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Proceso 1185
March 15, 2006
ISSN 0259-9864
Editorial: Modest results
Politics: Preliminary results of the elections for mayor's offices and deputies
Politics: Three days of uncertainty
Modest results
After a great expense of energy and resources, neither of both major parties got what they expected for the last elections, besides now, each one in its way, are making an effort to show its best face to cover these modest results. This does not mean that they had considerable losses, but the winnings make everyone unsatisfied. Preliminary data point to a very equal vote for both. From this scope, both got the same amount of votes, so claiming to be the first political force in the country is an imprecision of both, whose aim is not to defraud their militants.
In a first approach, both would have a similar number of deputies, around
thirty-three, besides it is probable that ARENA has two or three more than the
FMLN. In a closer approach, the FMLN would have one more than 2003; but ARENA
would have six or seven more. This party would have more deputies than the FMLN,
but other thing is that this party would recover the deputies it lost during
this legislature, due to its internal divisions. From this scope, ARENA would
have advanced more than the FMLN. Nevertheless, none has the simple majority in
the Assembly. To achieve it, they will have to deal with the Partido de
Conciliación Nacional PCN). Therefore, none of them, on its own, will be able to
make its parliamentary agenda successful. Perhaps for this reason, both are
talking about dialogue and concertation, but they maintain that its rival
refuses this. This attitude does not augur anything but a legislative stalemate
and more polarization. In a qualified vote, the FMLN would have an advantage,
which it currently lacks of. Its votes will be necessary to achieve this
majority. This advantage is not given by a meaningful vote increase, but to the
new legislature configuration. The increase of ARENA at the expense of the small
parties, played down their current prominence. Every year, there is a group of
elections that require the FMLN's votes and this gave the left wing party a
relatively important power to struggle for some of their proposals. The question
is how will they use that power, which is related with the attitude adopted by
ARENA. Without their votes, the FMLN won't be able to get a qualified vote,
either.
Besides almost al the municipalities in the big San Salvador belong to the FMLN,
the election in the capital is not defined yet and it will be defined by a few
votes. It is understandable that in this context, dominated by the FMLN, this
party is entangled in a closed competition with ARENA for the mayor's office of
San Salvador. Claiming that this is a heroic position for the disadvantages or
irregularities of the rivals is diverting attention from the core of the
problem. Until now, the FMLN's triumph in San Salvador was so easy. On the last
day of February, it had a small advantage over ARENA, which lost the election.
Nevertheless, ARENA and the FMLN proclaimed their triumph in advance and
irresponsibly, because none of them had fundaments for it. When proclaiming
themselves winners, they opened the door so the loser can cry fraud. The
intervention of the president of the Republic in this risky ARENA's proclamation
is a major irresponsibility, because his opinion is not the average citizen's
and because him, more than anyone else, has the duty of preserving the
institutionality in the country. The Supreme Electoral Tribunal had to intervene
in a vane attempt to put an end to these risky proclamations.
The typical superficial discourse on the importance of the citizens' vote as a
democratic exercise, which is a part of the electoral ritual, is hiding
irregularities. From all the elections celebrated since 1992, this one had the
most severe organizational problems and was the election in which the electoral
law was violated with impunity. For the first time, the voting centers were
opened with delay due to logistic problems, the security ink did not work and
even caused injuries, many people had difficulties with the electoral registry,
there was no signs, the crew was not qualified, etc. The three major parties
violated electoral law and the electoral authorities did not prevent it, neither
punished the culprits. Both ARENA and the FMLN made propaganda in the voting
centers, lead votes, bought votes, took the ballots to the inhabitants of the
towns in the other side of the Salvadoran border and displaced population from
nearby municipalities so they vote in other towns, confused the identification
documents, faked identification documents and exerted violence on the citizenry.
It is true that these facts did not influence on the results in a determinant
way, but they made evident the institutional weakness in El Salvador.
Irregularities and illegalities were not isolated actions anymore as in the last
elections, but systematic actions.
As in other fields of national life, none of the electoral authorities prevented
these violations neither punished the culprits. They even not try to. Even more,
they excused the violations and attributed them to political passion. The truth
is that they did not intervene because they lack of authority in doing so. All
the electoral officers, formally sworn as authorities to guarantee the process'
legitimacy, played at the same time the incompatible role of party
representatives. Therefore, if the culprit belongs to the party, the officer is
unaware of the action; but if he belongs to the main adversary, then his
protests are as angry as useless.
Faced with these preliminary results, the time that both the parties and the
ARENA's government devoted to campaign, the propagandistic bombing, the constant
public interventions of their candidates and the direct intervention of
president Saca did not show the expected results. On the contrary, abstention
has been too elevated for the effort made. It is true that abstention is common
in democracies, gut, until the last minute both ARENA and the political parties
talked about a massive vote, of a great enthusiasm and of a great interest in
the election. If one adds to this that most of the electors decided their vote
before the campaign began, the effort and the resource waste are nonsense.
