The government of El Salvador and the Interamerican Development Bank (BID) are sponsoring a "Forum on Coexistence and Citizen Security on the Central American Isthmus and the Island of Española", which will take place in San Salvador, on June 2-4. The forum, financed by the government of Norway--with one hundred thousand dollars--, will be inaugurated by the president of the BID, the Ambassador of Norway and President Calderón Sol; The closing ceremonies will be presided over by the General Secretary of the Organization of American States. The BID chose El Salvador as the site of the forum because the nation is in the midst of a post-war transition period, because it exhibits a high level of social violence and because it is the only country in the region which has produced systematic studies on the topic.

These studies are the work of the UCA, which has been investigating this phenomenon for more than two years now (see ECA, 588 (October, 1997)). For this reason the UCA was invited by the Office of the Chief Economist of the BID to participate in the organization of the forum. In this atmosphere of collaboration, the UCA provided information on the context of the forum, suggested possible participants and anticipated some difficulties; specifically the resistance of the government to recognizing the existence of violence as a social phenomenon. At that point in time, the BID proposed that the director of IUDOP that he make a presentation in which he would present and discuss the results of the UCA's investigations. Those responsible for the Central American Region for the BID even visited the authorities of the university in order to present a formal request for the institutional participation of the university in the forum.

The final agenda for the event includes a great many suggestions from the UCA, but the UCA does not appear on the list of those who will make presentations because the UCA has been vetoed by the government of Calderón Sol, according to declarations by regional representatives of the BID. Given that the Salvadoran government is co-sponsoring the event, the BID had no other alternative but to accept its "recommendation" and exclude the UCA. BID representatives nevertheless asked the UCA to be present--and the government did not voice any opposition to the recommendation. Confronted with the negative response of the government, The BID asked the government to reconsider its position, given the importance of the event and the fact that representatives of agencies which "doubtless" would be disposed to support the investigations of the UCA on the theme of violence would be present.

All of this notwithstanding, the UCA decided not to participate in the international forum where the Salvadoran government would deny the UCA's the right to speak. Although the UCA is the institution which has, more than any other, studied one of the most serious problems of the country. The UCA, then, denounced the veto which calls into question the objectives of the forum, where violence will be studied and spoken of, but where they do not wish to allow the voice of the institution in the sponsoring country which has the most to say on the topic of violence to be heard. One of the most important objectives of the forum, according to the BID proposal, was to bring the Salvadoran government closer to the "academy" so that, in the formulation of government policies, the studies made of Salvadoran reality and, specifically, studies on the question of violence which are produced in the country might be taken into account. But this is not all. Backing down when confronted by the government's susceptibility, and in order to avoid new vetoes, the BID decided to focus the forum on solutions to the problematic of violence, leaving out any discussion of the level and magnitude of the violence. When the proposed solutions do not respond to reality, they are generally abstract and inefficient. By accepting the veto, the BID lends itself to the manipulation of Salvadoran reality presented by the government of Calderón Sol, which resists recognizing the gravity of violence in the country. In fact, the BID organizers had problems with the title of the forum because the Salvadoran government opposed the use of the word "violence" in the title, even though violence is the principal theme of the forum.

The Calderón Sol government does not pardon the UCA for having introduced the problem of violence into the national debate. According to Mr. Calderón Sol, the studies produced by the UCA under the auspices of the Panamerican Organization of Health and the BID itself are the product of political ratiocination. In reality, they respond to the UCA's commitment to the cultivation of Salvadoran reality--a reality which, unfortunately, is characterized at present by an elevated level of violence and by the lack of national policies to confront it. The studies, which are already published, demonstrate the complexity of the phenomenon and, as a result of the work, present, as well, possible solutions. These studies, which are presented at an eminently academic level, in the best sense of the term, could be ignored em with a stroke of the pen only by someone who has not read them; only under this circumstance could a presumed politicizing of the subject be alleged. With astounding superficiality, the current government worried only about the impact such information might have on foreign investment were El Salvador to become known as one of the countries suffering from the highest level of violence on the continent.

