueling violence.
In its editorial on Monday,
the newspaper
El Mundo
calls on the political class to pull themselves together for the sake of a country sinking into the economic crisis.
He calls on it to respect the rule of law so that El Salvador once again becomes a safe destination for investments.
Some 5.4 million Salvadorans are called to elect the 84 deputies of the unicameral congress and the 262 mayors of the country and their municipal councils on February 28.
About ten parties are participating in this election.
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