El Salvador has a new president-elect, as of last Sunday. Mauricio Funes, of the left-wing Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN), won a narrow victory over Rodrigo Ávila of the right-wing ARENA party. The Washington Post tells us what to expect:

Among other things, he has said that he will respect private property, preserve El Salvador’s free-trade agreements and its use of the dollar as its currency, and seek to preserve close relations with the United States. As his political model, he has cited not Mr. Chávez, but Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who has led his country leftward while honoring democracy and the rule of law.

Making fewer headlines outside the US, however: Funes has promised to switch his country’s diplomatic ties from Taiwan to the PRC when he takes office June 1. Currently, El Salvador is one of the island’s 23 remaining diplomatic allies. Despite Taiwanese president Ma Ying-jeou’s calls for a “diplmatic truce” with the PRC over stealing each other’s diplomatic partners, many countries have switched over to the PRC for economic reasons.

Though these reasons are usually enough to convince most countries to switch to the PRC, in the case of El Salvador, there are other reasons as well. From the Taipei Times article linked above:

The FMLN has never forgotten that ARENA founder Roberto D’Aubuisson, who organized and led the death squads which tortured and killed thousands of civilians and who directly ordered the assassination of Archbishop of San Salvador Monsignor Oscar Romero on March 24, 1980 that sparked the civil war, was trained in “police techniques” in Taiwan.

Moreover, unlike Nicaragua, Guatemala or Paraguay, Taiwan has been unable to develop solid political dialogue with the FMLN even under DPP President Chen Shui-bian.

So, while Taiwan has been able to maintain ties with Nicaragua, Guatemala and Paraguay as their governments have taken a left-ward turn, El Salvador will be a much mightier task.

Is there, then, any course of action for Taiwan to stop this from happening? Could the island salvage “dual recognition”, meaning that El Salvador would recognize both the PRC and Taiwan? Not likely. When Francisco Ou, Taiwan’s foreign minister in El Salvador, told reporters the island would indeed be willing to accept this scenario, he was was quickly overrulled by President Ma himself, saying dual recognition “unrealistic.” Beijing has routinely demanded that its diplomatic partners recognize the “One China” principle.

It seems that Ma is wary of ruffling too many feathers in Beijing over El Salvador, even if it means losing one more country from its column.

Image: Tim’s El Salvador Blog