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Proceso 1148
June 8, 2005
ISSN 0259-9864

Índice

Editorial: A very dangerous administration style

Politics: Electoral adjustments in the most important political parties

Economy: Is the CAFTA deal close?

Editorial

A very dangerous administration style

The fourth ARENA administration finished its first year filled with enthusiasm and with an optimistic attitude, according to the speech delivered by President Saca. His mood and the one of his administration can be summed up with precision in the following lines of his message, in which he assured that both “keep an optimistic disposition and a strong will to resolve the problems, defeat the obstacles, and keep a high level of enthusiasm”. Paradoxically, these expressions refer to the perspectives about the national economy, one of the most critical areas by the end of the first year. The problem is that with optimism, enthusiasm, and will, no matter how high their spirits are, no one can administrate a country that is going through both an economic and social crisis. There already are some experiences about intending to administrate the country in the same manner to modernize the stagnated economies of the society. The most typical example, as well as the most disastrous one, was what happened in the China of Mao. When the governments adopt these attitudes, their administrations are regularly catastrophic, because they cause hunger and a massive level of deaths. Crisis have to be administrated with programs and policies, and not with optimism, enthusiasm or will.

The presidential report of the first year is filled with programs and not with policies. It has a long disorganized list of laws, commissions, the identities of people that will be named to occupy a position as public officials, plans, programs, and projects. There is no difference between what has been done and what only remains as a plan; they are not evaluating the completed tasks or the future actions. There are no priorities, and the information of four areas is not articulated –security, politics, the society, and the economy- between these areas, the information is not organized at all, and what the President refers to as “the strategic plan of his administration” is equally disorganized. This is not a simple coincidence, because it shows the lack of coordination of the high governmental circles. In the best of the cases, each governmental branch works isolated from the rest. After a year, these activities have been grouped by areas, without any systematic actions, something that paradoxically creates the impression of an enormous amount of work performed in a disorganized manner and with inefficiently administrated resources, and, therefore, with a limited sense of proficiency. Activism is not necessarily a way to overcome the main challenges. Individually, there are achievements, important achievements without a doubt: education, health, social security, and even more.

Two out of the four mentioned areas, security and economy, stand out because of its contradictory results. The first one has the highest amount of achievements, while the other one has not reached any goals. The governmental perspective is relevant in the security area before the challenge brought by the insecurity in which the citizens live. In the economic area, what seems more relevant is the lack of answers to the crisis and to the deterioration of the life standards of the population. To a certain point, this lack of balance is something normal because the Saca administration has concentrated all of its efforts to fight against the juvenile gangs with punishing methods of a high level of populist impact.

The most important achievement in the security area is the increasing number of gang members that are behind bars. However, with this so called achievement, they have intensified the already critical situation of the jails, where they live among crime and among overcrowded prison cells. Ironically, those gangs members that have been arrested have dedicated their time in jail to improve their level of organization in regard to their actions. That is how they are now, more “efficient” than they were before the implementation of this unusual plan. A regional jailhouse of gang members, another curious proposal of the government of ARENA, is the ideal platform to internationalize their operations. In spite of the apparent success of the repressive actions against the gangs, the level of homicides has increased in the last months. Before the implementation of the Iron Fist Plan the general tendency seemed to be a slight but notorious reduction. The typical measure of a police-State. Indeed, the police plans to search houses to “clean each home and find drugs, guns, killers, gang members, and anything that takes peace away from people”. The cleaning operation is implemented in the poorest crowded neighborhoods, because other neighborhoods are not suspicious. These measures are the most popular ones, since the population feels safer when they do not see any gang members in their neighborhoods or in public places.

However, the Saca administration does not have any answers for the economic crisis. It has not been able, and it probably has not even tried to create a coherent economic policy, since its Neo-liberal belief claims that the best policy is the one that does not exists. In the list of the activities grouped in this economic area, there are the inauguration of a new seaport and roads, the creation of the trade agreements; the reduction of tariffs at another seaport, a free circulation project to go from one country to another, a tax reform and new taxes; the reopening of banks, micro-financial programs; arts and crafts’ centers; the support for the areas that work with cotton, with coffee, and the agricultural diversification; the foreign investment; diverse laws; the modernization of a ministry ( the Ministry of Work), and the creation of another one (the Ministry of Tourism); the revalorization of retirement pensions, or the encouraging actions to increase the exportation level.

