Word: maga
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...controversy surrounding the choice, Magaña's election came as no surprise. Indeed, it was part of a compromise worked out by the major political parties after strong prodding from the Salvadoran military and the U.S. embassy. The same agreement also led to the election of three Vice Presidents instead of one. Representing the largest parties in the assembly, they were Raúl Molina Martinez of the rightist National Conciliation Party (P.C.N.), Gabriel Mauricio Gutiérrez Castro of ARENA, and Pablo Mauricio Alvergue of the centrist Christian Democrats. The result gave at least the appearance...
Perhaps. But it was a fragile democracy of byzantine complexity that put Magaña in the Presidential Palace. The selection of a provisional head of state capped a month of cutthroat political maneuvering that began with the March 28 election for a constituent assembly. That ballot had given 40% of the popular vote to the Christian Democratic Party, led by outgoing junta President José Napoléon Duarte and supported by the U.S. because of its progressive land and banking reforms. But a right-wing coalition headed by ARENA and the P.C.N. won control...
...military aid. Without Washington's largesse, which is expected to total $362 million in 1982, the military would be hamstrung in its fight against the leftist guerrillas seeking to topple the government. The generals therefore insisted on a respectable moderate as provisional President. Their preferred candidate was Magaña, who was also acceptable to the U.S. and to a faction of the P.C.N., the old political arm of the military regimes that ruled the country from 1961 until the October 1979 coup that ultimately brought outgoing President Duarte's civilian-military junta to power...
...machismo" exercise to prove that he was tougher than the generals and the U.S. embassy combined. The boyish-looking former intelligence officer was encouraged by the gaggle of mostly female supporters who packed the assembly gallery each day to shout their support and hoot down the opposition. Before Magaña's selection, ARENA Leader Mario Redaelli boasted that he had told the U.S. embassy's political counsellor: "Maybe we should set up special ballot boxes for [U.S.] Senators and Congressmen to come down and vote directly...
Meanwhile, the army commanders stepped up their pressure in favor of Magaña's election. On Tuesday, D'Aubuisson and other political leaders were summoned to high-command headquarters and bluntly warned that the military might mount a coup if the right did not go along with the army's demands. Faced with that ultimatum, the politicians quickly hammered together the deal that led to the election of Magaña and his three Vice Presidents...