Preliminary results of the elections for mayor's offices and deputies
The March 12 election left a new power distribution in municipalities. In the same way, the election established a new power configuration inside the Legislative Assembly. In general terms, both ARENA and the FMLN are the main winners. Both of them won most of the mayor's offices and deputies in the country. Old parties, as PCN and PDC, still have an important presence in the country, on spite of the political polarization in the country. In the other side there is the CD, that won a minimal quantity of mayor's offices and deputies.
According with the preliminary scrutiny of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE),
and to the data of the media, ARENA won most of the municipalities: 145. Behind
them is the FMLN, which won sixty municipalities. Under them there would be PCN,
PDC and CD, with 39, 14 and 3 mayor's offices. In first place, it is important
to emphasize that these results are subject to changes, because in many
municipalities there is a minimal percentile difference of votes among the main
parties. There are municipalities where the difference oscillates between the 1
and 3%. In second place, the percentile differences are not definitive, because
in the preliminary scrutiny process, the TSE did not process all the
municipalities' acts. In the municipalities with a minimal percentile
difference, it will be necessary to wait for the results in the final scrutiny
in order to ratify or change the results in the preliminary scrutiny.
In this election, the ruling party got better results than in 2003. In the last
election, ARENA won 111 municipalities. Now it would won 34 more, which equals
145 municipalities. The largest number of municipalities comes from Chalatenango
and Morazán, where the ruling party would won more than 15 municipalities. On
spite the considerable increase in the number of municipalities, ARENA resents
not to "recover", once more, the mayor's office in the capital city. This will
diminish in a considerable extent the triumph of the ruling party, for the
capital was the base of its electoral campaign.
Based on the preliminary results, the FMLN won 20 municipalities. Two of them
were won in coalition. In 2003, the left wing party won 62 municipalities on its
own, and won other 12 in coalition, which equaled 74 municipalities. Analyzing
the results including coalitions, the FMLN would lose 14 municipalities,
compared to 2003. However, if coalitions are excluded, the FMLN loses only four
municipalities. This loss may be linked with the dismissal of some emblematic
mayors, who decided to participate under other party's flag, as a result of
their differences with the party leadership. Many of the mayors who did this
political maneuver will keep their charges in their municipalities.
The results for PCN are not favorable, on spite that they keep the control many
municipalities around the country. For this election, the right wing party won
39 municipalities. In the past election, they won 53. In La Unión, PCN won nine
municipalities. This is the place where that party won more municipalities.
According with the members of PCN, many of the losses in this election are due
to the political polarization in the country. This would be the result of the
radicalization of the rightist voters, who would vote for ARENA instead of PCN.
The loss would be compensated with the triumph in the municipality of San
Miguel, the most important in the Eastern zone of the country.
PDC did not have substantial changes in the number of the municipalities they
won in 2003. In that chance, the party seized the control of 14 municipalities
on its own. This means that competing on its own, the number of municipalities
remain the same. CD won in this election only three municipalities. In the
election of 2003, it won four. In general terms, amongst the small parties, PDC
and CD have practically the same results, while PCN diminished in a larger
extent compared with the last municipal elections. It is important to mention
that CD won a municipality because of its coalition with FDR party, whose
members were part of the FMLN in the past. That one seems to be the only mayor's
office won by the CD and FDR coalition.
Last election also changed the force correlation inside the Legislative
Assembly. According with TSE's preliminary data, ARENA and FMLN remain being the
first political forces in the country. Both parties increased their deputies.
PDC won one more deputy. In general terms, the election's results provoked a
change in the distribution of power in the Assembly, which benefited the main
parties.
ARENA shows the biggest increase in the number of deputies. The ruling party
would get seven more deputies than in 2003. In the last election, it won 27
deputies and in this election, it would get 34 deputies. In this election, the
FMLN won 32 deputies, one more than 2003. In other words, in terms of seats in
the Assembly, the ruling party is successful in two senses: in first place, it
increased its deputies more than any other party. In the other hand, such
increase was enough to have more deputies in the Assembly, including those of
its rival, the FMLN. This does not mean that "political play" in the assembly
will be easy for the ruling party. In fact, for many specialists in politics,
the conformation of the new assembly will force the main parties to establish
new consensus and this is a weakness for the ruling party.
PCN and CD diminished three and five deputies in turn. For the right wing party,
this was due to the political polarization in the country. In this sense, it is
probable that the traditional vote for the PCN moved in favor of ARENA during
this election. CD won two deputies and the coalition with the FDR was almost
useless. In this way, the thesis that maintains that the former FMLN's members
who move to other parties always lose the elections for the Assembly is
confirmed.
