An alternative project that was wrongly conceived

What is the situation of the national politics?

During these pre-electoral times, the national political life is moving at such a vertiginous speed, that it could confuse the keenest observers. The leaders of the political parties discuss the electoral strategy, and long to find the candidates that, according to their judgment, can guarantee a higher level of success before the voters. At the same time, an apologetic discourse circulates –especially in the press- about the virtues of the free market, against an alleged Socialism that emerges as a fearsome threat. The right-wing media and its spokespeople take advantage of anything they can to insist on the FMLN’s affinities with the “Stalinist” ideology. The national problems are reduced to a series of ideological disputes between the candidates and the parties, obviating the important: the disastrous effects of the present governmental administration.

It would have been interesting to develop a serious debate about the formerly mentioned issues. Unfortunately, the predominant discussion agendas do not admit different postures, only those established by the government and the business elite. They insist that the solution is in the free trade agreements, the reduction of the state, the maquilas, the privatization process. They say that with this Capitalist “development”, encouraged by ARENA, El Salvador will have at last “superior life standards, such as the ones that the First World societies offer” (El Diario de Hoy. Monday August 26th, 2002; page 19). However, this Neoliberal “rehearse” has taken ten years already –with optimistic discourses and welfare offers for most of the Salvadorans-, and that has not resolved problems such as the most irritating stigmas of the extreme poverty, the social and the structural violence, and an increasing contingent of immigrants.

Instead of the repeated spells against the absent enemy –the ghost of Communism-, whose shadow keeps causing all kinds of fears, the Salvadorans long for credible political proposals. They expect the kind of projects that are able to survive beyond the electoral campaigns. They expect that the political parties and its leaders finally decide to brake the spell of an insensitive elite, which is incapable to understand the social needs. They expect, in summary, a new encounter between economy and politics, this time with the purpose to harmonize the society’s different interests.

The left-wing versus the right-wing
Expecting the publication of the list of candidates and the electoral programs for the Municipal Councils and the Legislative Assembly, the political perspective keeps showing (as always) the same negative signs. The rumor: ARENA has bought eligible candidates from other parties. This definitively does not predict any significant changes in the logic that has characterized the national politics. In the same way, the exchange of followers from one party to another keep confirming the fact that that the main concern of these individuals is the personal benefit that they can get from their election in order to occupy a public position. This is the only way to explain, for example, that a former mayor who belonged to the FMLN is now the brand-new candidate of the official party for Santa Ana’s city hall. Or that the mayor of San Miguel –who not too long ago was still a member of the PDC- now wants to be a mayor again by being part of ARENA. Once again, it is clear that all the rhetoric of the ideological conviction is nothing but a cheap eloquence that glows when the personal interests are at risk.

On the other hand, ARENA has already figured out its strategy to compete for San Salvador’s city halls. They think that the most important aspect of this strategy is to present familiar faces as candidates, capable to provoke some kind of a personal or a social adhesion in the voters. There are rumors and names that describe such characteristics at the most important city halls of the country. This is the case, for example, of the already announced candidacy of the former Minister of Education, Evelyn Yacir de Lovo, the best evaluated public official according to the opinion polls. It is clear that ARENA is betting a considerable amount of hope for the city hall of San Salvador. The right-wing party is determined to wash away left-wing government’s presence in the capital city.

They still have to wait for the municipal program of Jacir Lovo to figure out what she intends to do in the name of San Salvador’s voters. However, it is possible that her candidacy, on the one hand, gives new hopes to ARENA about the chances to conquer once again the city’s municipality. On the other hand, this might encourage the opposition, those who sympathize with Hector Silva, to end as soon as possible with his negotiation about the distribution of the councils. In addition, it is very probable that the presence of the former minister in the electoral competition for San Salvador’s government contributes to heat up the dispute between ARENA and the FMLN. In this context, the candidates from other parties will be eventually losing their share of importance, as the election day approaches. At the same time, if the citizenry is not alert, the discussion will go from the credibility of the proposals to the old ideological confrontation between the left and the right-wing. This last scenario would be catastrophic for the other candidates as well as for the residents of the San Salvador area.

It is also possible to imagine that an eventual defeat of ARENA’s candidate would not only strengthen the position of the left-wing party and the winning candidate in the public opinion, but it would also bring along an immense nervousness inside the ranks of the right-wing. The sponsors know that Yacir de Lovo is a strong bet, whose presence forces them to work for the victory. That is why it is possible to expect an aggressive electoral campaign (and this can mean a lot of things in the Salvadoran context). ARENA will not skimp on resources for the campaign. The rest of the parties -with their basic resources- will do their share of propaganda as they get closer to the elections. Hopefully, the prestige that the former Minister of Education has, an issue that has turned into the campaign’s slogan, allows her to moderate her campaign team and her followers.

In the mean time, the reaction of the FMLN about ARENA’s candidate has to be observed. The least that the left-wing party can do, in this context, is to move as fast as possible. It could be a negative move to keep increasing the uncertainty about the designation of Hector Silva as their candidate. Other political parties that have a left-wing tendency should define, as soon as possible, their posture about the candidate that they will support in the dispute for San Salvador. With the presence of the ARENA candidate, and with the probable presence of Hector Silva in the dispute, they will hardly find another character capable of attracting the attention of the citizenry.

