SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) — Saúl Meléndez was a guerrilla fighter during El Salvador’s civil war. And for years he remained a loyal member of the leftist political party formed by ex-combatants after the war. But at the end of February, Meléndez won his first elected office as a member of President Nayib Bukele’s New Ideas party. The Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front that Meléndez left in 2015 and that expelled Bukele in 2017 suffered a drubbing in the national elections. It’s now got just four remaining federal legislators, down from 23 before the election. And some wonder whether the FMLN can even survive.
