The post-electoral crisis in the FMLN

An economic state of affairs which is cause for concern

After the summit meeting...

News Briefs

THE POST-ELECTORAL CRISIS IN THE FMLN 

The FMLN failed in the recent presidential elections and that fact will cause repercussions inside the party. Facundo Guardado’s resignation as Coordinator of the FMLN was the immediate result of the "calling in of accounts" which would, unfailingly, be generated in the FMLN once the electoral defeat began to be assimilated. If Guardado’s resignation were an expression of the process of organizational and doctrinal change in the FMLN there would be nothing left to do but to congratulate the FMLN leadership because its political survival as the principal opposition party hangs in the balance precisely on the question of its internal renovation. But all seems to indicate that this is not what it is about. Rather it appears to be a recapturing of the party apparatus by those who had been consigned to oblivion when Guardado took over the coordination of that party.

Guardado’s rivals, with quite a measure of success, have assigned themselves the task of making sure that the failure of the elections falls upon Guardado’s shoulders. From this perspective —which is shared by one and another FMLN militant—, it was not the FMLN which lost to ARENA but Facundo Guardado, whose personal lack of capacity was what led the FMLN to the electoral debacle. And so things go: he had to pay the consequences of his defeat —that is to say, he had to suffer the accusations of some leaders and rank and file militants who felt themselves to have been "betrayed" by someone who, according to their version of things, established himself as their representative without really being one. The FMLN —so goes the corollary of the perspective under discussion— had everything to gain, but Guardado threw it all away; other members of the FMLN, who are more firm in their revolutionary principles, would have guaranteed an electoral triumph.

Obviously, things are not so simple as those who would like to blame Facundo Guardado would like them to be. Before anything else, it is not true that it was he who lost and not the FMLN. It must be said, without any further preamble: the FMLN lost the elections because the nomination of Facundo Guardado, with all of the conflicts around it which muddied the water, was an expression of what the FMLN is and what this party could offer society. To make Guardado the only one responsible for the electoral defeat is to see him as someone who came in from outside the party and who, on his own account and at his own risk, joined the competition for the presidency. But Guardado did not come from outside the party; he arose from the very heart of the party and, in his nomination —in the way in which Guardado ended up being the FMLN candidate— played an important role as much for those who supported it (i.e., the "revisionists") as he did for those who openly opposed his nomination (i.e., the "orthodox" group). The first because, when they saw their hopes for bringing in a candidate more to their liking —such as Héctor Silva or Héctor Dada— frustrated, they saw in Guardado the only card they had left to play in order to force the "orthodox" group to cede. The second group because, as they were stubbornly determined to veto any formula which was not their own, blocked the possibility for a more competitive alternative, who would be less submissive to the interests of the groups which thrive inside the FMLN.

Both groups —both of which are integral parts of the FMLN— wished to impose their presidential formula and mutually exclude the other. Both groups are equally ambitious. In the context of the unresolved conflict between them stood Facundo Guardado who established himself as candidate. But not only this. Also in the context of that conflict was where the electoral failure of the FMLN, of which the electoral formula is only one of the components, began to take shape. In this sense, both the "orthodox" group as well as the "revisionist" group are directly responsible for the FMLN failure in the 1999 elections. The ambitions for power which both tendencies espoused, the exclusive messianism of both, the pretension of others to be the ones to save the country.... All of this translated into a party without clear ideas and without the capability to convince anyone, with a confused political offer communicated in the poorest possible way: in summary, a party which, far from competing to win, was dooming itself to failure. It is for these reasons that the electoral failure of the FMLN is not the exclusive responsibility of Facundo Guardado, but of all of the groups who disputed internally for the control of the party, one of which is led by Guardado. For these reasons the FMLN suffered the great defeat it did in the March 1999 elections.