In fact, when the BID filtered some of the data obtained from the UCA investigations, the Salvadoran ambassador in Washington began to pressure BID representatives. When the UCA publicly presented in San Salvador the first results of its work, in which, at this point in time, El Salvador appears as the country on the continent where more violent deaths occur, the Salvadoran government became frenetic in its effort to identify the source of such information. It ordered its embassy in Washington to ask U.S. government agencies if they had provided said information. The truth is that the source was in the country itself, in its own violent reality. One simple conversation with Salvadoran functionaries would have clarified the range of the study as well as its sources.

It is paradoxical that while President Calderón Sol considers freedom of expression among one of his government's successes--about which he can surely hold forth for hours--and presents El Salvador as a country open to dialogue and understanding, he yet refuses to hear those who have something important to say about the problematic of violence scourging the country. The UCA's participation represents no danger for El Salvador or for its government. The only objective which the university seeks in carrying out and publishing these investigations is to study and learn about the complexity of a social phenomenon which carries with it serious human and economic consequences because only in this way serious solutions can be proposed. The appropriate posture when dealing with the phenomenon of violence or any other aspect of national reality is not to deny it or cover it up, but to seek explanations about what is causing it and so be able to propose real solutions.

When, half-way through last year, the polemic arose concerning the abrogation of the Law for the Privatization of ANTEL, all appeared to indicate that the expectations generated by the new configuration of political parties in the Legislative Assembly would be satisfied. The political monopoly of ARENA broken, the FMLN would begin to intervene decisively in the concerns of the plenary; and it would fall to the center, after an intelligent evaluation, to incline the balance toward the proposals most favorable for the country. In fact, the re-elaboration of the Law for the Privatization of the telephone company, in addition to testing the power acquired by the principal left political party, demonstrated that consensus-building was, for national interests, much more favorable than the corrupt and arbitrary practices of the past.

Unfortunately, the strength and determination with which the opposition seemed to assume its new quota of power in the Legislative Assembly diminished notably after the raising of hopes surrounding the phenomenon of the abrogation. Doubtless, the impeachment of the ex-President of the Central Reserve Bank (BCR), Mr. Roberto Orellana Milla, was an expression of an effort by the opposition--especially by the FMLN--to provide follow-up for its project of converting itself into a political power capable of significantly influencing national reality. The impeachment proceedings appeared, in the eyes of the opposition parties, to be a great opportunity to demonstrate that their new quota of power could be focussed on the defense of the citizen well-being of the citizenry, demonstrating, thereby, that the official party as well as the governmental structures of the executive branch, the corruption is rampant.

It was not possible, however, to extract any benefit from the controversial impeachment proceedings. Over and above placing at risk the interests of the population affected by the INSEPRO-FINSEPRO fraud, the interminable hours of questioning with the objective of determining Mr. Orellana Milla's implication in the case were wasted in a back and forth of recriminations between the parties which contributed nothing towards clarifying the point in question. So then, if the abrogation of the Law for the Privatization of ANTEL allowed one to think that the new Legislative Assembly was substantially different from the previous one, the impeachment proceedings of the ex-President of the BCR presented us with an irrefutable fact: the quantitative change in the distribution of seats did not translate into a quantitative improvement in the carrying out of functions in the plenary.

The optimism aroused by the breaking of ARENA's political hegemony was naive, as were the hopes for any beneficial results which might have arisen from the law for the privatization of the telephone company. From a first experience in which allowing for the development of a consensus had been fruitful, one cannot deduce thereby that consensus-building could serve as the norm in resolving any case of divergent opinions among the parties. The impeachment proceedings clearly revealed that the voice of the opposition now carried more weight than previously; this, however, does not signify that decisions by the opposition would always be carefully weighted and evaluated.