The speech confirms that the purpose of this proliferation of activities is to demonstrate that President Saca was fulfilling his promises, the ones that he made during the campaign. “The performance level is high”, “the volume of completed tasks is proficient”, “the fundamental promises have been fulfilled”, it is a list that repeats itself. To this we can add well-known phrases of the speech that the President gave last year, which proclaim the actions of a government dedicated to work for the welfare of the people, without forgetting that President Saca has kept his “spirit of humbleness” and “he still is a person with negotiating skills, accessible, open, and willing to listen in spite of the importance of his position, and this seems to indicate that there is nothing new to say. The newest thing is the motto “El Salvador is worth your while” which can be add to the one that this administration has been using all this year “a government with human sense”.

The problem of this speech is that the reality of the country, revealed through the statistics and through the opinion polls, says something very different. Many people are running away from reality, and they ignore it because it is a complex situation, and because they feel that they cannot change it. For them, the presidential speech fills their needs because it tells them that the country is in the right direction, and perhaps that is why he made them listen twice to the same speech that lasted for one long hour, a speech that had already been published by the newspapers. That is how a message that was intended to attract the attention of the population because it was important and new, was imposed by radio and television broadcasting systems, including cable. This disposition contradicts the regime of freedoms, a system that, according to ARENA and their President, they are already following.

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Politics

Electoral adjustments in the most important political parties

With the up-coming municipal and legislative elections (March 2006), the political parties have become a pot full of pressure and verbal confrontations between its leaders and its officials. ARENA as well as the FMLN and the smallest parties are working in the designation of their candidates, and they are revealing their particular perspective about democracy. The highest circles of each party keep designing their electoral strategies with an irritating secrecy that suggests the worst for the survival of the Salvadoran democracy.


The authoritarian right wing
The construction process of the candidacies for the next elections of the official party –undoubtedly handled by the press with a tone that was not dramatic- has shown its share of authoritarianism and an asphyxiating amount of political control (the attitude of the leaders). ARENA, constantly manipulating the public opinion, announced that their strategy was an exemplar process that would combine the evaluation of the people responsible for the activities in each department of the country with the free democratic decision of the bases. The second thing has not happened. On the contrary, until now, the bases of the most important right-wing party have not had much to say about the decisions made by those who actually run the party.

The president of the COENA (who is also the President of the country) is depending on his right hands to point at those who will represent his party in the next elections. In other words, this process that intended to be an exemplar procedure in the beginning has not changed one bit the authoritarianism of the leaders from ARENA. The press has revealed how several local leaders have acted against some of the highest circles in the departments where their possibilities of being reelected were denied. The press has regulated the amount of this kind of information to avoid any scandals.

In this context, there is the case of Will Salgado, a mayor from ARENA in the city of San Miguel. In spite of the ridiculous manner in which Salgado intended to gain the sympathy of his “bosses”, Saca discarded him as the candidate for the City Hall of San Miguel. According to Salgado, they have threatened him with using the Attorney General’s Office and the legal courts against him. This case is one more example of the authoritarianism used by the President of the COENA and the way in which his team handless the affairs of the party. There are no solutions for those who behave inadequately or for those who intend to be smart and not listen to the voices of their authorities.

The only hideaway place that the unhappy politicians of the right wing have found (those who are concerned about their political careers) is the National Conciliation Party (PCN, in Spanish), a party that, once its glory days were forgotten, has become accustomed to live beneath the shadow of ARENA. They have not talked about the designation of the candidates for the Legislative Assembly. And they have not revealed the evaluation and the designation process that they will follow. In any case, it is very probable that this authoritarian attitude follows a free course. As everyone knows, those who act against the official direction of the party also run the risk of being punished and forgotten.


