Proceso 895
March 22, 2000
ISSN 0259-9864
 
 

INDEX

Editorial The electoral defeat of the ARENA party
Politics The problems in the electoral system
Economy The reaction of the National Association for Private Enterprise (ANEP)
Society The news media: fronts of power
 
 
 

EDITORIAL

     The results of the March 12 elections have left the failure of the ARENA party on the agenda for discussion. Certainly, if one looks objectively at the numbers, the defeat of that right-wing party is not as absolute as it would appear at first glance. For the same reason, the triumph of the FMLN has not been so overwhelming as its most heated sympathizers at first believed. All in all, it must be said that one thing is the matter of the results in themselves, as in a more or less objective reading would yield, and another, completely different are the reactions of those affected by all of this, as well as the interpretation that could be made by examining them through biased spectacles. What have been the most significant reactions generated inside the ARENA party on the question of the election results”.

     In the heat of the battle recently waged, the initial reaction of many ARENA leaders when they learned the early results of the elections, was almost pathetic. The anguish on the hardened ARENA visages —the visages of men who never cry or lament, men accustomed to make others tremble with their voice and bearing— was something more than that anguish which one expresses at the loss of a loved one: it was the anguish of a wounded self-love, of ego. In that initial reaction, the ARENA party leaders exhibited, shamelessly, the grief caused at seeing the electorate dealt to their mistreated pride which did not realize the ill that they were doing themselves in not giving their votes to the party which could pull them up out of their misery. The pinched faces, shocked looks, tear-filled eyes... It was enough to glance at the full-color photographs in the morning dailies for March 13 and 14 to see how deep the pain of the principal ARENA leaders was.

     But after the emotional outpourings resulting from the tragedy, comes the moment for meditation about what had happened, the weighing of the real balance and the challenges presented on a personal as well as group level. Has the leadership body of ARENA entered upon this stage or are its members still overwhelmed by the emotions of the electoral failure? It would seem, without the emotional and mental states having arrived at a totally calm frame of mind —this calm would have to wait for a good while to come into effect— that in ARENA the moment to meditate and take up the challenges presented had indeed arrived. In a situation of post-election crisis, three well-defined positions have taken shape: in the first place, are those who see the electoral results with only a small amount of concern because they believe that the party has not been weakened at all by them. There is no assurance whatever that those who hold that opinion do so out of mere rhetoric and that, at bottom, they are concerned as much as anyone else. Nevertheless, the practical consequence that follows from this reading is that ARENA should continue as it is, with its same leadership body, its same political strategy. In this view, the election results represent only a small misstep, the reasons for which should be sought in factors lying outside the party, perhaps in the electorate which does not understand as well as it should where its own interests lie.

     In second place are those who situate themselves in the extreme opposite of the first position presented above. These see an enormous and troublesome political failure for ARENA in the election results. And not only a failure in the way the electoral campaign was carried out, but also is failure in the leadership of the party. For those who hold this opinion it is not a problem located in the voters but in the very heart of ARENA, whose political and electoral successes are no longer a given. What is called for, then, is a drastic and immediate re-structuring of the party. And that re-structuring demands, above all else, an examination of who is responsible for what happened because those who are responsible for the failure will have to give up the power they currently hold. We are in the presence, then, of a catastrophic posture which, should more committed members enter the rank and file of the party, internal feuds and push and pull situations will surely be the situation which will result in or which will cause to triumph and unleash within the party a process of necessary but uncertain series of transformations.

     In third place are the moderates, who cannot be overlooked: that is to say, those who see a defeat for ARENA in the election results, but not an absolute, but rather, relative defeat. They accept that it is cause for worry that ARENA has lost approximately 36 municipalities and that the FMLN has two deputies more than ARENA, but they do not see in this sufficient motive for beginning a desperate witch hunt within the party. They accept that there were failures in the political strategy followed and that there have been false steps taken by the leadership of the party, but they do not hesitate to point out that the voting public hopes for more in terms of immediate benefits that can, effectively, be given them. In other words, they propose to take things calmly, maintain the best that the party has, respect the established leaderships and, in this context, make the changes which the situation demands.

