Proceso 901
May 10, 2000
ISSN 0259-9864
 
 
 

INDEX

Editorial         Political parties and democratization
Politics           A crisis in ARENA?
Economy       The government's policies on agricultural and livestock
Society           The new Legislative Assembly:  getting off to a bad start
 

EDITORIAL

    Few have any doubts that the political parties of El Salvador have not been up to what might be expected of the demands of the process of democratization in progress in the country. This is to say that they have been incapable of serving as intermediaries between the demands of society and the response of the state to these demands. There are several reasons for the failure of the parties in fulfilling this function of “mediation”. The first reason is focussed on the very structure of the political parties, the organizational format of which allows specific and determinate members of these parties —i.e., the leaders— to concentrate in their hands excessive quotas of power which, in general, they use for their own benefit. The second reason has to do with the capabilities and abilities of the members of the parties in question: The majority of these exhibit notorious weaknesses in their academic and professional formation. The third reason focuses on the style of doing politics which is inbred in the national political system: this style is characterized by under the table agreements and pacts, the buying and selling of favors, blackmail and corruption. Things being as they are, it is not unusual that the parties have become an arena for the proliferation of personal interests. Neither, then, is the social discredit into which the parties have fallen as a result. Far from generating confidence in the population, people tend to regard these parties with suspicion and small sympathy. Given the foregoing, the political parties of El Salvador have not been capable of channeling and expressing the most urgent social demands, which have, as a result, found their vehicle for expression, on numerous occasions, in violent and illegal ways. A divorce, then, has occurred between society and politics, between political parties and citizens. This is one of the causes of the stagnation of the democratic transition-consolidation underway in El Salvador and there seems to be no end in sight for overcoming this stagnation

    The political party system, such as it has been configured under the current electoral laws, the competence of the parties and the preferences of the citizenry, has been translated into the existence of two strong political parties —ARENA and the FMLN— and a third party (the PCN) which the legislative and municipal elections of 1997 and 2000 have permitted to position itself as a third political force with 11 and 14 deputies, respectively. In this way, as a result of both elections, a legislative scene has been configured which leans towards permanent negotiation because neither of the two strong parties, in and of themselves, has succeeded in making its legal initiatives prevail. Nevertheless, during the 1997 and 2000 legislature, that negotiation was, as a whole, favorable to the ARENA party, inasmuch as it was relatively easy to sum up votes in its favor as well as the votes of the PCN and the PDC.

    With the incoming legislature, everything points towards the configuration of a “right-wing block” —perhaps to be expressed in serious problems and decisions regarding privatization, public security and taxes— which can count on favorable votes from ARENA (29), PCN (14) and PDC (5), or, in summary, 48 of a total of 84 votes. This, obviously will presuppose negotiation between the three parties, but now in the outgoing legislature there has been enough of this. Not without difficulties, the FMLN can gather up the remaining votes in support of its initiatives to the tune of 31 votes plus 2 from PAN and 3 from CDU, forming a species of “center-left block” for which there is no precedent in the country; contrary to the cases of ARENA, PCN and PDC, the political affinities of which were made clear during the decade of the 1990's on multiple occasions. Along this line the shady election of Ciro Cruz Zepeda as president of the Legislative Assembly could be a taste of what awaits the country in terms of legislative decisions.

    From another point of view, the outgoing Legislative Assembly favored the exercise of executive power without major conflicts or setbacks. This is to say that the Legislative Assembly favored the stability of the ARENA government administration for the period 1994-1999. It is not a question of the legislative body being completely submissive to the executive office, but indeed of a legislative body with which the executive office could reach understandings quite easily. This was the result of a gradual configuration of a political party system in which between both of them, a relative equilibrium was established in the legislature which a third force could tip in favor of whichever of the two. In the outgoing legislature, the relative equilibrium between ARENA and the FMLN was broken by the PCN in favor of ARENA, which controlled the executive branch. So it was that an important legislative support for the administration of Armando Calderón Sol was created. The dynamic of the incoming Legislative Assembly —if it musters the strength to create the right-wing block we referred to earlier— will favor a the stability of the government administration on a new score, as well as the stability of ARENA, which is headed by Francisco Flores. There would then tend to be a confirmation of a tendency towards political equilibrium inside the Legislative Assembly—and towards the strengthening of “presidentialism” —relations between the Legislative Assembly and the Executive Office— begun earlier at the time of the signing of the Peace Accords, but which, during the period following these accords has come to be more precisely expressed, once the FMLN laid down and turned in their arms and integrated itself into legal and public political life.