In view of what occurred, it is not surprising that the "orthodox" group is seeking to take control of the FMLN and that Facundo Guardado had to leave by the back door. A victory for the FMLN in these elections (or, at least, to the point of being able to force a second round on ARENA) would have left them with nothing to show inside the party. At this point in time, without succumbing to the sorrow of defeat, they have puffed themselves up and consoled themselves with the idea that they had nothing to do with all that happened. If Guardado is the one who lost —and not the FMLN—, they had always been against him, it would only be legitimate that they now take up the reins of the party —a line of reasoning which appears to be simple and apparently coherent with the facts. Nothing, however, is farther from reality. If they begin from this premise, it is not even remotely possible that the urgently needed internal transformation of the FMLN will follow. Such a transformation would have to imply a renewal of the party’s leading cadres and imply, as well, an in-depth discussion of the divisions which wrack that left party.

The leadership of the FMLN —the "orthodox" as well as the "revisionist" group— has always fled from open, in-depth debate of the problems which divide it. It has preferred to deny that something serious is happening inside the party than to accept the difficulties and try to resolve them. The FMLN is not well served by attitudes such as that expressed by Nidia Díaz when she says, "I believe that this is an opportunity to analyze the results of the election and strengthen the party...it would be an error to fight among ourselves". Nidia Díaz´wishes notwithstanding, internal struggles in the FMLN are a reality and have been for some time now. And because this is true, instead of longing for peace and cordiality in the party, it is better to openly examine the reasons for the internal struggles and those who are engaged in them. It is precisely because this examination is not taken up, or, because the dreams of brother and sisterhood continue to be dreamed, that the internecine warfare inside the party is not going to subside; and even less likely will it be resolved.

AN ECONOMIC STATE OF AFFAIRS WHICH IS CAUSE FOR CONCERN 

For a little more than three years now it has been frequently pointed out that the growth of the GNP is not as vigorous as it was during the early post-war years. After the rates rose higher than 6% in 1992 and 1995, the growth of the GNP has come to be represented by figures of 5% and 3.5% during the last two years. Some of the early economic indicators of 1999 suggest that the tendency for this year will point towards a new contraction in growth rates.

Concretely, the taxes collected during the first two months of 1999 have not been in agreement with the projections for expansion presented by the Central Reserve Bank and, in some cases, a reduction in tax collections has been experienced as compared with the first two months of 1998. Additionally, exports also show signs of lessening and growing less than what had been expected during the first two months of the year. Evidently, both indicators signal an economic growth rate for 1999 (3.5%) —in and of itself a significantly moderate indicator— which will probably not be achieved.

In reality, since the end of last year the scenario for a new decrease in the GNP growth rates was already in the cards, as much because of the hoped-for effects of the plans for increasing the legal framework (See Proceso, 836) as for the losses in agricultural and livestock production resulting from the disaster provoked by hurricane "Mitch" (see Proceso, 832). To these elements of the national situation have been added other changes in the international situation which have strongly limited export growth, as has been indicated by that very same official data.

According to data presented by the Treasury Ministry, between the first two months of 1998 and the first two months of 1999, the income from income tax and the transference of goods grew from 6.5% to 11.7%, respectively, On the other hand, the taxes which are most important because of their contribution to the total level of income resulting from tax collection are the Value Added Tax and the specific taxes, both of which contracted from 0.9% and 0.6%, respectively. The fact that income resulting from these two taxes has diminished though only slightly, shows that consumption has been reduced because it is directly taxable. Consequently, production has been reduced as well for the period under discussion.

On other counts, data from the Central Reserve Bank reveal that a comparison between the two periods of January-February of 1998 and January-February of 1999, exports grew by 30 million colones, which is a significantly modest figure considering that a growth in the approximate amount of 300 million colones was expected.