     For the moment, the alarmist tendencies have captured more column inches in the press. But it is not certain that their point of view will become the most powerful, given the knowledge that the problem could result in a process of long term transformations within the party. The possibility exists that there may be coincidental overlapping between the moderates and the "what? Me worry?" group, above all on the question of maintaining the traditional leaderships. So it is that it turns out to be very probable that some here and some there will reject radical solutions and promote minimal changes in the leadership of the party as well as in the political strategy to be followed.

     In summary, that the ARENA party has not fallen hopelessly in shambles does not mean that it has not suffered an important blow. Some responsibility must be laid at some doorsteps, although at whose one can only guess: will it be at the doorstep of Alfredo Cristiani, whose pretensions at dominating everything have overshadowed and eclipsed any leadership tendencies for important members of the party and the government? Will Francisco Flores have to accept a bundle of blame for his empty failure at leadership as president of the republic? And how will Mauricio Sandoval fare, given his tendency towards violent repression of what he considers socially destabilizing factors? Who knows, perhaps we are at the threshold of important changes in the ARENA party. It could also be the case that nothing changes and the old feudal kingdoms continue untouched, a state of affairs withal which presupposes the risk of a major tendency towards the deterioration of the party.

POLITICS

     Each time elections are held in El Salvador, the enormous number of failures in the national voting system hits us between the eyes. So serious and repetitive are the errors, mistakes and blank spaces that the elections end up being more and more the victim every time the moment comes to choose a political party or go to the polls that no one any longer believes that the reform the Salvadoran electoral system is a task which should be given priority. During the previous stage, on election day, during the campaign, irregularities and shame-faced errors in the Electoral Code appear without the authorities charged with monitoring compliance seeming to mind. A surefire proof of this during the recent electoral period was the fact that Luis Cardenal began his electoral campaign many weeks before the time allowed by the regulations governing this phase without anyone even batting an eye.

     Other irregularities became news, such as the publishing of anonymous propaganda distributed house to house or even published in the media, systematic sabotage to the publicity of other parties and other myriads of similar situations. But there were no regulations for this so that someone or other could be made to accept the responsibility for finding and correcting the trespassers. In the same way, violent acts took place during the pre-electoral period. And if it did not fall to the Supreme Electoral Tribunal to resolve them, the TSE should have demanded a more careful follow-up, given the serious nature of the situations in question. Such acts brought with them, as a consequence, among other tragic results, the death of two activists of the recently founded National Action Party (PAN) and the serious wounding of a 12-year old boy who participated in an FMLN meeting. Up until now, nothing more has been learned about the investigation of these crimes.

     On election day itself —March 12— the customary and traditional failures were once again to be seen: People who voted twice, voters whose names could not be found on the electoral rolls or who discovered that someone had already voted for them, the buying and selling of votes, "deceased" members of the population who appeared to vote, bald-faced proselytism... And finally, as the votes were being counted, fraud and confusion reigned as ever —legitimate votes were inexplicably invalidated, the TSE held back the official count, the PDC and PAN stayed for days pushing each other around in front of the electoral authorities over a deputy position for La Libertad.

     Definitively speaking, the electoral environment was not as clean as might have been hoped and some news several days later, when the vote count was almost completed, contributed to an even stranger situation: the PCN won 14 deputy positions in the Legislative Assembly and the CDU and the USC, in spite of having won positions in the popular elections (deputies as well as municipalities) were obliged to disappear from the political arena. At first blush, there could possibly be a logical explanation for these acts. An unexpected result in favor of the PCN is the result of a n Electoral Quotient formula for the vote counts and the paradoxical situation in which some parties legally disappeared, although, during the coming three years they may stay in charge of certain public positions, is explained by a law which requires political parties to win a minimum of 3% of the total votes in order to remain registered with the TSE. The figure is 6% in the case of coalitions.

