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Proceso 1168
November 2 5 2005
ISSN 0259-9864
Editorial: The wrong perspective
Politics: Another vicious campaign
Economy: A net of solidarity: a program to take care of poverty?
The wrong perspective
The weak institutional performance of the country
worries the most open-minded sectors of the private business companies because
it questions the efficiency of democracy, and this could be driving the
situation to a very little democratic governmental administration. At the same
time, they see that there is a growing sense of discontent with the performance
of the present democratic governmental administration. These fears have a
foundation. The UCA and other national institutions detected the organizational
weaknesses and that feeling of discontent years ago. However, a Spanish
professional had to arrive –because in these exclusive groups of the right wing
the international academics have a better record than the national experts- to
tell them what everyone already knew. Therefore, in order to make the elite
groups conscious about the crisis and its negative consequences, these sectors
are now organizing workshops about institutional performance.
These discoveries have led them to expand their economic interests into the
field of politics, something that could have not seemed possible a few years
ago. At last they seem to realize that their economic plans cannot bring the
expected results when there is a high level of civilian, juridical, an
environmental insecurity; when the juridical system is a venal system, as well
as an inefficient institution. Therefore, they are extremely concerned about the
fact that after more than 15 years of economic reforms, the country has not been
growing as expected, that the unemployment level has kept increasing, and that
the social welfare is now a goal that remains far away after all this time.
They are also concerned about the fact that even after more than a decade of
democracy, the institutional performance that should strengthen their principles
and theories, instead of becoming more of a solid feature, it tends to grow
weaker. A weakness that, ironically, is evident when the tables turn. Now it
seems as if those in fear are not the delinquents, in spite of the constant
procedures that keep making the legislation more and more severe, but those that
the government of ARENA has not been able to make feel secure. Or in the small
degree of capacity that the branches of the Executive Authority have to invest
the annual allocations of the national budget. Or in the increasing number of
Salvadorans that are looking for ways to leave the country, that is, half of the
population, at the time being.
The level of consciousness about this problem is a step forward the right
direction; however, these influential sectors in the government of ARENA do not
dare yet to publicly confront the government for those decisions that keep
intensifying the weaknesses of the country, such as the reelection of the
Attorney General and the president of the Comptrollers Office. The present
Attorney General has not demonstrated that he does not depend of the ARENA
government, he has not been efficient enough when it comes to accuse the people
in court, and he does not lead the investigations with efficiency. In fact, in
many cases, he does not even make a formal accusation because he is just not
qualified to do so. Such an incompetent public official would have never been
reelected in a decent democracy. He would have never been elected in the first
place. The president of the Comptrollers Office is not independent of the
government of ARENA either, the perimeter of control of this office is very
limited. Its investigations and its accusations obey to political motivations
and not to a criterion of probity. In the many years that this official has been
leading this institution, this office has not been able to reduce the high
levels of corruption in the governments of ARENA. In the same line, there is the
decision of the Supreme Court of Justice about annulling the autonomy of this
branch, which is responsible for investigating the probity of the public
officials that occupy the most important positions.
This sort of decisions is not a simple mistake of the government of ARENA, which
ultimately has a political control over them; this is not about ignoring what
kind of public officials are placed at the head of these public institutions.
These are conscious decisions, therefore, they are undertaken with a full amount
of responsibility. This means that the weakness of a State that becomes an
obstacle for an honorable and an efficient government is not due to a lack of
political will, in reference to ARENA and its allies from other political
parties. On the contrary this is the kind of decisions that they have been
looking for. And this is what the intellectuals of the most important business
companies seem to evade in their analysis. Not even the expert that they brought
dares to dig deep into the core of the power, and chooses to present the
institutional weaknesses as a phenomenon without roots and without a historical
background. To go beyond appearances is not complicated in this case. They can
start by asking what sectors receive more benefits through that weakness. It is
not hard either to come up with an answer. The elite of Capitalists has taken
over the State and have put it at their feet. And this factor is so evident that
the businessmen themselves talk about the fact that the State has been
“kidnapped” by the wealthiest people. And the wealthiest people do not find it
convenient when the judicial system actually works, or when the performance of
the public officials is controlled by independent organizations, because then
these investigations would reveal the illegal actions that allow them to
accumulate an enormous amount of profits.