    Since 1994, then, the Legislative dynamic has tended to favor the stability of the ARENA administrations. It was not necessary, for this, for the party to maintain control of the majority of the legislative seats. The single fact that a third party existed (and at some points in time, a fourth party) to garner the number of votes in its favor and incline the balance according to its interests. This format, in virtue of the fact that it requires the support of a third force to break the tie of equilibrium, up until now the ARENA administrations have benefited from such a situation. This does not mean that should the possibility of another term for ARENA in government come to pass it would not be a stable situation should the FMLN come to win the presidential office. This could be the case, but this would not be so much the result of the makeup of the political party system —which favors governmental stability—, but the fact that the party (or parties) which function as the force to break the tie of legislative equilibrium would perhaps identify completely with the other predominant party and only distinguish themselves from this in name and by means of its emblems or symbols. Up until now, this has been the case of the PDC and one should not suppose that its political and ideological inclinations would change from one day to the next. All of which goes to say that with the arrival of the FMLN to government the appearance of a third party would be necessary so that —although it may not be completely identified with its ideology or politics of its project, would be willing to distance itself from the opposition which, in such a situation, would be led by the ARENA party.

POLITICS

    The results of the recently past municipal and legislative elections have fallen upon the ARENA party like a bucket of cold water. The diverse groups which make up the official party have reacted in diverse ways to the “electoral defeat”. The rank and file hold the leaders responsible for their verticalism: they believe that they are neither listened to nor taken into account in the decisions which affect the interests of the party. Some of the COENA members perhaps understand that important changes must take place. On the other hand, Alfredo Cristiani announced his withdrawal from the presidency of the party. On another point President Francisco Flores increases his visits to the rural areas of the country and promises money for different projects in different departments, measures for the reactivation of agriculture and his willingness to reach a consensus with the different sectors of national life.

    Nevertheless, events surrounding the inauguration of the new Legislative Assembly must be awaited in order to understand the true dimensions of the problems in the ARENA party. A group of the founders of the party publicly announced their disagreement with the leadership of the party and even openly manifested that the discussion around the presidency of the Legislative Assembly was not handled in the most correct manner. Among this group there are those who have expressed their reservations concerning the modalities of organization of the upcoming Fourth National Congress of that party because in their judgement the credibility of the event “places the future of their noble cause in danger”. In a written declaration in the press, they have stated that “the composition and structuring of the political commission is unacceptable, given that it not only represents the continuation of the previous COENA but also threatens the good will of the party members, cutting off initiatives of the future COENA and goes against the statutes of the party “ (May 4, 2000).

    In the ARENA leadership body, the declarations of the group of founders —in spite of the fact that they broke with a tradition, which was jealously guarded, not to make public the differences inside the party and seriously criticize the credibility of those currently responsible— have not, to date, taken on undue proportions. On the contrary, there is a suspicious interest in currying favor in these signs and signals, which tends to lessen the power of and allude to a lack of information on the part of the founding fathers. Meanwhile, President Francisco Flores sees these proposals in an optimistic way and does not discount the possibility that “other sectors in his party make public pronouncements in the short run”. Moreover, he believes that declarations of this kind fall into line with what is being sought by the leadership of the party. Those who, nevertheless, do not fall into that pharisaical rhetoric are the rank and file sectors of ARENA. In various declarations in televised programs dealing with the criticisms and indications of the founders, show their interest in getting to the bottom of the problems and to finding a quick solution to them. In other words, they see in the founders the possibility of regaining the hope lost by the ARENA leaders.