     But what is certain is that these explanations are far from being amenable to being described as logical. The fact that the PCN won 14 seats in the plenary is disconcerting because it flies in the face of common sense. How could a party that, during the 1999 elections, was at the point of disappearing obtain such a result today? Such a thing leads to nothing other than the questioning of the Proportional Representation System which actually defines the make-up of the Assembly. It cannot continue to be the case that the mechanism of quotients and residues upon which such a system is based, can permit a party with such a poor showing as the PCN on representational issues and still become the third political force in the country.

     The proportional Representation System used in Europe and Latin America as well, seeks to guarantee the presence of minority parties in the parliament. The problem with its use in El Salvador is that here, while the Constitution of the Republic uses as the basis of the electoral system the population, the Electoral Code structures the elections on the basis of territorial considerations. A contradiction exists, then, between the criterion of population and the criterion of territory which impedes true representation. During the 1997 elections, for example, while a deputy of the National Circumscription needed to obtain 55,9880 votes to win the election, a candidate for the Department of San Salvador had to win 21,331 votes and a deputy for the Department of Cabanas was required to win only 8,353 votes in order to be elected, each of the three having the same rights, duties and prerogatives. Curiously enough, no one has brought a petition or demand before the Supreme Court for unconstitutionality which would require a review of the Electoral Code.

     On the other hand, it also seems to make little sense that a political party might win public office and, at the same time, be erased from the list of parties legally registered with the TSE. This means that the CDU and the USC, to use a case in point during the recent elections, become part of the government although they have ceased legally to exist. It is evident, as well, that there is a judicial problem here which no one has pointed out and which requires redefinition. This problem leads, moreover, to another series of important questions: what happens with a political debt once the party has ceased to exist? In fact the Electoral Code establishes the procedure for parties in this condition with respect to the funds issued by the state; it falls to the TSE, to the Comptroller's Office and the Ministry of the Treasury to monitor the issue of compliance with the stipulations of this law. Nevertheless, none of these entities have moved a finger to do so and the whereabouts of the political debt in cases where the political party has disappeared continues in doubt.

     When all is said and done, it remains clear that the Salvadoran electoral system has a long road in front of it if it is to respond to the challenges of democratic institutionality. It is not the case that big advances have not been made on electoral questions in this country. They are not mistaken who applaud the fact that in El Salvador elections can be held in which, in general terms, are within the legal and common sense limits. But that optimism ought not to cloud other undeniable facts: that the electoral system suffers from structural faults which, as such, must be resolved in a radical way.

     In the TSE itself a delimitation of functions must be brought about which divides the administrative from the punitive but, above all, which requires a clarification of the leadership body and legislative laws which continue to allow its highest leaders to be both judge and one of the parties in contention involved in the handling of the electoral matters all the while with clear party linkages. A law is also needed to govern political parties which would fill in the blanks which tolerate impunity in the handling of the political funds and debts and which would regulate acts such as the resignation of functionaries which abandon their parties having been elected on that very party's platform, among other irregularities. There are other tasks which must be taken in hand such as house or domicile voting which has been called attention to on many occasions, as well as a single identity document. The National Plan proposal must be posed once again, as well, on the question of territorial reordering and the discussion must be opened as to the convenience or not of pushing for votes for candidates and not for parties, which would add decisive points to a true representation being possible. Alternative mechanisms for the Proportional Representation System must be taken up. And, finally, it is important that the news media dedicate itself to researching themes and topics in a deeper way instead of covering the most superficial aspects of the electoral processes. These and other tasks which, doubtless, have escaped us here, on electoral questions which are pending for the new Legislative Assembly. It is hoped that the new deputies will give them the urgency which they demand.