One should make an important distinction when considering this point: beneficial results accruing to the nation from the fact that the equilibrium of political forces in the Assembly could conceivably impede abuses and arbitrary actions; but this equilibrium, in and of itself, could scarcely pose as a guarantee of quality performance of the plenary as a whole. At first blush, the optimism with which the electoral results of the 1997 elections was received led to the idea that, once the ARENA hegemony was broken, the Legislative Assembly would begin to take giant steps toward democratization. This turned out to be an enormous and vulgar misjudgment.

Certainly, breaking with political monopolies is a fundamental step toward the establishment of democracy. In this sense, what happened in the 97 elections is positive and important. But the results of the elections can be considered to be neither an advance for the opposition parties (as was originally thought) nor were those parties able to insure that the political parties would be able to wield their new quotas of power with sufficient skill.

The fact is that the enthusiastic leap produced by the equilibrium of the new alignment of political forces to the conviction in a truly different and improved Legislative Assembly is definitely attributable to an excess of confidence on the part of the FMLN. Many believed that with 27 seats the FMLN deputies were sufficiently strong to both put ARENA in its place and save the plenary from its most characteristic vices --a belief which is tantamount to assuming that all of the problems in the Legislative Assembly arise solely because of ARENA and that the FMLN was called upon to save the Legislative Assembly.

So, then, it is fully demonstrated that ARENA hegemony was neither the sole cause for the tares among the wheat in the plenary; much less was it the case that the FMLN had had placed in its hands the remedy for all the ills of the plenary. Last year's prolonged debate around the remission of the agricultural debt, the lack of an election for an Ombudsman for the Defense of Human Rights and the stagnation on the question of approval of the World Bank loan for encouraging educational projects are only some examples which reflect that consensus, far from regulating legislative performance, continues to be a distant goal.

It would be difficult to achieve the reign of consensus in such a polarized setting as the Assembly. It is well known that ARENA is little disposed--or not at all--to discuss its positions and that, on the contrary, what it will attempt to do, to the extent that it is able, is seek allies which will allow it to carry out its own initiatives. It seems, then, that the FMLN bit off more than it could chew when it assumed the role of savior which the most enthusiastic assigned it. Very few are the original and creative contributions of the principal left party to political debate. The reduction of the Value Added Tax (IVA) is, perhaps, its only initiative. For all the rest, its efforts have been doubtful and fruitless.

After a year of this, what we have as results--over and above not being able to act successfully as prosecuting attorney against ARENA--is that the FMLN has not taken advantage of significant concatenations of events in which a more forceful leadership and well-thought-out participation might have been able to exercise a positive influence in the dynamic of the Assembly, such as in the cases of the election of the Ombudsman for the Defense of Human Rights and the decision concerning the totals which the Pension Fund Administrators (AFPs) would be allowed to charge. Aside from this, the principal opposition party has involved itself in discussions on the World Bank loan with an attitude which appears more to be aimed at establishing a forceful standoff with ARENA than at seeking a better outcome for the need to push the educational reform forward.

On the other hand, it may be supposed that the center parties were called upon to counterbalance the tension that the polarization was bound to bring--and, in fact, did bring--to the Legislative Assembly. In this sense, the number of seats won in the last elections (11), converted the National Conciliation Party into the most determinant among them. There was, as well, a certain forced optimism about this. The fact that the PCN leadership opened terrain for a group of ARENA dissidents might lead one to imagine that the PCN would stand firm in its aspirations to become a power alternative and that it could maintain a respectful distance from the official party. But although it is true that, initially, the faction of this party supported certain FMLN initiatives and showed signs of wanting to become a real opposition party, today all seems to indicate that the PCN project did not crystallize then, and that it would not crystallize in the future.

The combination of the failure of the small parties to unify and the creation of an obscure labyrinth of alliances and marriages of convenience--upon which the PDC subsists--offers little hope for the possibility of finding in the political center a viable path which might lead to the overcoming of the polarization currently obtaining in the legislative body. Definitively speaking, if we are to propose some concluding analysis regarding the Legislative Assembly's first year of work, it would be this: that the roots of the defects confronting the plenary are not owing solely to the leadership of that body provided by ARENA. These same defects have also to do with the other parties' lack of capacity to adopt and strengthen an identity truly theirs as well as the impossibility of the FMLN to assume the role for which it is responsible as a party which can seriously engage ARENA in dialogue.