    Certainly, there is a good dosage of messianic prophecy in the pronouncements of the founders. Given the possibility of a future electoral debacle, they present themselves as ”the guardians of the principles and objectives” with which the party was founded. They are those who will offer salvation. In fact, Ricardo Valdivieso, the spokesperson of the founding fathers, does not rule out becoming the next president of the party and promises, should these “profound changes” take place, that “ARENA will once gain become the party with the strength it had some years ago but only in a period of 90 days”. Then, given such an affirmation, one must ask oneself if a disproportionate evaluation of the dimension of the changes and the dimensions of the problems does not exist. Are profound changes being proposed for superficial problems? What are the true motives and dimensions of the changes which are being proposed by the founders? Can they reconstruct the party structure mounted for the purpose of serving a group of businessmen? Profound changes also mean proposing a solution to economic and social problems of the population? A response to these doubts will have, evidently, to await the unfolding of what the founders of the party are planning to do. Nevertheless, in order to conceive of an analysis as things unfold, one must ask oneself: what do the founding fathers mean when they speak of returning to the principles and obeying the rank and file?

    The denunciation of authoritarianism at the heart of ARENA is nothing new. On various occasions, other sectors of the government party have demanded that they be heard and that the election procedures for candidates in public office should be democratized. It is especially the case on the question of past elections, they hold the mechanism of subjective designation of the majority of the candidates responsible for the failure at the polls. From the point of view of one sector of ARENA, it was precisely this mechanism which predisposed aspirants with no popular support to failure while those which did indeed enjoy this kind of support were relegated to the back burner by members of COENA. So it is that if the criticism as to verticalism in the party and a lack of connection with the bases for which the party is criticized does not come as a surprise, what is indeed a novelty is the receptive attitude with which recent criticisms have been received. This new attitude is not to be explained only as a result of the moral weight wielded by the founding fathers. It is, rather, in good measure, the consciousness of the need for a change in ARENA which has been growing progressively. For this reason it would not be at all strange that, for good or ill, a journey towards the democratization of the government party is being undertaken. Everything depends on the willingness of the leaders to give up old ways of functioning and to deal with the obstacles and fears of the democratization process. A process of this magnitude could be advantageous for the political party system in particular and for Salvadoran society in general.

    Another element upon which the process of democratization in ARENA will depend is the fact of how strongly the ARENA party leaders feel about the “communist menace”. When the party's founding members speak of a return to its original principles, one should not forget that the principles and objectives of ARENA are related to what has been called “the communist menace”. Given this logic, as the new state of affairs is characterized by a growth in sympathy for the FMLN, the right would have to feel threatened. This would explain the messianic intervention of the founders; it is a question of giving security to the right-wing whose interests could be threatened by the electoral ascent of the left. In this sense, it is very probable that the changed announced in ARENA is more owing to the willingness of the right-wing to protect its threatened interests than of the goodness, nobility and patriotism of the group of founders.
 
    Definitively speaking, it should be understood that the current state of affairs in ARENA as a force for the right for recuperating lost or threatened ground. It is a movement towards internal readjustment. It is a question of demonstrating to society that ARENA is on the road to renewal. By the bye, a sector of businessmen is reaccommodating themselves as they have, up to now, been marginalized: this is the agricultural sector. For this reason, the measures for reactivating the agricultural sector are taking place at this point in time. These are measures destined to satisfy the interests of a group of discontented ARENA party members who represent a problem for the internal stability of the party.

ECONOMY

    Last May 4, President Francisco Flores announced the upcoming implementation of the “Agricultural and Livestock Policy and National Agrarian Administration 1999-2004”, with which it aims to make his offerings specific on the question of the search for the reactivation of the agricultural and livestock sector —statements which he made in June, 1999 in his inaugural speech. The aforementioned policy contemplates diverse measures involving the preparation of 1,000 kilometers of roads up to and including an increase in customs and tariffs for agricultural and livestock products, which, according to Flores, are necessary because “all of the countries in the world protect their agricultural and livestock sector and we are not going to be different in this sense”.

    It should be clear, then, that the objective of his agricultural and livestock policy is the protection of agriculture the clearest examples of which are an increase in tariffs and protections for agricultural and livestock products and the assignment of 1,000 million colones in credit for the coffee-growing sector. Given the foregoing, this policy demonstrates a clear rupture with that which follows it during almost the whole decade of 1990 for the first two ARENA administrations, especially because during this period a profound process of lowering tariff and customs barriers took place.