The case of the FMLN
The chaos that prevails in the FMLN reveals, however, the failed authoritarianism of its leaders. Fortunately –if any personal considerations are allowed- the left wing party has not been able to impose the same line of thought in the rest of the confronted branches. Ever since the last reforms were approved by the highest authorities of the party, this confrontation has become a paroxysm in these last days. The convenience to designate through an agreement the candidates that will try to get public charges before having to subject themselves to a wear-and-tear electoral process, according to the particular way of interpreting the democracy of the leaders from the FMLN, is debilitating the party.

Several important members of the party –just like Ileana Rogel, a person that no one will be able to accuse about selling herself to the right wing-, have announced their departure. It is evident that this is not the first political crisis that the orthodox members of the FMLN have faced. And it will not be the last, but the most recent news are intensifying their weaknesses in the electoral confrontation with ARENA.

The congressmen, mayors, and leaders from the FMLN that have decided to leave the party are reacting, without a doubt, before the impossibility of keeping their positions. The mayor of San Salvador, Rivas Zamora, before the way his party humiliated him –the party not only elected a candidate of the National Council, if there had been internal elections, without a doubt, Rivas Zamora would have lost them– gave his resignation letter to the orthodox leaders. The same thing happened with Ileana Rogel, who decided to leave before experiencing a definite political death, once her third period as a congresswoman was over. In the case of Orlando Mena, the left-wing Mayor of Santa Ana, probably before the impossibility of wining the internal elections, the leaders of the party simply decided to take his rights as a militant away from him. That is how the political apparatus of the FMLN works, with a totalitarian style that can remind people about the worst (or the best) moments of the oligarchic- military dictatorship in the history of El Salvador.

The speech about the ideological coherence that the orthodox usually used to legitimate the departures, if it is not handled with a certain cynicism, it will not be used in this context. Now it is clear for the public opinion that other issues are at stake. In addition, the advantage of the systematic political death of the dissidents that the hardest wing of the FMLN counted with will no be able to exists anymore. Probably the present dissidents of the FMLN are thinking in these terms. They can build a new political force without being afraid of disappearing if they do not reach the minimum amount of votes that the law usually requested. When Saca decided to save the PCN from disappearing along with the other parties due to the results of the last elections, without a doubt, strengthened the possibility of dissidence of the left wing party.

While the parties prepare themselves for the next elections, the democratic environment is not actually here. In ARENA as in the FMLN, the leaders keep the control. They keep giving more importance to the idea that there are exclusive instruments to achieve the particular goals of the leaders. Although differently form its main contender the dictatorship of ARENA does not have any weak spots. The political asphyxia to which its officials are subjected repels any decisions to disagree with the party and leave.

However, in the end, the two most important parties seem to be weaker than ever. ARENA is not even able to find any decent candidates for the most important municipalities of the country. At the moment, the shadow of Saca darkens the image of the rest of the aspiring leaders. In the case of the FMLN, it is evident that the constant number of resignations of important figures, unsatisfied with the authoritarian control of the orthodox, in the end will affect the performance of the party. In fact, the incapacity of the left wing to win the presidential elections is a symptom of this reality. In this context, would it be silly to predict that perhaps the end of the opposition’s hegemony of a structure created in the war has started to crumble?

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Economy

Is the CAFTA deal close?

According to the most recent information, the textile union –one of the strongest unions in the United States- would be willing to accept the ratification of the Free Trade Agreement between the United States and Central America (CAFTA). A Republican Senator, Elizabeth Dole, a representative of the textile business, is willing to support the agreement as long as some of the commercial clauses are modified. In this sense, Robert Portman, a public official of the North American government in matters of foreign trade, will do everything he can in order that the pockets of the trousers and the jackets exported from Central America to the American market are made with materials of the United States. Portman’s work will be directly favorable for the Federation of Farmers of North Carolina –one of the most powerful cotton unions- reducing the level of the critical tension inside the Congress of the United States.