ECONOMY

     After the early results for deputies and municipal councils in last March 12's election were known and the relative electoral reverse for the ARENA party was known as well, the reaction of the right-wing showed a heavy dose of pessimism and uncertainty given the new scenario taking shape after the elections. For example, the ex-candidate for Mayor of San Salvador, Luis Cardenal, expressed —after learning the breadth of the electoral defeat he suffered— stated that those who "lost were the citizens of San Salvador". The President of the National Executive Committee (COENA), Gloria Salguero Gross, declared that the election results for her party were "catastrophic". On another note, the current president of COENA, Alfredo Cristiani, who said that the party had understood the message of the voting populace and that they were drawing up a program for the restructuring of the party.

     The reactions of other sectors aligned under the ARENA flag, such as the National Association for Private Enterprise (ANEP), were unexpected, in spite of the changes in the correlation of political forces in the Legislative Assembly ought not to be motive for alarm given that ARENA holds its number of deputies and the FMLN has only 31 deputies, a number insufficient for making its points of view prevail. The situation is different in the case of the municipal elections: ARENA lost a significant number of municipalities (36), which diminishes that party's capacity for influence at the local level. But it is really the legislative scene where the continuity or change within the legal context is hung in the balance: by legal context is meant the diverse aspects of national life (economy, public security, social security, environment, municipal policies, among others). As a result of the foregoing, the project for society —if there is one— of the ARENA party is seen to be substantially threatened during the upcoming legislative period.

     Even so, ANEP has faced all the surprises. Three days after the elections it published a list of petitions for the new Legislative Assembly, the fundamental message of which is that no law should be decreed which could cause "the flight of national or foreign investment". This recalls the posture taken by ANEP after coming to know the legislative program of the FMLN for the period 2000/2003 and after learning of the tax reform proposal presented by the Municipal Council of San Salvador for 1998. It is interesting, given this state of affairs, to review the most recent petitions presented by ANEP on the questions of economic legislation but placing them in perspective with the contents of the measures proposed on municipal tax reform in San Salvador and the FMLN's legislative program.

     The Tax Proposal of the San Salvador Municipal Council caused an effect similar to that of the recent electoral failure of the ARENA party. After the proposal was known--the principal objective of which was to introduce the criterion of equity in municipal decisions--the private enterprise associations and even then president of the republic, Armando Calderón Sol, made declarations against the municipal initiative, arguing that its implementation would provoke negative effects such a the raising of inflationary indices, capital flight to other municipalities, unemployment and a reduction in the ability to complete by businesses for lack of funds (La Prensa Grafica, January 16, 19988, p. 4-5; El Diario de Hoy, January 14, 1998, p. 24). At the same time, ARENA deputies —in the same number as those recently elected— blocked the discussion of the law that would permit setting the municipal tax reform in motion.

     More recently, the legislative proposal by the FMLN, once again brought forth fury from the business sector, which disqualified it because that sector considered that it was an attack on the free market and because it presupposed conditions unfavorable to investment in the same way as the new municipal tax rates did. It should be pointed out that within the FMLN proposal are to be found highly sensible proposals for the big and gigantic businesses grouped in ANEP such as the regulation of profits for the telephone businesses and electrical energy distributors, the suspension of privatization and the reform of the tax system so that those "who have more income pay more taxes". Given these signals, the reaction of the business sector represented by ANEP does not come as a surprise, given the fact that its members would be the most affected by greater taxes and with the limitation on the categories for accumulation which the proposed suspension in privatization processes would provoke.

     The results of the elections have once again placed ANEP on the defensive, and ANEP has come out against any law which, in its judgment, might cause a lack of motivation for national or foreign investment. As a result of this, last March 15, ANEP proposed six points which it considers should be taken up again by the new Legislative Assembly: to maintain judicial security; to legislate without causing investors to run away; to retain foreign investment and attract more investors; to implement taxes for all sectors; not to approve taxes which would cause a lack of incentive for investment and the generation of jobs; and, finally, responsibility, equilibrium and "common sense" in government.