The third one in the conflict
ARENA and the FMLN are about to have a tight encounter to convince the Salvadoran voters about their good intentions to operate the necessary changes in the national political system. The rest of the parties appear as the eternal appendix of a dispute in which they still occupy the chairs of the circumstantial guests. It is very probable that this reality will not change by March, when the municipal and the legislative elections will take place. The left-right dynamics will condemn them to a decorative presence in the pre-electoral debates.

In this context, the question is for how long will the new political parties survive, because they are ready to participate in these elections. About the older political organisms –the PDC, for instance-, it can be said that they could disappear because they do not have the necessary amount of votes to survive. The PDC is barely seen, according to the public opinion polls, as a power option beside the largest parties. That is why the members of the PDC cannot be expected to play an important role before the polarization of the right and the left-wing.

On the other hand, it is not clear which one of the small political parties will occupy the third place. It will be difficult for the PCN to remain as the third political force, if the challenge of the CDU (and the other parties) is considered. The leaders of the PCN did not do much during the past three years to convince the Salvadorans that they could establish a certain kind of balance in the dispute between ARENA and the FMLN. On the contrary, they used the most controversial political maneuvers, throwing away the little institutional credibility they had in relation to the performance of the Legislative Assembly.

The society and politics
There is no doubt that, with the electoral strategy designed by the political parties, the citizenry will not play an important role beyond the invitation to vote. The candidates will probably unleash their ideological contradictions, without paying much attention to the actual needs of the voters. That is the reason why the ideological propaganda is already present in the pages of the right-wing’s newspapers. Their intention is to saturate the readers as much as possible with the propaganda. In the end, the readers become so tired of it that they will not take the time to ask any questions about the administration programs, the lies of the candidates, and the parties that came out of the last elections.

In this context, the social organizations that are interested in changing the political scheme that the parties are about to launch have to be alert. Obviously, the citizens will not be considered important if they do not form organizations to oblige the candidates to elaborate credible political proposals and discuss the important issues at the height of the circumstances. It is necessary that the people get more involved in the dispute for the city’s commune, as they did in the past, especially the communities that are constantly affected by the structural problems and that need immediate changes in their lives. It is necessary to neutralize the actions of the “opinion builders” and a press that is not necessarily compromised with the cause of the citizenry.

This is the only way to propose a new line of political debate and a new frame of transcendental issues to the political parties. It is a risk to continue with the anti left-wing propaganda that most of the informative media uses in this sort of situations. In the opinion of Luis de Sebastian, it is necessary to find a road that can guide us to a “fair society, with an adequate distribution of the wealth and the income, and assure higher levels of equality for the citizenry. Because the equality of opportunity is not enough: it is necessary to achieve equal goals”.

The Second Earth Summit: records and perspectives

The debate about the natural resources and its relation with the development process started thirty years ago, with the now celebrated Conference of the United Nations about the Human Environment, which took place in Stockholm in 1972. The Second Summit of the Earth is presently celebrated in South Africa. It is also called The Sustainable Development Summit, in which practically the same aspects are being discussed since three decades ago. The difference is that now they count with a clearer scientific and technical perspective about the steps that they have to follow.

This advance is the result of important conceptual contributions produced by both conferences. Such contributions allow us to use the following concepts: “sustainable development”, “green house effect”, and “load capacity”, among others. However, the lack of political will is still a problem. Thabo Mbeki, the President of South Africa and the host of the summit accepted that, ten years after the first summit, “the global community has not shown enough will to apply the decisions that it made”.

To contribute with the debate about the sustainable development issue, this article will analyze the aspects beneath the concept. This article will also present several considerations about the importance to search for a new model of a national and a global development for Central America.

The background
During the Stockholm Summit, they analyzed for the first time the alarming tendency to destroy the environment in the developing countries, where the economic growth was the priority. This situation contrasted with the posture of the governments from the countries where the idea to promote the environmental protection was strong even if it meant to sacrifice the rhythm of the economic growth. However, during that summit, they also realized that in order to finance the environmental protection it was also necessary to achieve high economic growth rates.

An inflexion point was reached in 1980, with the document called “A strategy for the world’s conservation”, elaborated by ecological groups and the Program of the United Nations for the Environment. In this document they acknowledged that the world’s economic order will continue to deteriorate the biosphere, and that it would become necessary to respect the basic ecological elements. In the formerly mentioned document they also introduced for the first time the “sustainable development procedures” concept, and the main contribution was to explain that the natural resources and the environment were not “restrictions”, but “sources” to reach the development process. This bonded for the first time the environment with the economic development concept.

From that moment on, at least a dozen countries formulated national strategies for a sustainable development. At the same time, the governments, the scientific community, and the non-governmental organizations became more interested to understand the relation between the environment and the development concept through issues such as pollution, deforestation, erosion, the water supplying systems, and the biodiversity.

