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Proceso 1154
July 20, 2005
ISSN 0259-9864
Editorial: The failure of the “Super Iron Fist”
Politics: The political parties against democracy
Economy: Is there any social or economic development in the country?
The failure of the “Super Iron Fist”
The efforts of President Saca and his orders have not
been enough to contain the growing homicide rate. In spite of so much dedication
and security plans, that rate keeps growing and no one can stop it. The new
explanation and the measures of the government only show its confusion before an
overwhelming situation, and that is why the new presidential theory is
hallucinating. According to this perspective, the homicide rates grow because
the list of murdered people includes suicides and children’s deaths, which would
mean that the institutions are inadequately recording the number of homicides.
President Saca is very interested in the fact that the population keeps a
positive perception about his administration, and the repressive measures do
contribute to this in a great extent.
The Minister of Governance also has a delirious explanation: most of the people
that have been murdered are gang members or drug dealers, victims of the gangs
that keep fighting to control the traffic of drugs and their power. This is how
the Saca administration disrespects the homicide victims. Most of them are not
gang members, and even if they were, a murder could never be justified. It seems
that, according to the government, the name tag “gang member” makes murder legal
and even unimportant. The director of the police, on the other hand, assures
that the crimes are committed by common delinquents, something that contradicts
the former theory. And even worse, he considers that the increasing homicide
level is something that will go away. However, contrary to what Saca believes,
because he thinks that this is going to last for the long-term, the director of
the police thinks that the homicide rate will decrease in the short-term. In
addition to the contradiction, this situation has lasted for over two years
already. However, just like President Saca, the director of the police cannot
predict when will this wave of homicides end, in other words, it will last for a
long time.
Life is not worth much in El Salvador. It is less important than the
transactions of the most important businessmen. The government of ARENA is
interested in reducing the homicide rates to what can be considered as a “normal
level”, not to defend life or to take care of security, but to keep the
investments in the country and not let them get away, particularly the
investments that will come with the free trade agreement with the United States.
To create a good business environment for the business elite so that they can
make more money in peace is the main reason for the existence of the
governmental initiative. And the importance of this project is in what this can
reveal about this administration and about the business associations of the
business elite. It does not reveal much, though about how will this improve the
security levels of the country. To attract investments and to keep the existing
ones is much more important than the scandalous homicide rates. In fact, the
last governmental initiative is a Consultative Consensus of Security, integrated
by officials and by the representatives of the most important business
associations, although later on it will be open to other social sectors.
The task of this consensus is to make recommendations to the government about
homicides, gangs, and legislative reforms, and to supervise the security plans
that have been implemented. This council will work once again in groups, which
will discuss the issues that seem interesting to the new council; however, it
has not been defined yet, how far they can go. The business elite will be heard
not because they have better ideas than the experts on civilian security, but
because the Saca administration is concerned about the security of the business
companies, and because it is trying to keep the most conspicuous representatives
happy.
The officials have made a clear statement: even before this Council starts
operating the most important aspect is to reform the legislation once again to
transfer to the police (from the Attorney General’s Office) what they call “the
small crimes”, because the Attorney General’s Office allegedly does not have any
human or material resources to fulfill all of its fiscal duties. The Attorney
General indicates that darkness prevents him form gathering judicial evidences
of the crimes that have been committed, since most of them happen at night. What
he does not admit is that his institution is incapable to defend the interests
of the citizenry and the ones of the State. This is no obstacle for the
government to look for his reelection. The solution that has been found to
overcome this notorious lack of efficiency is to take away from the Attorney
General’s Office some of its duties and hand them over to the police. It seems
like a contradiction that a police overwhelmed by the growing homicide rates and
by the increasing levels of social violence is now about to undertake fiscal
duties in order to improve the social coexistence. In addition, the police has
not been trained to develop fiscal procedures, but to repress the society, as it
can be seen in the street demonstrations caused by the lack of public services.
Its sharp repressive profile does create fear, but not credibility. In the mean
time, in an area of the capital city there was a popular execution. Desperate by
the murder of a person, the relatives of the victim killed the murderers.