     In an indirect allusion to the FMLN, Ricardo Simán, president of ANEP, expressed the fact that "a certain political party does not care if capital flight for some capital in the country should occur". By the same token, he insisted that some "uncertainty" exists concerning the economic model proposed by the FMLN. He took advantage of the moment to point out that it would be necessary to discuss at greater length the topic of municipal tax reform, given that the tax on profits —such as that proposed by the Municipal Council of San Salvador— is "the worst that could exist".

     The attitude of private enterprise, and the manipulation which the principal news media exercises, leaves the impression that given its proposals, there is nothing left but to accept the superiority of its arguments. As was pointed out in 1998, some associations for private business aim to be a kind of "last chance" and the only one capable of saying when a proposal is good for the nation and when it is not (PROCESO 793). What is true is that among the postures taken by the business associations which include the big and gigantic businesses, and specifically ANEP, what can be detected is a marked defense of sectorial interests which do not necessarily coincide with the interests of the immense majority of medium and small business people.

     The proposal to increase taxes for the sectors with the highest level of income in order to promote social development and sane public —or municipal— finances a totally legitimate and necessary objective for making viable the current economic model. The election results show that the economic and social policies of ARENA, are not based on benefiting the majority of the population, such as they would have like to make us believe. The necessity for "reforming the economic reforms" is acceptable throughout the length and breadth of Latin America because these have not brought about the desired results in terms of promoting sustainable development. El Salvador, although it enjoys a stable economy as a result of the efforts by immigrant workers and the family remittances they send, cannot delay the adoption of the new economic reforms.

SOCIETY

     Generally speaking, when the powerful sectors of the country feel threatened, whatever the cause may be, they tend to unite in social and political fronts to defend what they call the stability and the freedoms of the nation. In spite of the fact that there are not many who make up these fronts (that is to say, in the majority of cases they are not capable of mobilizing broad sectors of the population in support of their postulates), in general they can count on the news media to make up for this lack of representation and can generate the mirage of support by filling up spaces in the big news media with open letters, communiqués and declarations. All kinds of organizations circulate in the environment, some are well-known and wield great influence in decisions at the national level, others pass without being perceived and their scarce representational ability does not fit in with the kind of demands being made.

     It would appear, then, that other groups which are born of the heat of "the threat", which seem to be the depositories of the most heated and conservative discourse and which are capable of anything just as long as they make their perspective prevail above all the rest. At the end of this disquieting conjuncture of events, this kind of group at the head of the battlefront disappear together with its discourse and take to its grave the sources of objective financing of their assault on the spaces for social promotion as well as all of their good intentions for moral, social, political and economic order. Other voices, however, remain. The tempest having passed, they continue on with their task of manipulating public opinion and attempting to bend it in its favor and it does so because they have taken over privileged spaces in the news media.

     This attitude from specific powerful sectors in the country —or those who look out for their interests— has been a fundamental component not only in the recent electoral campaign, but also in the conjuncture which it carried out in the legislative and municipal elections. In open defense of some interests which are not those of the majority of the Salvadoran people, the pages of the big national dailies are filled with all kinds of opinions, pseudo explanations and various and sundry reactions as to the results of the elections in which the principal political opposition force, the FMLN, marked up a victory against its bitter opponent the current ARENA administration.

     Among these heralds of thought serving the powerful sectors has ever been El Diario de Hoy, the daily that has contributed most to ideologizing the situation resulting from the electoral race. The editorials in this media cling to two large interpretations of the situation: one is that the results are one of the biggest mistakes in El Salvador's recent history; the other is that the left is the palpable expression of all of the ills in the country, and for the foregoing reason the prevailing national crisis which has already reached its worst moments.

