improve the image of the state by banning the Salvadoran Air Force from bombing civilian areas without presidential permission, creating an Investigative Commission to investigate political assassinations, and prosecuting the right-wing death squads that were alleged to be embedded in the state security services. However, that attempt largely failed to influence the excesses of the death squads. On 31 March, in the 1985 congressional elections, the PDC gained a majority with 33 seats. ARENA's loss of control in the Congress enabled Duarte to achieve his goals more easily. On 10 September 1985, his daughter, Inés Guadalupe Duarte Durán, and her friend, Ana Cecilia Villeda, arrived by car at the gates of a private university in San Salvador. They were followed in a van by two bodyguards assigned to protect them. As the two vehicles came to a stop, other vehicles positioned themselves to block traffic while a number of armed individuals killed the bodyguards and forced the two women into a truck. The two women were taken to a guerrilla camp. Four days after the incident, the self-styled Pedro Pablo Castillo commando of the FMLN publicly announced that it had been responsible for the abduction of the women. In spite of angering the military, Duarte's family was sent to the United States for its safety, and he began the negotiations for the release of Inés Duarte and Ana Cecilia Villeda. On 24 October, after several weeks of negotiations in which the Salvadoran church and diplomats from the region acted as mediators in secret talks, Inés Duarte and her friend were released in exchange for 22 political prisoners. The operation also included the release of 25 mayors and local officials abducted by FMLN in exchange for 101 war wounded guerrillas, whom the government allowed to leave the country. The entire process of exchanging prisoners, which took place in various parts of the country, was carried out through the International Committee of the Red Cross. In a communiqué from the FMLN General Command broadcast by Radio Venceremos on the day Inés Duarte was released, the General Command assumed full responsibility for the operation and described the actions of the commando, including the killing of the bodyguards, as "impeccable". The abduction of Inés Duarte and Ana Cecilia Villeda was widely denounced as a violation of international law. In 1986, Duarte's tax reform plans, bitterly opposed by ARENA, were judged unconstitutional. In August, he