The topic of rates for basic services merits special attention in the confluence of events surrounding the privatization of public enterprises. One of the arguments used to justify privatization--at least in the case of telecommunications--has been that telecommunications will thereby become more efficient in its service to public enterprises, that costs will be lowered and that privatization will allow for a reduction in rates. Nevertheless, it is true that this is not applicable in all cases because, for example, in the case of electrical energy, the situation is entirely different. In fact, even the government itself has already taken measures to mitigate the rate increases for electricity, even when this is in open contradiction to the spirit of privatization, a process which the government itself is encouraging. Initiatives for the regulation of charges for electrical energy and for suspending projects which tend to raise costs have been presented in the Legislative Assembly.

Additionally, in recent weeks cases have come to light in which we are not dealing with simple rate increases, but which extend to fraudulent procedures in the establishment of the amounts to be paid on water and electricity bills. The National Administration for Aqueducts and Sewers (ANDA) and the recently privatized electrical energy distribution enterprises have been questioned on this issue. In the case of ANDA, the General Directorate for the Protection of the Consumer (DPC) denounced the existence of irregularities in meter-readings to establish consumption for billing purposes which, according to the Director of the DPC, are a result of an organized "mafia" inside ANDA.

On the other hand, the private electrical energy distributors are having to confront questioning by the General Superintendency of Electricity and Telecommunications (SIGET) on the question of unjustified rate increases, or, more specifically, on the imperfections in the application of the new rate structure. According to the General Superintendent of Electricity and Telecommunications, Mr. Erick Casamiquela, the anomalies "could be owing to deficiencies in the computer programs or in the equipment [meters] read, but the excessive charges are a reality". According to Mr. Casamiquela the companies involved will be required to reimburse the excess charged plus interest.

Faced with this sequence of events, it is interesting to review some of the recent facts on the adjustment of basic service rates (water, electricity and telephones), especially aspects related to the increases and the subsidy policy adopted by the government.

During the whole of the government administration of Mr. Armando Calderón Sol important increases in rates for basic services have been registered, which, apparently, are not related to privatization, but actually respond to a policy of raising the profit-level and the attractiveness of public enterprises for potential investors. At least two important increases in rates can be mentioned here: the progressive adjustment in electrical energy rates between 1994 and 1996 and the adjustment in rates for telephone service in 1996. In the course of the years 1994, 1995 and 1996, charges for electrical energy were increased 30%, 25% and 17%, respectively, which totals out to a final increase close to 86%. Considering that for 1995 it is estimated that the underestimating of the electrical energy rates in relation to their marginal cost in the long run was, as a maximum, 48%, it can be affirmed that the rate adjustment for the three-year period of 1994 through 1997 practically led the rates for electrical energy to levels higher than their marginal long-range cost and the generation and distribution of electrical energy once again became a profitable business.

In accordance with the foregoing, during the year 1996, National Telecommunications Administration (ANTEL) implemented a rate adjustment with negative implications for users of this service in general. The principal dispositions were that the amount of the fixed quota was doubled, the cost per telephone minute was tripled and international rates were reduced, except for Central American and Panama. So then, the general balance inclines towards a heavy increase in rates for users.

A case in which one might scrutinize the nature of the direct relationship between increases in rates and privatization has occurred in the privatization of the electrical energy distributors, implemented during the month of January. This in spite of the fact that between 1994 and 1997 the rates were to have been raised above their cost, the same law of privatization foresaw a gradual lessening of subsidies until they would be eliminated in November of 1999. Actually, the state assigns a subsidy of 262 million colones to the small consumers of electricity. At the end of 1998, the law estimated that the kilowatt would move from a cost of 0.39 colones to 0.86 colones, which implies an increase of 120% alone during the first year.