The new council does not have the training, the education, or the necessary
skills to create a criminal policy. This is an urgent task, but amateurs should
not be involved in this, nor citizens concerned by the homicides, even if they
belong to the most important business associations. Their ability to supervise
the security plans can be questionable, because the information handed by the
government is not adequately administrated, and without a good diagnosis there
are no good solutions. In addition, this council duplicates the prevention tasks
assigned to the National Council of Public Security; however, the government
indicates that both councils will be part of a team. But then it turns out that
the government now counts with three institutions that work with prevention,
because the National Secretary of Youth, which has been recently established, is
also developing the same task. It might be a team of three members, although
there is no doubt that the confusion predominates in the critical areas of the
ARENA administration.
This new council and its multiple discussion groups play, however, a fundamental
role in creating a new focus of attention to overlook the root of the problem
and show the image of a government that has decided to find a solution. The
Consultative Council of Security is unnecessary, because it is not the adequate
organization to create a criminal policy, and because it is evident that the
governmental plans have failed. The homicide rates are growing because crimes
are not investigated. The Attorney General’s Office as well as the police are
not trained or just do not have the will to do its job, because the circulation
of guns is out of control, and because alcohol and drugs are freely used.
Instead of a new council and new discussion groups, what is necessary is to
attack the roots of violence and this is an essential task for any government.
However, the government of ARENA seems to be equally impotent before the
uncontrollable growing prices of the petroleum derived products.
The political parties against democracy
The strength of a democracy depends, among other things, on
the quality of the political parties that compete for power. These
organizations, according to Anthony Downs, can be defined as a “team of people
that try to control the governmental apparatus through the power obtained in
some constitutionally correct elections”.
This way of understanding the parties cannot overlook the fact that, at times,
the politicians have a behavior connected with selfish ambitions. These
organizations behave at times as authentic “imperfect coalitions” where the
individual goals of its members are more important than the common objective of
power. Here we can speak about the famous axiom of selfishness of John C.
Calhoun, quoted by Downs: “The constitution of our nature, which makes us feel
with more intensity what directly affects us than what indirectly affects us
through others, necessarily leads to a conflict between individuals. Therefore,
each individual is concerned about their own security or about their own
happiness more than about the security or the happiness of the others; in case
of a conflict between both situations, it is probable that the interests of the
others could be sacrificed instead of the individual ones”.
This is a conception about the social actions based on an idea of selfishness
between the different actors. “Men constantly need the help of others, but it
would be useless to expect just the benevolence of others”. Human actions, in a
word, move by the particular concerns of a person. In this line, Downs will
deduct the motivation of the political actions of the members of the parties.
“We suppose they act with the objective to get the income, the prestige, and the
power granted by the public positions (…). Politics is for them just an
instrument to achieve their private goals, which they can only reach by being
elected”.
This perspective, perhaps not a very scrupulous one, and far from the speeches
that the politicians usually give about their objectives, is no obstacle to
speak about democracy, the internal democracy of the parties. On the contrary,
precisely because it is admitted that inside of them there is a struggle, a
matter of “life or death” to satisfy the different egos it is necessary to
improve the democracy procedures of its performance.
Just as it happens in society, where the different actors fight for power,
democracy allows to elect the administrators of a country through a
pre-established method, a reliable method. This is not about eliminating the
individual aspirations, but to shape them through an institutional organization
of the fight between the competitors. The struggle for power in a democratic
society follows these coordinates and assures a certain predictability in the
behavior of the actors.
Because of this, consolidated democracies have a legislation that specifically
refers to the behavior that is expected from the members of the parties. This is
about creating a coherent political lifestyle. The performance of the parties
administrated in the fashion of the medieval monarchies hardly combines with a
democratic society, where freedom and individual aspirations are deeply
respected.