The vision of the Conservation Strategy for the World was confirmed in 1987 by the World’s Commission for the Environmental Development, headed by the Norwegian First Minister Gro Harlem Bruntland, who would later name the commission’s statement “The Brundtland Report”. He explained that the environmental protection and the economic growth were compatible objectives. Since then, and along the nineties, the “sustainable development” concept has won sympathizers around the world and inside the institutions that promote the international development.

The World’s Bank, the United Nations, and the agencies that finance the development activities have adopted the formerly mentioned perspective, which has gradually advanced beyond the environmental point of view to incorporate social, economic, and political aspects. Four aspects have emerged from the diverse perspectives about the sustainable development issue: a high consumption level per capita with a sustainable use of the resources, an equal distribution of the income, environmental protection, and the participation of the different social sectors when it comes to make the fundamental decisions.

The Summit of the Earth is born in this scenario, in 1992. In this summit they define specific political compromises that the nations have to work with to undertake the challenges of a sustainable development process. A couple of international agreements, two declarations of principles, and an action program for a sustainable development process were all subscribed. Among those, we can mention the Rio Declaration about the environment and development; the Program 21, also called the Agenda 21; the Declaration of principles to guide the administration; the conservation and the sustainable development for the woods; the Frame Convention of the United Nations about the climatic change to achieve the stabilization of the green house effect’s gases; and the Agreement about the biological diversity. Of all of the agreements, the Agenda 21 constitutes the most integral and the most well-known proposal, since it offers a series of principles to achieve the sustainable development from a social, an economic, and an ecological perspective.

Ten years later, the Second Summit of the Earth is about to take place –“The Rio Summit Plus Ten”-, where they will discuss again the issues related with the sustainable development. This time they will examine the energy problem, biodiversity, the loss of a steady supply of the essential nutrients, the access to the potable water, and medical care.

Central America: the posture and the implications
Without a doubt, Central America is a region interested in adopting the necessary measures to achieve a sustainable development, not only because of the growing deterioration of the environmental conditions, but also because of the obstacles for the economic growth and the satisfaction of the basic social needs. At the same time, because the Central American area is located in a vulnerable zone, and threatened by the natural disasters (which are intensified by the social conditions), it is or should be interested in the adoption of measures to fight against the so called “climatic change”.

The historical development models of the region have caused different economic and social problems, and they have intensified the destruction of the natural resources and the elimination of the basic ecological process. Altogether, those models have driven us to the present situation, in which the development process becomes unsustainable. Some of the clearest evidences are: the slow economic growth phase, shadowed by the crisis of the basic products –the most recent example of this problem affects the coffee-growing sector-; the existence of the high levels of poverty, the growing basic needs, the evident environmental deterioration, and the proliferation of the natural disasters.

This situation leads us to think that the Central American future is affected by the decisions that the developed world makes about the combat against the climatic changes. This is because such phenomenon is connected with the intensification of the extreme dangers, such as floods, hurricanes, and the dry seasons that regularly punish Central America, and delay the course of action of the development process.

The posture of the isthmus in the formerly mentioned summit can be found in the document that the Central American Commission of the Environment and Development (CCAD, in Spanish) prepared, and which is called “Central America at the World’s Sustainable Development Summit”. In that document, they present a report about the promotion of a harmonious relation between the economy and the environment. The report is also about the perspectives to strengthen “the capacities of the state, the legal system, the business sector, and the communities”, in order to deal with the environmental problems, including the “natural” disasters. The expectations of the region, according to the media’s version, contemplate the formulation of a sustainable development proposal that has five areas: water, energy, health, agriculture, and biodiversity.

Very little attention has been paid to other aspects that are equally important to reach a sustainable development process: the access to the markets of the developed world, the increasing cooperation in favor of the development process, the external debt, and the fight against poverty. Consequentially, the possibilities to obtain significant contributions, through the summits, are limited, because in such events they do not discuss complex issues, such as the distribution of the wealth, the use of the natural resources, and the environmental degradation.

Considerations
There is no doubt that Central America is in a delicate situation, which obliges it to redefine the local “economic order”, and its relation with the “global economic order”. Acknowledging the need to adopt national policies to promote a development process, the countries of Central America should also look for different ways to discuss and identify the alternatives for a “sustainable” insertion in the global economy.

It cannot be denied that the local policies should aim to overcome problems such as poverty, the agricultural crisis, and the environmental deterioration. However, it cannot be denied either that these problems are related to a specific insertion and subordinated to an international order that asks the less developed countries to open their markets and also demands an economic freedom, whether these actions promote or not the sustainable development process. Aspects such as the fair trade and the access to the developed world’s markets, science, and technology cannot be affected by the national policies and, even if different governments and international forums permanently discuss this issue, they are not a priority for the agreements of the developed world.

The first Earth Summit did not bring any significant changes in the policies of the developed world, and its most important contribution had to do with the national policies, where they have a good discourse. However, technically speaking, they do not have much to offer. This new edition of the conclave does not seem to bring any significant results. For the sustainable development of the countries with higher levels of poverty, it appears to be just one more summit in the history of the international interests.