Finally, the PDC won five deputies, one more than 2003. It seems that this party
was not affected by the political polarization, because it kept constant the
numbers of deputies and municipalities since 2003.
Three days of uncertainty
The time passed between the official closing of elections, after 5 p.m. of March 12, and the official declarations of the municipal results in the capital, deserves a serious analysis. At the end of Wednesday 15, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) did not proclaim the winner of the municipal election in San Salvador. This prolonged the uncertainty of the electors, particularly of those who voted for the FMLN's candidate, Violeta Menjívar, who gathered in some zones of the city to demonstrate against the delay.
The rest of results were more or less clear: an impacting triumph of the ARENA
party in the municipalities and the legislature, by the increase of their seats
in the assembly, compared to the current legislature. In the other hand, a
squalid triumph of the FMLN in some of the symbolic municipalities of the
country, most of all, in the metropolitan area of San Salvador, were ARENA only
retained the mayor's office in Antiguo Cuscatlán. The main opposition party also
won a considerable presence in the Assembly, enough to force the ruling party to
negotiate. Even though, the FMLN lost many mayors' offices and was far off
winning 43 deputies, which was its self-imposed aim. Anyway, there are some
aspects to reflect during those hours of uncertainty.
The role of TSE
One of the most questioned institutions is TSE, due to the delay in announcing
the results of the election and to the discretion in which their magistrates
managed the electoral process. If one pays attention to the antecedents, these
are very negative. The case is that the TSE has won harsh critics due to the
excessive influence of the parties on it, which have affected its objectivity
and impartiality until this day. It is clear that the performance of this
institution favored partisan criteria. And this was reflected during the
mentioned period of time.
Since the time that ballots were closed for the citizenry, the magistrates of
TSE did not respect the times set by them. The most alarming case was the
municipal results in San Salvador, which have been postponed intentionally,
under the argument that the voting was very close. However, since March 13, the
trends favored the FMLN's candidate. The left wing party and many social sectors
interpreted the delay of TSE as a pretext to hide the triumph of the FMLN. Or
worse of all, as an attempt to perpetrate a possible illegal triumph of the
candidate of ARENA, taking into account that this party would hardly accept its
defeat.
The delay would provoke a harsh reaction from Menjívar's supporters, who
gathered outside the place in which the magistrates were recounting votes
manually. The events during the protest are confused: some police agents
deployed in order to avoid the entrance of the demonstrators injured seven
persons at least. Most of media said that the demonstrators provoked and
attacked the policemen; other media maintained the opposite version. The point
is that seven persons were injured in a situation provoked by the inefficiency
of the TSE.
The role of parties
The same day of elections, the two main parties celebrated their respective
triumphs. Also PDC and PCN, but in a smaller extent. CD was making estimations
in order not to disappear and PNL was dying with a scarce popular support. In
the case of San Salvador, both the ARENA's candidate, Rodrigo Samayoa and the
FMLN's, Violeta Menjívar, celebrated with their crews. Their estimations made
them feel successful, but what is true is that the trends favor Menjívar.
If ARENA loses in San Salvador, that would be hard for all the party and
governmental apparatus, because Samayoa was backed by the media and financial
power. The president of the country himself made his presidential post in order
to lead the campaign for Samayoa. The only thing remaining was the fire test in
the ballots and it seems that it failed.
In the other hand, Menjívar ran a more modest campaign, focusing in debating the
problems of the capital with the other candidates, with the exception of ARENA.
In this sense, the candidate of the FMLN revealed more stature and personality,
contrasting with the absence of her ARENA party rival, who did not show himself
in the debates organized by TV and radio networks. The ARENA's candidate wanted
to repeat Saca's pedantry, refusing to debate with his rivals, but it only
evidenced, at least, his lack of political personality.
Inside ARENA, its president developed a role that raised many doubts in his
democratic vocation. He himself raised Samayoa's hands to declare him winner,
when trends were denying it. Saca would have to explain to the citizenry why he
played that kind of role, not only in that moment, but also during the campaign.
Saca, as none of the presidents have done in the past, exposed his figure to win
an almost absolute power for his party, but the triumph of ARENA is turning
ridiculous if compared with the arsenal he used. The case is that ARENA and its
president maneuvered to gain more support than they got.
The role of media
It can be said that the media filled the void left by TSE. Many of the media
kept aware of the end of the elections and the recounting process. Many radio
and TV programs revealed the scarce data given by TSE. In TV, the anchormen and
women invited analysts who exposed their interpretations on the facts. In
written media, there was also a large coverage of the process, but it was less
critical than radio and TV, which evidenced a critical approach on the
institutions that participated in the process.
The citizenry had enough information to form itself an idea of the distribution
of power after knowing the electoral results, but the problem appeared in San
Salvador, where TSE has kept the results secret. Even though, the media had a
fundamental role, as information and formation tools.
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