This is owing to the fact that, since the end of last year, considering only export products, it is estimated that a loss of 1,400 million colones has been experienced as a result of hurricane "Mitch". Nevertheless, that figure seems to be higher judging from recent evaluations. According to the executive director of the Salvadoran Coffee Council, the average five-year harvest is to be located "between 3 and 3.2 million quintals", but for the 1998/1999 harvest it was expected that two million quintals would be collected. This would imply a reduction of between 33% and 37.5% when compared with the average. According to the same source, the perspectives of the coffee-producing sector worsened when the reduction in international prices was considered as well as the reduction caused by drought in the 1997-1998 harvest to a degree that, as a result of the diminution of the last two harvests, employment in that sector was reduced by approximately 15,400,000 man-hours.

In good measure, the modest expansion of exports during January-February of 1999 is owing to a contraction experienced in coffee production, but it also represents a deceleration of the rates of growth in the maquila (runaway shops), which was previously one of the most dynamic categories. This behavior is to be seen after 1998 when the maquila grew by 12%, after a 30% growth spurt in 1997, and it might be expected that the tendency to sharpen owing to the fact that a better future has emerged for this kind of "swallow" investment.

The Salvadoran Chamber of Commerce for Construction (CASALCO, for its initials in Spanish) indicates that one of the principal elements unleashing the economic recession is the upward movement of the interest rates and the procedures established for the financial system. Spokespersons for this guild assign the responsibility for the increases in the interest rates and the contraction in extension of credits to the policies for increasing the legal framework encouraged by the Central Reserve Bank. According to the executive director of CASALCO, " a major monetary restriction in the search for the objective of maintaining financial stability...affects the extension of credit for productive ends".

The economic reality of the country, then, is not so bright as the government would have us believe, and this because viable options for sustainable growth in production have been achieved, in spite of all of the successes on the economic terrain which have supposedly been achieved on the basis of neo-liberal strategies.

The current state of affairs clearly reveals at least two negative elements affecting the country’s development: first, the growing lack of relation between the handling of monetary variables and the encouragement of production and employment: and, secondly, the appearance of international market conditions which are negatively affecting exports. The high levels of financial mediation which the banking institutions have obtained are possible because of the permanence of high interest rates on profits, but this has, as a counterpart, the lack of stimulus for investment and economic growth. The policy for increasing the rates of the legal context is a conjunctural element which has begun to aggravate the situation even more, but this is not the principal problem affecting investment; rather, it is the policy of fixing the high rates of interest on profits. This restriction on investment is added to the negative indicators which are being sent by the international market, principally the reduction in coffee prices and the loss of attraction for investment in the maquila.

What is certain is that the country’s economic indicators have always shown that the country does not have a sufficiently competitive productive base in order to grow in the direction of exports; neither does it have a functional productive apparatus where the financial services are organically articulated with the productive sectors. The macroeconomic stability depends principally on family remittances because the country moves between growing deficits in the balance of payments and stagnation of the productive sectors. If this tendency continues a reduction in production and in employment could be added to its problems as well as an increase in the deficits in the balance of payments and in the public sector.

The most recent data suggests that a deceleration could become an economic contraction. This would oblige the government to take more seriously the adoption of measures by sector for the stimulation of growth in the agricultural, livestock and industrial sectors. In fact, included in the newly-elected government offerings are to be found measures for increasing agricultural production, encouraging exports and competition which should be given a higher priority in order to deal with an ever less favorable international context.

AFTER THE SUMMIT MEETING... 

The expectations were that the providential offerings of the so-called "most powerful man in the world" would be fulfilling and make the Central American region a more prosperous and stable place for its inhabitants. They occupied the front page in the media and in the heads of the presidents of the isthmus and of the every more closely allied Dominican Republic. The speeches, the receptions, the hurried preparations designed to make the stay of U. S. President Bill Clinton the most tranquil and secure as possible had, from before his arrival the savor of one who is grateful for an already announced favor which is anxiously awaited. But, by the end of the arduous visit, no one seemed to be happy with the contents of the document signed by the presidents in Antigua, Guatemala. The highest representatives of the equally high sectors of the society left the city with more grumbling than gifts.

