Funes before Funes

Salvadorenos en el Mundo

There was sad news out of El Salvador last week as Héctor Silva (1964-2011) passed away following a massive heart attack. Hector was a trained physician, had been involved in the creation of the Democratic Revolutionary Front (FDR), was elected to congress, was two-time mayor of San Salvador, and launched an unsuccessful bid for the presidency in 2004. 

Like President Mauricio Funes, Hector was sympathetic towards the FMLN but not an FMLN militant. He was elected mayor of San Salvador in 1997 on a ticket led by the FMLN just as Funes led a coalition ticket for the presidency in 2009. Both provided the FMLN with credibility beyond the organization's historic militants. Neither Silva nor Funes would have won without the FMLN just as the FMLN would not have won without them leading the ticket.

Hector's name was thrown around as a candidate for the 1999 presidential election. There were some who believed his popular stint as mayor of San Salvador would make him a strong candidate for the FMLN. As Voices from El Salvador wrote last week, he

oversaw the opening of the first landfill in Central America, decentralization of city services, and rehabilitation of the historic downtown area. He made civic participation a priority and enacted several relations that facilitated public input on how city funds were used.  He also made the municipal government more transparent and simplified the administrative process.

Instead, the FMLN selected a terrible candidate in Facundo Guardado. Silva, in all likelihood, would not have won the election anyway but I think that a strong candidacy would have put the FMLN in a better position heading into the 2004 election. On the other hand, five years was a long time for anything to happen and had the FMLN still nominated Schafik Handal in 2004, they probably would have lost again anyway.

I remember interviewing Hector in 2004 a few weeks after losing his presidential bid at the head of the United Center Democrats and Christian Democratic Party (CDU-PDC) coalition. He was pretty bitter towards the FMLN at the time. He spoke about how he had thought that people used the term communist simply to discredit Handal and the FMLN; that it wasn't really true. However, shortly after the 2004 election, he wasn’t so sure. He wouldn't go into detail about why, whether he meant organization's goals, the way it made decisions, or both. He left it at “they’re a bunch of communists.”

Silva was a fine man and those who had the privilege to meet him, even once, will dearly miss him. Above all, the Salvadoran people will.

(see also Contrapunto, Contrapunto II, Contrapunto III, Voices from El Salvador, Envio (1997), El Faro, Miami Herald)