     There has been an avalanche of articles, news, columns and, above all, editorials appearing in recent weeks which uphold these two ideas on the basis of an infinity of arguments. Among them is to be found the effort to publish a national panorama characterized by the danger latent in losing the freedoms which we currently have because of the "regimentation" characteristic of the left once it is in power. Here they speak of a country in which "moral decomposition" is the principal cause of the reverses which we are suffering today and in which social agitation such as occurred before the elections is nothing else than a return to the stone age. Moreover, in these articles the Law of God is appealed to in order to compel the individual to leave things as they are, in open rejection of any kind of alternative or proposal different from what today exists. Likewise, there is talk of a country full of "masses confused by the deluge of propaganda" which "without any other elements of judgment and burdened by the weight of poverty" choose those who are not good for them to govern them ("The Lessons of the Elections", El Diario de Hoy, March 18, 2000).

     The governing party is berated for not having been able to handle the disaster left by previous administrations (the administration of José Napoleon Duarte tends to be most questioned) and the disaster provoked by what they call "the period of dementia on a grand scale" —referring to the armed conflict. Their failure at the polls is owing, in part, to the demonstrated lack of capacity exhibited by the current president who cannot seem to deal with social conflict without he severity he should and for "sharing" with his evil advisors the image of leading a poor political campaign ("From Argentineans and "empiscuchadas", El Diario de Hoy, March 16, 2000). While the FMLN is advised that there still exist good Salvadorans who are not going to be deceived by its lies and who do not resemble this "substantial part of its rank and file [that] continue believing in he Soviet Union, in the brotherhood of socialist nations, in the sharing out of riches, in the collectivization of the land and in the walls where executions take place as part of "social purification" ("The Left Once Again", El Diario de Hoy, March 14, 2000).

     With these and other ideas which, without much though, are published during the days before and after the elections, what is evident is the tendency to assume that some arguments are valid which simplifies reality for some interests which are equally reduced and lacking in all willingness to engage in dialogue. This position presupposes the almost absolute disqualification of the other as a subject capable of containing within itself an infinity of interpretations of its surroundings, some more objective and generalizable than others, but all apt for discussion and revision. In this sense, only with difficulty can one refute those who function, at a visceral level, and who flee from any kind of conscious reflection of their surroundings and in its place opt for the most rigid and elemental argumentation, lacking in all scientific and empirical bases, in order to make their position prevail. For these sectors, in a situation such as the one we have at present, the "rules of the game" do not exist. These are only the adornment on the desk of the one in charge and, if this one gives up his place to another, he takes these rules with him.

     But what is an even more interesting —even funny— thing about this crusade is the way in which they characterize the journalistic practice which they themselves describe as "advanced", thanks to which they have inaugurated in our country an unexpected tradition of investigative journalism. This same newspaper which more than a year ago introduced into his pages some few foreigners who write well so that they might extend their informative news notes in the style of investigative reporting, now take into their pages fanatical and speculative writers. Likewise, this investigative line is not exempt —and has never been exempt— from control by those groups in power who wield power. The speculations about who wins and who loses are always seen in the shades of interpretation which appear in their editorials. In this way, neither is it the case that the FMLN has won a viable quota of power, nor is it the case that ARENA lost because its lack of clarity in the leadership of the country or because of its lack of capacity to make the most elemental demands of the population its own —taking into account that this party offered to raise them up out of poverty.

     Nothing more could be expected from a news medium whose most evident tradition has been, as we said at the beginning, that of being the first to react when it feels that power is being touched or when, if only symbolically, it feels itself to be threatened. Of course, to this situation must be added the panoply of television and radio media which, in one way or another, also lend themselves to the game of promoting ideology. In the end, the battlefield which lies before those who lean towards the defense of those who have taken the reins of power, have demonstrated that they do not have the least interest in taking up postures different from those who proclaim and hold power. This reduces them to being simple bulwarks of the most crass and reactionary conservatism which our country has ever seen.