Scholarship on populism has focused on the ways in which charismatic leaders trade economic benefits for political support and their ability to smother political institutions. But the Nicaraguan case suggests that attention should also be given to the other end of the polity—namely, the absence in the general population of a democratic culture that offers needed support for political institutions. In Nicaragua, the scarcity of informed, engaged, and exacting citizens—participants in politics—is an important part of the explanation for the persistence of personalism and populism.
Salvadorans went to the polls on 2 February 2014 to select a new president. With current president Mauricio Funes of the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) ineligible to run (El Salvador’s constitution prohibits consecutive presidential terms), voters were left to choose among Vice-President Salvador Sánchez Cerén of the FMLN and former San Salvador mayor Norman Quijano of the National Republican Alliance (known as Arena). In an extremely close runoff on March 9, Sánchez Cerén managed to eke out a win against Quijano with 50.1 percent of the vote. The runoff results suggest that El Salvador still remains deeply divided two decades after the end of its civil war. Now Sánchez Cerén must govern a country beset by a feeble economy and rampant violence.
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