In the Salvadoran case, those responsible for the parties have refused to make
their institutions more democratic. The logic of their work is similar to the
darkest years of the military dictatorships. Those who control the parties’
apparatuses, in spite of their pompous discourses about their involvement in the
past in the struggle for the country’s democratization and the existence of the
personal freedoms, do not mind this lack of coherence. Those responsible for
ARENA, as well as those responsible for the FMLN, the leading actors of the
political life, keep administrating these organizations with an iron fist. The
internal disputes in the parties because of the up-coming elections are an
example of their lack of democratic behavior. ARENA, as always, let go (with a
certain violent and authoritarian elegance) those who tried to question the
orders of the leaders. The most emblematic case is perhaps the one of the
congressman that represented San Salvador, Norman Quijano. He built his
political reputation over a foundation of critics against the authorities of the
City Hall of San Salvador and its most important project, the sanitary filling.
In the present conjunction, this congressman introduced himself as the next
savior of the capital city.
Logically, President Saca did not agree with the political aspirations of
Quijano. The reaction of the leaders of ARENA has been so strong that the
congressman has had to publicly announce his mistake in mentioning his
intentions to administrate the municipality of San Salvador. He does not even
know now if the directive board of the party will give him the chance to be
reelected as congressman. This is the policy of ARENA. The legitimate personal
aspirations can only be crowned if you count with the approval of those who
control the apparatus of the organization.
Some reality surrounds the FMLN; however, the difference is that the leaders of
this party are less skillful than the ones form ARENA to settle down the
behavior of the dissidents. That is why this pre-electoral conjunction seems to
be leaving the FMLN unprotected. It is reasonable to wonder if so many scandals
will not affect the results of this party in the next elections. The lack of a
reliable internal mechanism, able to predict the results and be accepted by all
of the contenders threatens the life of the organization. In this sense,
differently from ARENA, the FMLN, as an institution, takes less advantage of the
vertical attitude of its leaders. In the mean time, ARENA becomes stronger with
the authoritarian behavior of its leaders.
In the future, it will be necessary to analyze the reasons of the constant
defections in the left wing and its debacle in the presidential elections. In
the mean time, there is the issue of the lack of internal democracy as the main
hypothesis to explain the disagreements inside the left wing party. Those who
have walked away from the FMLN have clearly explained their break-up with the
leaders that control in an asphyxiating manner all of the mechanisms of the
political competition inside the party.
The leaders of the Salvadoran parties impose their presence in an authoritarian
manner. Against the logic of the existence of the different points of interest
of those who share the same aspirations of power, the dissidents are not free to
speak their minds. These are a couple of different realities here, and they are
both parallel and conflicting: on the one hand, a society that needs to reach
higher levels of democratization; and, in the other hand, a group of political
parties that live in the past, which keep becoming more vertical and excluding.
Is there any social or economic development in the country?
During the first days of July, a couple of important events
took place: the General Direction of Census and Statistics (DIGESTYC, in
Spanish) presented the statistics of the income level and the conditions in
which the Salvadorans live. There was also the visit of Agustín Carstens, the
sub-director and manager of the International Monetary Fund (FMI, in Spanish).
In reference to the results presented by the DIGESTYC, they tried to highlight
the achievements of the last administrations. The DIGESTYC underlined the
improvements in the social statistics due to the governmental policy. In the
second case, the presence of Carstens intends to demonstrate that “El Salvador
is going through a positive phase”.
For the government, the statistics of the DIGESTYC reflect the social
improvements achieved in the last 10 years. According to the results, the
poverty levels have decreased, and the income level of the families has
improved. Specifically, the information shows a reduction of 17.8% in the levels
of absolute poverty. They also revealed an increase of $200 in the nominal
income of 2004, in reference to 1991. for the DIGESTYC, the life of the
Salvadoran families has improved, since, in the last years, there are more
families that have access to education, health, electric energy, and several
electrical devices for the home. For President Saca, this situation shows that
the governmental decisions have been the right ones. And that they reveal a
reduction in the unemployment, the illiteracy, and the poverty rates.
