Saca Gonzalez, Elias Antonio

▪ 2005

      On June 1, 2004, Elías Antonio Saca González, best known as the popular sportscaster Tony Saca, became El Salvador's president. He was born on March 9, 1965, in Usulután, El Salvador, and was the grandson of Palestinian Catholics who moved to El Salvador from Bethlehem early in the 20th century. His family had prospered as merchants and cotton dealers, but when his parents' cotton mill in Usulután failed, they moved to San Salvador. While still in school, Saca got jobs at several radio stations and worked alongside experienced sportscaster Mauricio Saade Torres. In 1982 Saca started the Only Sports program on the Sonora radio chain, and he later became a TV sportscaster on Channel 4, where he was sports director for more than a decade. His coverage of association football (soccer) games earned him widespread visibility.

      Saca entered the University of El Salvador in 1984 but never completed his journalism degree, focusing instead on his professional career. After helping in 1987 to form the Radio América chain, in 1993 he left Channel 4 and Radio América to launch the SAMIX chain of radio stations with his wife. Saca won numerous awards in the radio and television industry, and the success of SAMIX led to leadership posts on professional and civic boards and committees. He served (1997–2001) as president of the Salvadoran Association of Radio Broadcasters and chaired the Freedom of Expression Committee of the International Radio Association. In 2001 he became president of the National Association of Private Enterprise (ANEP). A survey that same year revealed that Saca was the third most popular personality in the country, trailing only San Salvador Mayor Héctor Silva Argüello and Pres. Francisco Flores Pérez.

      In 1989 Saca affiliated himself with the right-wing National Republican Alliance (ARENA), and as head of ANEP he supported Flores's pro-U.S. policies and the decision to adopt the U.S. dollar as El Salvador's national currency. Although strongly committed to a market economy, Saca expressed sympathy for labour, which led Flores to name him to head a commission that brought a small increase in the minimum wage. ARENA, which faced strong opposition from the Farabundo Martí Front for National Liberation (FMLN) in the 2004 presidential election, turned to Saca as a candidate whose popularity was more important than his ideological stance. Despite his lack of political experience, he united the party and campaigned effectively against FMLN candidate Schafik Jorge Hándal, a former guerrilla commander. While appealing to labour with promises not to privatize the country's social security and health care systems, Saca made anticommunism a major issue and warned that an FMLN victory would destroy El Salvador's good relations with the U.S. After a bitter campaign, Saca triumphed on March 21, winning 57.7% of the votes against Hándal's 35.6%. In his inaugural address Saca promised to “forget the past without hate or rancour” and to put the social agenda as his top priority.

Ralph Lee Woodward, Jr.

* * *