The last step in this direction, which seems to indicate that ARENA will remain
inside the government, is the centralization of the decisions made by the
Supreme Electoral Tribunal in the parties of the right wing, their unconditional
allies. Some improvised reforms in the electoral legislation have turned ARENA
into the absolute arbiter of the elections. It is normal that by finding itself
at a disadvantageous position, the FMLN raises its voice to protest. However, it
does not have any political or any ethical legitimacy to do that because when it
detects that is own hegemony might be threatened, as in the case of the creation
of a third option to the two most important political parties, it becomes the
ally, without hesitating at all, of its adversaries in ARENA and the right-wing.
The intellectuals of the right wing that have democratic concerns, probably
genuine concerns, do not dare to face the wealthiest members of the business
elite or even ARENA. Instead, they rather hire an expert that would only give
them abstract observations. None of those that seem to be concerned about the
institutional weaknesses will have enough courage to raise the voice in the next
annual meeting of the elite business companies and the government of ARENA. This
meeting that they speak so highly about, should become the ideal space to openly
discuss this kind of concerns. However, in the end, neither ARENA nor the
wealthiest people in the country are interested in a government with a strong
and a healthy institutional performance. This attitude and the fear of those
that have legitimate doubts make the opinions of the right-wing thinkers go
nowhere. Neither the observations about the step backwards in the human
development matters, nor the projections about the desirable economic growth
make them react. In just a few words, a democratic institutional performance has
no future, at least while the real power is in the hands of the wealthiest
people. In these circumstances, any project aimed to strengthen a sense of
institutional performance is doomed to fail. The strengthening of the Salvadoran
government will definitively have to deal with stop fearing both the economic
and the political power, and with the fear to liberate the State from the
“kidnappers” of wealth.
Another vicious campaign
If the Salvadoran citizenry would look for a lesson in
civic education in the electoral campaigns, it would be necessary to recommend
another strategy. Between the electoral campaigns of the Eighties and the ones
of the present, several things have changed. At least the candidates do not
appear on television about to hit each other. However, the sense of political
opportunism remains the same, even if some faces have changed.
One of the most typical tricks is to begin with the campaign before the Supreme
Electoral Tribunal (TSE, in Spanish) announces the official inauguration. This
is because the political parties think that whoever glues the posters on the
walls of the city first will have twice as much propaganda on the streets. The
president of ARENA already began to do its own thing. The party has filled the
streets of San Salvador –a bastion of the left wing for a long time, for the
right-wing to grieve about it- with pictures of its candidate and the flags of
the party. On the other hand, the City Hall of San Salvador has been taking off
the walls that kind of propaganda, which, according to the spokespeople of
ARENA, is not propaganda because in the materials there are no crosses that
might indicate the people to vote for them. Are these subtle factors that
neither the electorate nor the opposition understand, or is it simply that they
want to insult the intelligence of the citizenry?
Another sample of how the campaign took off ahead of time took place during the
week of the floods. Some of the official candidates visited the affected
communities, wearing the vests of their political party. On the other hand, the
municipalities administrated by the left-wing did not get any help from the
central government, and this was probably a strategy to make the people
understand what happens when you do not vote for ARENA.
What seems to be alarming is that the TSE has not stopped the anticipated
campaign of ARENA. The institution in charge of guaranteeing the transparency of
the elections has many obstacles to accomplish its mission, because it is not
independent from the political parties. Its magistrates belong to the parties
that obtain more votes during the elections. Therefore, it is not reasonable to
expect that they act against their own interests. The only precedent that is
worth to mention (which was the sentence dictated against the citizen Rafael
Menjivar, for slandering against the name of the congressmen of the FMLN,
Schafick Handal, and lending his name for paid advertising during the
presidential campaign in2003) is diluting itself in a game of appeals.