Another important input that the North American textile union could have is the commitment of Nicaragua about not using a clause that would allow it to export clothes made with Asian premium quality materials to the United States. Such clause would allow the Central American country to use millions of square meters of Asian fabrics to make clothes that would not have to pay any taxes when entering to the United States. If the commercial agreement is ratified and Nicaragua uses this resource to increase its level of exportation, it would have a strong impact on the American producers and the tradesmen that work in the industry of clothes-making.

What does it take to approve the CAFTA?
The level of tension is going down: those who ask for more are those that have more, and those that have less in order to obtain the widely advertised benefits of the free trade, intend to deliver the little they have. There are no equal conditions to negotiate the agreement. This is more evident when there is a commercial relation between countries that are in an uneven position as far as the market is concerned, and as far as the companies and their productive apparatuses are concerned.

Since they began to negotiate the conditions of the free trade between Central America and the United States, it was easy to notice who were the ones making the rules –tariffs, shares, requirements, etc.- in order to import and export goods and services between the countries. These regulations have a background of economic interests that intend to ultimately favor the most powerful companies. It is true that the regulations can motivate new companies to participate in this project, but those that have important economic interests that intend to talk the negotiators into establishing favorable measures for them, see themselves get stronger in the market.

During the negotiation process of the CAFTA, the regulations of the agreement were negotiated in favor of the United States. About the foundations of the theory that represents the economic policy it can be said that there are no neutral policies because there are always winners and losers. And everything seems to indicate that, given the configuration of the agreement, the American businessmen have made sure to occupy a place among the winners.

In spite of this, it seems probable that the countries of the region will obtain some of the benefits of the free trade with the United States. However, the most important aspect is the probability that the agreement, in the long-term, is able to get more positive results for the American interests. It is undeniable that during the negotiation of the CAFTA, the United States granted several commercial concessions to the Central American countries. The agreement reveals several special considerations that are looking after the interests of the economic sectors of the weakest countries, at least in the short-term. However, everything seems to indicate that those special considerations are about to end. This is because such conditions affect the economic interests of some of the business’ unions of the United States.

The pockets of the trousers and jackets that the United States will import from the Central America region will have to be made exclusively with American materials. In other words, the countries of Central America will only be able to participate in the production process of the pockets with the labor of the workers. All of the multiplying potential in the economy, especially in the agricultural sector, that the manufacturing process with cotton would have for the creation of such pockets is over.

All of this seems ironic if we consider that in the beginning of this administration, President Saca promised that he would reactivate one of the most affected agricultural sectors by the war: the cotton sector. With the new disposition promoted by Portman in the American Congress, it would be interesting to know what the Salvadoran President would say to those farmers that met with him last year when the reactivation process of the cultivation of cotton began. The Salvadoran cotton sector would be affected if they establish new exportation conditions for the countries of the region.

In the second case, there is Nicaragua. In order to establish a commercial link with the United States, Nicaragua is willing to give-up the formerly mentioned clause, even if this is not going to be economically favorable for this country. This action intends to satisfy the business and the economic interests of the most important American textile unions. In addition, inside the international trade, Nicaragua would not be a very attractive country for the investments on the Asian textile area.

Free trade?
One of the most important premises announced by the paladins of the commercial freedom is that all of the particular interests against the free trade must disappear. However, this is not actually happening, since the American textile union would be preventing the cotton produced in the region from entering the United States. And in the particular case of Nicaragua –where the rejection against the free trade is more evident- they are trying to prevent this country from establishing free trade connections with the Asian countries.

As it can be noticed, the actual strategy is the disappearance of the particular interests of the weakest countries in the frame of the negotiation. In other words, the particular interests should disappear if they do not favor the most powerful countries, on the contrary, such particular interests might perfectly remain active, even if they go against the free trade.

The answer to the question that we had at the beginning of this article is that, in fact, right now we are closer to the CAFTA. Unfortunately, this is happening without considering the needs of the Central American countries. In other words, some of the regional governments, in order to see the ratification of the treaty are willing to meet all of the demands of the United States, underestimating the social impact that this agreement could create.

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