The reactions which this disposition provoked in the Legislative Assembly--and even in the business associations--allowed for President of the Republic Armando Calderón Sol to opt for suspending the increases in the electrical energy rates and continue with a policy of subsidies for consumption, assigning an amount close to 60 million colones for this line item.

According to SIGET, there in fact exists a policy of subsidies for the consumers of basic services. In the case of electricity, a subsidy has been established for residential consumers with meter-readings below 200 kilowatt hours and another subsidy for users with a consumption less than 300 kilowatt hours. Likewise, CEL also gave a subsidy of 100 million colones to ANDA, with the objective of avoiding increases in the rates for water as a result of the increase in the rates for electrical energy service. For the moment, this measure could reduce the contradictions between consumers and businessmen, but does not represent a definitive solution to the rate problems which privatization is causing.

For its part, ANDA also practices a policy of offering considerable subsidies, which are detailed on the bills which it provides and that, in the case of residential rates, can be greater than 30%.

The aforementioned suggests that, at least in the short run, privatization does not necessarily signify relief for public finances; even less does it signify a reduction in basic services rates. Electrical energy has been a number one enterprise among basic services which have been privatized. Up until now, the perspectives envisioned concerning this service are not favorable to the interests of the consumers; nor are they favorable to the state. First of all, because this implies greater increases in the rates and, second, because the policy governing subsidies has not been eliminated nor has the pressure on public finances and the inflation which these could generate.

The government has developed an ambiguous policy for dealing with privatization. On the one hand, it supports and looks for ways to increase the rates in order to attract inverters; on the other, it proceeds to develop subsidy policies and suspend increases in electricity rates which had been planned for implementation after the sale of the electrical energy distributors. Taking all of this into consideration, it is hoped that the major owners of the basic service enterprises might be foreign inverters. Privatization appears to be a way of increasing the profits of international capital by passing on the costs in the form of higher rates to users of basic services.

Open warfare is currently being waged between La Prensa Gráfica and El Diario de Hoy in a dispute to claim the crown entitling one of them to be the most committed to "truth" and "objectivity". Although the phenomenon is not new, the confrontation between the two dailies has intensified with the crisis experienced recently by La Prensa Gráfica when its editors-in-chief decided to resign because of editorial disagreements with the newspaper's executive leadership.

What this same morning daily has gone to great lengths to call an "historic moment" in Salvadoran journalism--with obvious intent to minimize the crisis and give it a more positive coloring--those who write the editorials and columns for El Diario de Hoy did not tarry in demonstrating to the broad public of readers how evil--so as not to say decadent--the competition is. The raging against the mote in the eye of La Prensa Gráfica had a basis in reality: the newspaper which was overly proud in having hired among its staff, columnists of the creme de la creme of Salvadoran post-war intellectuals (progressive intellectual mandarins among whose proclamations, colors and personalities conciliatory discourse is diluted into colorless prose), fell victim to conflicts provoked by a conservative editorial line which limited the free exercise of journalism--and victim as well to the obvious flirtations (for some, a torrid romance) with governmental interests.

So it was, then, that La Prensa Gráfica's commitment to truth and objectivity was hoisted on the petard of its own contradictions. For weeks this pathetic and difficult to hide spectacle was the delight of anyone who had access to column inches in El Diario de Hoy so as to participate in the fray with his or her own opinions. Sports commentators raised their voice together with those who wrote on spectaculars to emphasize the straying from the path of his opponent and, simultaneously exhibit the fresh air blowing through the pages of the daily newspaper which once had been only the most visceral and retrograde defender of conservative causes.

If La Prensa Gráfica were incompetent or could not demonstrate even a minimum of interest in encouraging serious, responsible and investigative journalism, El Diario de Hoy aimed to advance with giant steps by contracting journalists who write in-depth interviews and news reports--news reports in which weak points and governmental errors are laid bare, and in which journalism attempts to take seriously its role as monitor and reassume its character as a public tribunal. Interviews were published in which the astute and profound question took the place of prefabricated and superficial questions.