The TSE is going through the same thing as the Comptrollers Office. They are
institutions that, because of the work that they do, should work as instruments
able to report to the citizenry what is going on: in case of the Court, about
the administration of the public money; in the case of the TSE, about the
transparency of the election process. However, they are part of the plunder that
the political parties share.
Defamations
On Monday, October 31st, the mayor of Apopa, Luz Estrella Rodriguez, from the
FMLN, went to court to report an activist of ARENA for writing a piece of
propaganda against her in a flyer. The flyer, which includes a cartoon drawn by
Moises Torres, from ARENA, accuses Rodriguez in an anonymous way for illicitly
taking away the funds of the municipality.
Throughout history, cartoons have been instruments of social criticism in
different parts of the country. With the cartoons they have tried to unmask
unfair situations, and they have tried to unveil the ineptitude of the powerful
ones. It has also been used in many occasions to talk about the unspeakable. In
the most important newspapers of the world, cartoons are used as editorial
notes. As for the flyer drawn by Moises Torres, cartoons have been used for
slandering purposes, since many accusations are revealed without anyone signing
the note. This is just a satire at the service of power.
To accuse Torres of corruption is perfectly acceptable because his actions
follow the pattern of a defamation. Someone throws anonymous accusations (not
quite anonymous since everyone knows the responsible ones) without any evidence
at all. Four individuals gave the flyers away in Apopa. This time they did not
identify themselves with the flags of the party, but they were in the middle of
a campaign.
The opinion polls
The public opinion polls play an important role in the electoral campaigns. This
week, the most important morning papers have published the results of their
respective opinion polls according to which President Saca and his party count
with the approval of most of the population. They reveal, for instance, that
according to the opinion polls, the “population believes that the country is
following the right direction”.
These opinion polls highlight the personal characteristics of President Saca,
who has been evaluated as the best president in 16 years of ARENA
administrations. It is true that, before the presence of a Francisco Flores with
an evident authoritarian attitude, Saca stands out because he is an accessible
person. However -and perhaps this is what the victorious interpretations of the
opinion polls do not pay attention to-, this is not about the personal virtues
of the public officials, but about the national project that they represent. It
does not matter if Saca projects an image of a president who is “close to the
people”, as the official slogan indicates, and it does not matter if Handal
remains as an unpopular character, the truth is that the economy is still the
heel of Achilles of the ARENA administrations.
A different thing is also to say that the President counts with a 60% of
approval, when no one specifically indicates how they got these results: adding
up 21% of those interviewed that indicated that this governmental administration
is doing “very good” and 39% who thought that it is doing “sort of good”.
Between “very good” and “sort of good” there is a very clear difference. It
would be necessary to see if this “sort of good” would not be equivalent to a
“regular” (which is what 17% of those interviewed responded).
In the same edition in which El Diario de Hoy published the results of the
opinion poll conducted by the firm CID-Gallup, the paper indicated that the
population thinks that El Salvador is going on the right direction, while the
National Association of the Private Business Companies (ANEP) indicated
something else: “El Salvador has to stop and make an effort to grow by rates of
5% every year in order to improve the country’s human development index” (El
Diario de Hoy, November 1st of 2005, page 25). According to this business
association, “to achieve this, it is necessary to improve the sanitation level,
to rescue the neighborhoods of San Salvador, to improve the connection between
the municipalities and the electric energy service”. In other words, this means
to increase the investment level made on the social development. The president
of the ANEP, Federico Colorado, considers that the country already counts with
the necessary resources to increase its human development level: “this is just
about having some political will, about understanding what this is, and about
joining efforts in order that these goals can be reached”. What the country
lacks is political will. And the campaigns do not discuss these problems in a
rigorous manner. The campaigns are not actually platforms to look for political
consensus to favor the society. Therefore, it is very probable that these
objectives sleep away the dream of the fair ones during the next months.
Strengthening the monopoly of ARENA
The reforms to the internal performance of the TSE strengthen the tendency to
monopolize this institution in favor of ARENA. These reforms allow to make
decisions through a process of simple majority, therefore, the votes of ARENA
and the PCN will be enough, in the electoral meetings as well as between the
magistrates to incline the balance in favor of the official interests and the
people connected with them.