What went bad at the presidents' summit meeting in Antigua, Guatemala? The event ended with a limited tour by Clinton of the countries of the region most affected by hurricane "Mitch" during November of last year. From the beginning, the U.S. president's promises did not appear to come with the expected enthusiasm, or, at least, with the enthusiasm which the mass media-fed by the government authorities' declarations, had led the public to expect. One does not have to be very intelligent to perceive the loose unraveling that this "historic event" would become; but even so, the reactions came close to becoming condemnations of the event itself. In this context, the question asked above is not very out of place: what has made of this summit meeting a meeting which has provoked less enthusiasm among those who were most interested in it?

To answer this question, in the first place, one should pause to consider the chemistry between what is desirable and what is possible that did not come to pass in the way expected by the representatives of the governments of the region. The "super agenda" of the Central American presidents, from the beginning, expressed the extreme enthusiasm of the seven heads of state who, having received support without precedent from the international community after "Mitch", felt they had a right to receive very generous treatment from the U.S. The bottom line in the discussions which defined the terms in which they would be presented to Clinton were, then, the idea that the policy of economic domination which had been maintained by the U.S. over the region would change drastically because of a natural disaster that is neither the first nor the last of its kind, nor does it represent, in and of itself, the major concern which this country has with regard to Central America.

At any rate, as has already been pointed out (see Proceso, 844), the points on that agenda did not even highlight the necessity for the U.S. to redefine its role on the question of development of the countries of the region in such a way that would truly guarantee the empowerment of a self-sustaining model of development, although it may have passed through the minds of the presidents at one point that the bases from which their administration presented the question was not the most convincing for President Clinton. The speeches took another turn. Behind his words was the desire that the flow of immigrants from the Central American isthmus towards his country should be stopped, or at least be more "controlled". That was his principal concern. Once this was achieved, it might be possible to think of lowering the pressure which U.S. immigration policy exercised over undocumented workers. That was the condition for the countries of the region to begin a real process of economic growth and reactivation, according to Clinton's logic.

The conclusion which must be reached is that the Summit Meeting of Antigua, Guatemala did not fail because of the U.S. President's small offerings but rather (in part) because the suitcases that had been brought to receive his offerings were too large. It has been that very voracity which characterizes the Central American empresarial class which imprinted on this meeting the flavor of failure that it came to have. The powerful economic sectors of the region saw in this event the opportunity to obtain more favorable conditions to increase their profits. The agreements arrived at, therefore,—which point more towards a recomposition of the internal production of each country— did not fulfill the hopes of those sectors for whom development is nothing more than a guarantee of their exclusive economic stability.

On the other hand, it must be recalled that Clinton has not exactly been in a bed of roses during recent months. The sexual scandals which have raised such a furor around his political career have obliged him to respond in a very decided way to the problems which his administration has been carrying around with it for some time —especially those concerning foreign policy. And, to be sure, in those decisions there has not been precisely a respectful attitude toward the sovereignty of those countries which the North American power has been examining. The stability and support which has made the Republican pack back off just as they were closing in on him during the Lewinski trial was conceded because it fed North American nationalism, by means of the hackneyed show of force by the policeman who defended national security and —why not say it— the security of the whole world.

The missiles which Clinton dropped on the Middle East were the weapon which held back his possible removal from office. And it must be recognized that this measure worked quite well. But the situation is that his career as president has not yet come to an end. It now falls to him the take up the mission of maintaining the Democratic Party in the presidency of the U.S. and for this reason he must use that strength which served him so well at a particular point in time, and that means staying in the good graces of a large percentage of the population of that country. To cede on the question of immigration, for example, would have meant opposing the stability of the U.S. workforce. As seen through the lenses of the conservatives in the U.S. Congress, immigrants are a threat to that workforce. From this perspective it was not very probable that any great advances on this and other topics would be made during the summit meeting.