In this contest, it is evident that El Diario de Hoy has taken the lead up to this point, both on its own merits as well as because of the continuous blunders of La Prensa Gráfica. Between the errors committed by that paper, two can be cited as the most serious ones. The first is to have presumed upon the support of Urban and Associates in the drawing up of a poll which demonstrated that the La Prensa Gráfica was the newspaper with the greatest number of readers on a national level, when Urban and Associates did not even participate in the poll; nor did it use standards even similar to those of the poll cited, as La Prensa Gráfica had to admit at one point.

The second error is to have begun weekly publication of a selection of topics from the North American magazine Newsweek, apparently without having obtained authorization from Newsweek, which finally obliged them to stop distribution of the selections. Perhaps for a not fully informed reader, these two events would have passed without notice, but not to the directors of El Diario de Hoy, who took it upon themselves to publish the errors, giving them, as well, considerable space on their pages.

Now then, what would be the successes achieved by El Diario de Hoy? As we have already said, the daily enjoys the merit of encouraging more frank and truthful journalism in which what is aimed at is to be aware of events from a broader perspective, in which the political interests of its directors--because there are political interests--either did not make themselves immediately apparent or they were restricted more and more to the editorial pages. There is proof of this change, for example, in the reportage on the policy of reducing cesarean births and the pointed interviews held with personalities such as Mr. Alfredo Cristiani, something which, to date, has not been observed in this country's written press.

Another point in which El Diario de Hoy aims to keep the lead is in the expansion of its publication spaces, accomplished through the inclusion of extracts from the weekly magazine Time and the launching of the editorial project Más. Concerning this, there is not much to say. In the first place, the publication of topical articles from Time on a weekly basis, per se, says more about the economic resources of the daily than about its greater or lesser credibility and professionalism. On the other hand, although Más has been launched with the objective of attracting a younger public by means of dynamic and brief news reporting (which in the long run ends up on the insipid side), still gives no indication that one might take it more seriously than for what it is: nothing more than an experiment in commercial journalism. Coming to this pint, then, one would have to ask oneself the reasons for El Diario de Hoy's journalistic about-face.

At this point in time, no one can ignore the fact that within the ranks of the right wing, conflicts and in-fighting exist which are impossible to hide from the public eye. Desertions of important personalities from the ARENA cabinet and government, heated declarations by government party members against the candidacy of Mr. Francisco Flores; bitter public interventions by Mr. Cristiani are all indications that the ARENA right-wing is divided, that there is a confrontation for power among various groups which belong or belonged to ARENA. What is equally evident is that one of these groups, who can count Mr. Orlando de Sola and Mr. Alfredo Mena Lagos among its leaders, have joined forces with the Altamirano family in their crusade against some of ARENA's public personalities and against the way ARENA is leading the government.

One would not be engaging in wild speculation were he to suppose that the new journalistic line of El Diario de Hoy responds in good measure to the crisis at the heart of ARENA. This may especially be true because the journalists' talent imported by the newspaper had been used preferentially in order to question ARENA personalities with whom the Altamirano and friends are engaged in quarrels. It is difficult to imagine a Diario de Hoy reporter buttonholing the Minister of Health in an ambience of bonhomie among the directors of the newspapers and governmental agencies.

From this supposition one might propose that the confrontation with La Prensa Gráfica would seem to respond less to a concern for commercial competition or a concern for maintaining high-quality journalism than to a certain political competition. Competition in which El Diario de Hoy has entered head first. With this, as has been the custom, the exercise of journalism is subordinated to politics; although, certainly, in a more positive manner than has been the case in the past.

