The people take action

Although there were reported to be 5,000 election observers registered to work on Sunday, it is the civilian´s actions in their home communities that had a dramatic effect in preventing rampant fraud.

A tactic that has proven to be successful in past elections is to import people to vote for a specific party. ARENA has been charged with ´hiring´people from surrounding countries and sending them with fake DUIs (the id card needed to vote) to polling stations with clear instructions on who to vote for. Very few of these operations have been stoped or investigated by the authorities.

In the very early hours of Sunday March 15, a call from Cuscatlan went out for assistance from a group of civilians who had been monitoring a sports stadium in their community. Over 100 large school buses had been hurriedly driven into the stadium and the tall fence doors closed behind them. A group of election observers from Quebec answered the call and were on the site by 2am. At that time, they could see through the chain link fence the buses lined up in the parking lot and spoke briefly to two bus drivers who were standing by the gate. The drivers claimed they did not know what they were they would be sent, who had hired them or what the assembly was for. The Observers asked to be let into the stadium grounds to look around but were not allowed. Shortly after their exchange, rocks thrown from inside the fence began to rain down on the Observers and civilians.

The Observers then went to the local radio station that is part of a network of left wing stations. They gave an update on the situation in Cuscatlan and answered questions from callers and the staff. While in the station, calls came in from other regions of full buses crossing the boarder into El Salvador and even a report of civilians stopping boat loads of foreigners from landing on Salvadoran beaches.

Near the Guatemalan boarder, another group of civilians saw a suspicious bus load of peasants entering their community. When the passengers gave said they were all coming to El Salvador to pick up their pay cheques, the towns people called the passenger´s bluff by offering to call their boss. When no name or phone number could be produced, they put the bus load under a citizens arrest and held everyone until the police arrived and escorted them back out of the country.

Fewer reports were made of the important DUI cards being counterfeit or stolen however a brave citizen did prevent fraud by pulling a knife on would be DUI thief on a public transit bus. When thief was challenged, he fled and dropped his bag of ID cars a few blocks form the bus. The bag contained the DUIs from the last bus he had robbed as well as many others including a number of counterfeit ones.

The March 15 presidential elections are being described as without significant fraud and the impressive number of Observers is often pointed to as the reason. However, at one press conference held by FUNDASPAD the Observers admit they saw few irregularities at the polls. Many of the would be fraudulent voters had already been apprehended by the vigilance of people within their communities. People were determined to prevent another vote be stolen and were willing to put their own safety on the line to do so.