The Clinton message was clear and was recognized by the presidents of the region: we must root out the causes which have made thousands of compatriots leave their countries to seek to improve their living conditions. But this message (perhaps the point of greatest relevance in the whole speech of the U.S. president) will not be taken up if it is not understood beforehand that the summit meeting was stillborn from the moment at which the governments posed their agenda points. The deception felt by the big business sectors and those of the governments themselves should not cause them to be resigned but rather to reflect upon what is truly to be desired by the region's countries and the role which it is hoped that nations which cooperate with the reconstruction and transformation of the area will assume. This attitude implies a reformulation of the conception of development which has been expressed every time there is an opportunity to strengthen commercial ties with other countries in such a way that that development might be equitable and palpable.

IMMIGRATION. During the summit meeting of the presidents of Central America and Belize, President Calderón Sol asked his U.S. counterpart, Bill Clinton, to order the creation of a program providing a state of temporary protection (TPS) or to define a the obligatory deportation (DED) for Salvadorans and Guatemalans in the U.S. who are "honorable and obedient to the law". Calderón Sol stated that the principal concern of the Central American governments is that respect for the human rights of immigrants subject to deportation be guaranteed. Clinton, however, stated that all that could be done had already been done. "Within the law, I have already done all that I could to avoid the abrupt return of your people as a result of this law which we have all admitted is unjust. In order to fully solve the problem, we need a change at the legislative level and I will bring that up with Congress", stated Clinton. Likewise, the U.S. president said that a willingness exists, on the part of the Republican and Democratic parties, for those changes to take place. However, he added that it is a very delicate matter and was clear in saying that a measure which massively favors undocumented persons would bring serious problems for his nation (La Prensa Gráfica, March 12, p. 4).

NARCOTICS TRAFFICKING. The U.S. government promised Central America, on February 11, during the summit meeting of the presidents of Central America and Belize, financial and technical assistance to fight narcotics trafficking, but did not specify when or how much it would be or what it would provide in terms of assistance. The same day, the ministers of public security for Central America met in Guatemala with the Sub-Secretary of the U.S. Agency for fighting Drugs, Robert Brown. Mr. Brown presented the successes achieved and the challenges left in the fight against illicit drug trafficking in the region. The Guatemalan minister, Roberto Mendoza, stated that two concrete projects were agreed upon, i.e., control of the borders between the five countries of the region and coordination between authorities in order not to engage in isolated efforts. "We have obtained from the Government of the United States the promise of financial support for the acquisition of better technology [to fight narcotics trafficking]", stated the minister. At the same time, Mr. Mendoza indicated that the other concrete project, which will receive U.S. support, is the creation of a computerized system, which would permit the anti-narcotics authorities of the whole region to share information. It would appear that the first efforts between El Salvador and Guatemala are all reading beginning (La Prensa Gráfica, March 14, p. 5).

FACUNDO. On March 15, Facundo Guardado resigned his position as General Coordinator of the FMLN as well as his position on the Political Commission. The struggle between tendencies was clear when Guardado and his group, identified as social democrats, lambasted the "minorities" in the FMLN for impeded the development of the electoral campaign. Guardado argued that he did not plan to deal with those groups and that, on the contrary, he would encourage a struggle for changing the FMLN into a "party of the majorities", an effort in which the democratic tendency led by Raul Mijango, who also resigned his position in the party, will also join. According to Guardado’s statements, the majority of the members of the council were responsible for the electoral results, but that "a small group of fanatical leaders, with an extreme ambition for power —the same ones who lost during the August 15, 1998 convention, when they sought presidential candidates wanted to lead the FMLN down the road to internal confrontation". "I will never join sects or miserly groups with ambitions for power," stated Guardado. Nidia Díaz, ex-vice-presidential candidate, also resigned. For the moment, Francisco Jovel will continue as interim coordinator of the party. The FMLN plans to hold an extraordinary convention in April in which it is hoped that part of the leadership will be renewed and/or replaced (La Prensa Gráfica, March 16, p. 22).