Conservative claims win in El Salvador presidential ballot

CNN March 7, 1999 Conservative claims win in El Salvador presidential ballot

                  SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) -- An ex-philosophy professor
                  says he appears to have defeated two former guerrilla chiefs for El
                  Salvador's presidency.

                  Comprehensive official results were not available Sunday, but Francisco
                  Flores of the governing National Republican Alliance said his rightist
                  party's count showed he had received 53 percent of the vote.

At a news conference, he stopped short of declaring victory, saying he
would wait for the official results.

With more than 50 percent of the vote, he would avoid a second-round
run-off against the No. 2 vote-getter in early April.

                  A former parliament speaker and onetime student of an Indian guru, Flores
                  has softened the often violent rhetoric of Salvadoran politics -- while taking
                  advantage of a costly media campaign.

Coming in second, according to exit polls, was former guerrilla leader Facundo
Guardado of the leftist Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front.

Third was Ruben Zamora of the center-left Democratic Center Union
-- also a former guerrilla leader.

                  Local polling expert Morgan Bojorquez told Channel 12 television that his
                  sample gave Flores about 53 percent of the vote. A survey by the University
                  of Central America gave him about 45 percent.

                  Turnout appeared to be below 40 percent of the 3.1 million registered
                  voters -- perhaps in response to a tepid campaign. In 1994's presidential
                  elections, turnout was about 55 percent.

                  "I have come to vote because I want the new government to create jobs for
                  everyone," said Maria Ruiz, 22, after casting a ballot at a school in the San
                  Jacinto neighborhood of the capital.

"I hope they remember everything they have promised," she added.

Less confrontation

                  Flores' party, known by the Spanish acronym ARENA, used massive media
                  advertisements to promote its candidate, who notably softened the party's
                  traditional attacks on opponents as communists.

Party spokesman Walter Araujo said ARENA decided that after long years
of conflict, Salvadorans "did not want to seek confrontation."

                  "There is a need to seek solutions for the country," Araujo said. Flores, 39,
                  was not involved in the country's 12-year civil war that ended in 1992 and
                  killed 70,000 people.

                  He has a bachelor's degree in political science from the University of
                  Massachusetts at Amherst and a master's degree in philosophy from the
                  World University in Ojai, California.

                  He has pledged to attack El Salvador's crime and poverty, but opponents
                  blamed ARENA for failing to ease those problems during the past two
                  five-year presidential terms.

                  Guardado, a 44-year-old former farmer and guerrilla leader, was hurt by a
                  bitter nomination struggle against hard-line factions within the former guerrilla
                  party.

Zamora, the Front's 1994 presidential candidate, now represents a coalition
of small centrist and center-left parties.