Implementing participation to build new local political relations : The case of Santa Tecla (El Salvador)

The city of Santa Tecla, near the capital San Salvador, in El Salvador (Central America) has experimented a participatory mechanism of urban strategic planning, based on territorial and sectorial roundtables and in two annual general “Citizen Assemblies”. This case took place after the end of civil war and in the context od democratization, in one city where FMLN, the political party of the former guerilla, win the local election.  This experiment, supported by international funds and technical assistance, has lead to renovation of the city center and the building of new public buildings, but also to the integration of popular suburbs. One of the objectives of this experience is to break old clientelist networks. The participatory assembly has the purpose to build of new kind of relations between local authorities and the representatives of social sectors. In fact the success of the implementation of projects is based on new formal and informal links between the authorities and the local society. One of the key explanations of the success is on the fact that old clientelist ties had been replaced by a strong leadership of the mayor of Santa Tecla, in the office since 2000 and its ability to reshape political relations and to attract international cooperation and private funds. This leadership cannot be understood as a new form of clientelism, but must be considered as a way of reshaping political ties between local authorities and urban population.