On the other hand, some people are very interested in ending another potential
danger for the interests of ARENA. And this is because new projects are emerging
from the FMLN. During the last elections, the United Democratic Center (CDU) did
not get the necessary amount of votes required to remain active as a political
party. Neither the Democratic Christian Party (PDC) nor the National
Conciliation Party (PCN) managed to get the minimum amount of votes. However,
the PCN “resurrected” thanks to the good services rendered to ARENA. The shreds
of the PDC still move among the political environment of opportunism that has
become the party’s trademark. In the case of the CDU, this one presented itself
as an alternative to get the votes of those sectors of the left-wing that did
not sympathized with the FMLN.
By just doing a simple analysis, many affirm that the arrival of new parties of
the left-wing would only bring benefits for ARENA, since there would be less
votes for the FMLN. However, in a democratic society it is impossible to have
just one alternative of the left-wing, since the Salvadoran left wing is far
from being something homogenous. Not even the FMLN itself has been a party with
internal unity. To count with an array of options of the left wing could be
helpful to get the attention of those sectors that refuse to vote. Of course, it
would be necessary to count with an electoral coalition in which the different
sectors of the left wing are able to gather, and this would perhaps revive the
spirit in which the Revolutionary Democratic Front (FDR) emerged during the
Eighties. This was a group of social-democrat political parties,
social-Christian parties and close to the Communist Party, along with unions,
universities and popular organizations.
With something similar, ARENA would tremble during the elections. But ARENA
knows that the Salvadoran left-wing is extremely divided. The concern of the
left-wing is to prevent that a party also called FDR participates in the next
elections. The FMLN does not see beyond the old conflicts with the leaders of
the new party. To allow that new lines come along either from the right wing or
from the left wing is a way to weaken parties such as the PCN, parties with
leaders that know that they are no longer a political option, and that their
only task is to offer their votes in the congress for whoever holds the power.
Nevertheless, the FMLN keeps thinking that those who walk away from the party’s
ranks are nothing but traitors.
In this context, the municipal and the legislative elections of next year can
only announce a campaign that will bring out the worse of the national politics.
In other words, it will be another wasted opportunity to use the democratic
procedures to change the things in the country.
A net of solidarity: a program to take care of poverty?
Last week, the government implemented a program called
Solidarity Net. President Saca, along with the coordinator of the social area of
its cabinet, Cecilia Gallardo de Cano, visited the municipality of Torola, in
Morazan in order to make the first transference in cash to the families that
live in extreme poverty. With this transference, the government expects that the
mothers that are the heads of their home fulfill the following duties: send
their children to school, in order to increase the education level; make sure
they get medical assistance, to improve their health; and to attend to
presentations about nutrition in the health units or in the hospitals.
In Torola, the total amount involved in the transferences was $15,420 dollars.
This amount was divided between 465 families in envelopes that contained between
$30 and $40 dollars in cash. These transferences will take place every two
months for a period of three years, and the condition to receive this money is
that the families do fulfill the requirements established by the government.
In 2005, the government expects to bring these transferences to 15 counties,
they have one million dollar available to do this. For 2006 they expect to
implement the Solidarity Net in other 17 municipalities. Between 2005 and 2006,
they would be delivering the transferences in 32 of the poorest counties of the
country. Between 2007 and 2009, they will take care of the 68 remaining counties
that are in a better economic situation. When the Solidarity Net comes to an
end, the government expects to have fulfilled the needs of 100,000 families
(800,000 people) in 100 of the poorest municipalities of the country. The amount
of money available for this program is $13 million.
What is the Solidarity Net?
The Solidarity Net intends to improve the quality level of the lives of the
families that live in extreme poverty. Cecilia Gallardo de Cano indicated in “Encuentros”,
of El Faro, that the Solidarity Net “does intend to fight against poverty, this
is a program to pay attention to the problem of poverty”. In this sense, the
Solidarity Net has to be understood as a governmental effort to improve some of
the social indicators, and therefore this does not necessarily mean that poverty
will come to an end.