In the same week, Carstens made an important observation by declaring that in
the country the GNP has been calculated with errors. For Carstens, the way to
calculate the economic performance comes from obsolete methods that do not
consider the transformations in the productive structure of the country in the
last years. In the words of the official, “in detail, it is an old-fashioned
method, that has not been brought to the present”. In his opinion, this method
is an obstacle to correctly record the dynamic operations of the Salvadoran
economy, and he added that “a simple observation after five years makes me think
that this dynamic performance is not reflected by the numbers”. He also stated
that in the country there has to be a higher level of institutional strength
when it comes to the financial supervision and the financial regulations. At the
same time, he approved of the governmental decision about implementing the
fiscal reform. Generally, he said that this is a positive moment for the
country.
Both of the events that have been mentioned are a way to approve the economic
decisions of the different ARENA administrations from a couple of perspectives:
in the first case, by accepting the socioeconomic statistics of the DIGESTYC.
And, in the other case, by questioning the macroeconomic indicators of the
Central Bank of Reserve (BCR, in Spanish).
The information presented by the DIGESTYC and the declarations of the official
from the FMI encourage the government to think that this is the right way to do
things. However, the reality presented by the statistics of the DIGESTYC and the
words of Carstens are far from the actual situation in which most Salvadorans
live.
Carstens indicated that the economic behavior was calculated with the wrong
method. Why? Because these indicators do not reflect reality. For him, reality
is before his eyes: El Salvador is a country that for five years has kept an
economic profile that is not reflected in the numbers of the BCR. In other
words, the low growth rate of the GNP, the slow performance of the Economic
Activity Volume (IVAE) and the low levels of investment are not true.
Because of these thoughts some people might say that the economic problems that
the Salvadorans believe they perceive are “psychological ones”, because if the
indicators of the BCR are adjusted, the results will show that the economy has
had a dramatic improvement. In addition, the people that say that with the ARENA
administrations the problems have taken a turn for the worse, and that now there
are serious problems of malnutrition and a difficult access to the basic
utilities would be completely mistaken. In a few words, the statistics of the
DIGESTYC, which show a country that is fine, have to be accepted, and it is
necessary to modify the macroeconomic indicators of the BCR, which reveal that
the performance of the economy is not efficient enough.
The information of the DIGESTYC shows a world that, if compared with the
situation of the majorities, sounds fictitious. Although it is true that the
economic reality cannot be analyzed exclusively through empirical information,
it is also necessary to see that, for a few people in the country, statistics do
make a lot of sense. And those are the people who have seen their income grow
and that now live in the lap of luxury. Those that do not find the country large
enough to do all the business they would like to do. Those that have no idea
about the world of needs that most people have to face. This is the business
elite, which can be seen in the pages of El Economista (The Economist) magazine
in La Prensa Gráfica.
They can be discovered in the words of Carstens. For him, the GNP is not dynamic
enough, because it is calculated based on a productive system anchored in the
agricultural sector. The new calculations have to be based on a productive
system anchored in the sector of services. In other words the economy was based
in an economic sector where almost 50% of the population depends on, and now it
is based on a sector controlled by the wealthiest people of the country, those
that own the banks, shopping malls; those that have investments in the
commercial areas and in the sector of the financial services.
This can be proved with a statement made this week by the president of the Banco
Agrícola (The Agricultural Bank), Rodolfo Schildknetch, who said: “it is hard
for me to accept the figures of the BCR about how the growth has been just
1.5%”. This is odd for him because now he sees more vehicles on the streets,
more business companies, and more clients inside the stores. In addition, these
numbers do not match the figures that reveal his personal situation because the
bank is surely making more money than they expected. Everything is clear, form
their world they see things from a different perspective. Why? Because he is
part of that sector where the economy grows, while the others are depressed.
To see the situation a country is going through, you do not have to exclusively
depend on the empiric information, because it can be deceiving. You do not have
to base your thoughts on the words of a person that comes from abroad that does
not know the reality of the country. You do not have to believe in the thoughts
of the owner of a bank either, because his words are based on his personal
social condition, where there are no problems regarding poverty, just luxury and
abundance. Reality has to be seen from the perspective of the majorities,
regular people, those who take the bus, those who sell their goods at a market
place, the forgotten country men. This is the only way to see a correct
dimension of the actual situation of the country.
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