Official reactions to the Salvadoran election result
Below, thanks to CIP Intern Stacy Ulmer, are remarks of government officials around the region regarding the results of Sunday’s elections in El Salvador:
“We applaud the democratic process in El Salvador, and we give our most enthusiastic best wishes to El Salvador for their democratic examples” -Álvaro Uribe Vélez, President of Colombia
“Well, first and foremost, I want to congratulate the people of El Salvador for, you know, a very free, fair, and democratic election. I want to specifically congratulate Mauricio Funes as the winner of the presidential election, and also his opponent, Rodrigo Avila, for participating in the election and for respecting the election results. So we look forward to working with the new government of El Salvador, you know, on our bilateral agenda. And you know, and that’s what I have.” - Robert Wood, Acting Department Spokesman for the U.S. State Department
“The sons of Simón Bolívar give our supportive hand to President Mauricio Funes” -Hugo Chávez, President of Venezuela
…with the FMLN at the head of El Salvador, the leftist governments extend throughout the region and that, in his opinion, are “a clear demonstration that the political neoliberals promoted by the United States, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank have been an entire failure and that the people are looking for new horizons” -Iván Canelasagregó, Spokesman for the Bolivian Government
The President of Mexico, Felipe Calderón Hinojosa, congratulated the winning candidate of the El Salvador elections, Mauricio Funes, by telephone this afternoon; and through their own channels he asked the Salvadoran citizens to do the same, which yesterday became a model for elections, that displayed their vibrant democracy that lives in this Central American country.