The document called “Social Assistance Program for the Families in Extreme
Poverty of El Salvador: Solidarity Net”, clearly describes the governmental
vision: “the efforts that have been made during the last 15 years in terms of
the fight against poverty have revealed positive results; however, there are
many other challenges that we have to face; even if the poverty index has
considerably decreased, there is still a gap in the rural area”. In other words,
the government considers that the economic model implemented in the early
Nineties has been effective in the fight against poverty, but, that due to the
fact that the rural areas are still poor, they decided to create the program
called Solidarity Net.
The document indicates that if the fight against poverty has not been effective
enough in the last years it is because of a couple of fundamental reasons: a
slower economic growth that can be translated into an increase of 0.76% of the
GNP per capita between 1996 and 2003, and the small amount of achievements in an
improved distribution of the income.
In this context, no one should understand this governmental program as an
acknowledgement to the inefficiency of the economic model against the
eradication of poverty. On the contrary, from the governmental perspective, the
model has been effective, and the creation of the Solidarity Net has to do with
giving a specific type of assistance to the families that live in the rural
areas. The document does not discuss the structural roots of poverty in the
country, and even if it mentions the problem of the low economic growth and the
lack of actions for a better distribution of the income, it does not analyze
these two aspects of the national reality.
An alternative vision of the Solidarity Net
The Solidarity Net is a program that intends to legitimize the Neo-Liberal
economic model. Why? Because from that perspective, the development and the
progress of a society –which means that poverty has to disappear- can be
effectively achieved through the performance of the free market. The Solidarity
Net is a governmental effort to include the less fortunate in the processes of
the market. How? By increasing the health, the education, and the nutrition
levels, because, with this, a new force would be created with better
opportunities to become part of the market of jobs.
This conception covers up the fact that one of the fundamental reasons why the
issue of poverty is still in discussion is because they want to keep talking
about the allocation of resources through the “free market”. The conception of a
“free market” is based on the perfect sense of competitiveness, but we do not
have that here. Efficient markets do not appear in the less developed countries,
where the transaction costs are just too high. This is how they are covering up
the fact that the economic model itself is creating poverty and an unequal
distribution of the income in the country.
The same document indicates that the problems of a slow economic growth and the
lack of actions for a better distribution of the income are elements that
prevent the country from efficiently fighting against poverty. However, the
government does not question the reasons why the economy does not grow, or why
the income is concentrated in the same sectors. The answer to these questions
have to do with accepting that the problem of poverty is connected with the
economic model, and that only by transforming that model is that the economic
situation can be improved. Not just the situation of the poorest families, but
the situation of the country, as a whole. It also has to do with realizing that
the economic model has worked in favor of just a few; that the structure of the
model tends to marginalize a considerable amount of groups of the society.
Perhaps the best example is the taxation structure of the country: it is
fundamentally based on indirect taxes and this negatively affects the people
with the lowest incomes. It is also based on the indirect taxes –which come from
profits, among other sources-, but these ones just play a secondary role.
The intention is not to criticize this initiative of the government to improve
the socioeconomic conditions of the poorest families of the country, but to say
that a partial analysis of the problem can lead us to efforts that will not
resolve the structural problem of poverty. It is all right to increase the
health, the education, and the nutritional level of the less fortunate, but,
beyond that, it is necessary to admit that the economic model has to be
transformed.
It is interesting to consider, for example, an important amount of young people
that have all of the characteristics that the Solidarity Net promotes among the
beneficiaries of this program: higher levels of education, health, nutrition,
the access to potable water, to electric energy, to the Internet, among other
aspects. There are thousands of young graduates from the universities that do
not find a job and decide to go to the United States. They have all of the
resources and all of the characteristics promoted by the Solidarity Net, but
that is not very important in a country where the economic model does not allow
everyone to improve their life standards. The government has to reconsider the
problem of poverty. It has to admit that the impoverishment of the population
has to do with the economic model.
Tel: +503-210-6600 ext. 407, Fax: +503-210-6655 |