That the group behind El Diario de Hoy has had recourse to the use of good journalism to attack its adversaries, substituting, in this way, specious and pamphleteering news mongering for good journalism. This may be a good thing for those who exercise the profession at that newspaper, but not for the profession itself nor for the readers. Journalism is once again resuming it role as a public tribune and as monitor of government agencies, but inasmuch as it does so for interests foreign to those which it ought to uphold, and inasmuch as it only does so in order to exercise a maliciously selective monitoring, it is flying with borrowed wings.

CANDIDACY. The FMLN has a new possible pre-candidate for the vice-presidency of the republic. It is Mrs. Violeta Menjivar, member of the current Political Commission of that party and, as such, responsible for 14 FMLN departmental directives throughout the country. Her probable candidacy is supported by party bases, and she therefore declared, on May 22, that she would accept the proposal for candidacy if the FMLN made it an official proposal, although she affirmed that it was all the same to her to refuse it so that Dr. Victoria Marina de Avilés, ex-Ombudsman for Human Rights, would suffer no obstacle to her candidacy. "Dr. de Avilés is one of the persons whom I consider to have the qualities for being part of a presidential formula, but it is the party which will evaluate which woman candidate is more appropriate for it", said Mrs. Menjivar. Moreover, she explained that the left party had decided that the presidential formula ought to include at least one woman and affirmed that the proposal for her candidacy has been well received by the people both inside and outside of the party. On the other hand, she explained that, although he FMLN has held and continues to hold talks with the group being called "The Friends of Freedom", this does no mean that it enjoys an ideological identification with the left, and she therefore discounted the possibility that a member of that group could hold him or herself out as candidate for the FMLN (La Prensa Gráfica, May 23, p. 5).

PRESIDENCY. Being at present one year away from the end of his term, the President of the Republic, Armando Calderón Sol, evaluated his administration as having been positive and highlighted as successes its "compliance with the peace accords, the struggle against impunity, strengthening of democracy, the division of powers and absolute freedom of expression". He explained that he would take as priorities, for the year that is left him in the presidency, those of finishing up a series of projects and public works infrastructures, as well as giving importance to the defense of monetary stability. Although he accepted that time would perhaps not permit him to deal with the real problems of the Salvadoran people, he said that economic policy, modernization and transformation "are going forward". On the other hand, he declared that one of the principal challenges which the new president would have to confront would be that of the National Civilian Police (PNC). "Excellency must be sought in the police force because we have improvised in that institution. We have to recycle our people and review the administrative structures". Likewise, he said that undoubtedly the government is confronting a crisis because of the resignation of his functionaries, but he affirmed that all of this is part of politics. "They are people from our party who have had to play a decisive role at leadership levels," Calderón Sol argued (La Prensa Gráfica, May 24, pp. 4-5; El Diario de Hoy, May 24, pp. 2-3).

ANTEL. The Presidential Commission for the Modernization of the State, Ms. Ana Cristina Sol, together with the President of CTE-ANTEL, Mr. Juan José Daboub, affirmed, on May 24, that the government is contemplating the possibility of selling to the public 25% of the shares owned by CTE-ANTEL. "The plans are that the government would eventual relieve itself of these shares because, the less government influence in a private institution, the better", Ms. Sol explained. She argued that the law did not permit, but neither did it prohibit, the sale of shares to the public; nevertheless, it is a decision that must be consulted with the President of the Republic and with the Legislative Assembly. Deputies for the FMLN and ARENA, for their part, declared themselves opposed to the proposal. Ms. Olga Ortiz, of ARENA, considers that the Commissioner ought to hold to the letter of the law and make a full proposal for reform to the Assembly. Ms. Ileana Rogel, of the FMLN, said that the declarations of Commissioner Sol "do not take into account the long debate...on the percentage of shares in the telephone company destined [to belong to] the state". Mr. Ronal Umaña, of the PDC, affirmed that the Law for Privatization establishes that the state could sell its shares three or four years after the purchase, at the same time as he declared that the Commission could have been understood to have said that they are going to sell to an interested group (El Diario de Hoy, May 25, p. 24 and May 26, p. 10).