    President Flores also announced that within his plan he contemplated other initiatives such as the adoption of measures for creating a macro-economic policy which “favors agriculture”; the promotion of principal products of agro-exportation; guarantees for judicial security in landholding, the preparation of 1,000 kilometers of roads, the elimination of exemptions from the Value Added Tax (IVA) —which is already publicly known— (Proceso 899) and the re-structuring of the banks offering credits.

    Nevertheless, the most significant measures are the increases in customs and the credit fund for the coffee-producing sector, which not only has economic implications but political implications as well. The customs protections break with the tendency towards the liberalization of commerce which the government still continues in some international negotiations, while the fund for the coffee-growing sector reflects clear intentions for favoring this group in particular, which, although it is nothing new, is open to discussion vis-à-vis the reality of Salvadoran agriculture where the most impoverished sectors live and they are certainly not coffee-growers.

    The lifting of tariff and customs barriers has been one of the bulwarks of the economic policy of the first two ARENA administrations during the decade of the 1990's. So it is that customs and tariffs have been reduced from levels close to 270% up to a maximum of 20%, with the objective of raising competitive capability for the national productive sectors, which must compete with imported products increasing their efficiency in the use of resources.

    The basis of this policy was the supposition that , parallel to the increase in importations arising from the lifting of customs and tariffs, an increase of major proportions in exports, but what is certain is that this has not happened and imports have grown much more than exports is to be implied, dangerously increasing the balance of trade deficit. More serious, still, is that the reduction of tariffs and customs has provoked a sharp process of substitution of national production for imported production, which has affected the different productive sectors related to agriculture as well as industry.

    In this scenario, the recent announcement of President Francisco Flores that he would increase the tariffs applicable to agricultural and livestock products is a piece of good news for national producers given that there exists a greater possibility for competition if the prices of imported produce would increase in a significant degree with the additional cost of the increase in tariffs (in some cases increases in customs and tariffs from 15% to 40% would be applied in the case of meat and canned goods).

    Consumers, on the other hand, will have to pay higher prices for all products affected by the customs and tariff increases. These would also include corn, rice, sorghum, liquid milk, yogurt, cheese, fruits and vegetables. It is not yet known with any exactitude what inflationary impact these new customs and tariffs will bring with them, but it is clear enough that there will be a strong transfer of income from urban sectors to rural sectors, which, although this could turn out to be beneficial for the rural sectors could limit the satisfaction of basic necessities in urban sectors which are near the poverty line. In some cases a transference of income from urban to rural is justified, but in this situation in particular, nothing will guarantee that small producers —or poor rural producers— will receive the benefits of this economic policy because they have not developed the technical productive capacities which would convert the peasant sector into a sector offering agriculture and livestock products.

    The subsidy to coffee producers offered by President Flores will not be the first that the coffee producers have received, given that in 1992 then-president Alfredo Cristiani earmarked 45 million dollars for subsidies to coffee prices (see Proceso 527 and 528). More than eight years have passed since then and the coffee producing sector continues debating the heavy reductions and slight price recovery. And although they might succeed in paying the funding that the government offers, it no longer represents a viable option for substantially increasing agricultural exports.

    No one can deny that the shady coffee-producing fields contain the greater part of the few remaining forests in El Salvador and that, from an ecological perspective, their preservation is justified. However, one ought also not to forget the fact that coffee has had its economic importance lowered with the fall in international prices for coffee and, moreover, even in its period of greatest splendor did not signify an option for overcoming structural poverty conditions for peasant populations. The foregoing is a sustainable premise if we consider that according to the product income matrix of 1990, coffee growers spend hardly less than 29% of the added value on remunerations and up to 65% as an surplus for exploitation. Moreover high levels of concentration exist in coffee production, benefits and exports.

    The agricultural and livestock policy announced by the current government has two different matrices: on the one hand, it breaks with the practice developed by the two previous administrations, evidencing, with this, that the results of the lessening of customs and tariff barriers has not been a satisfactory process; On the other hand, the policy reiterates its commitment with the sectors which traditionally have affected economic power in El Salvador, in this case the big and medium-sized farmers.

    Nevertheless, the aforementioned policy still does not touch the basic problem of the agricultural and livestock sector: the poverty of the peasant sector and its isolation from the formal channels of production, commercialization, exportation, financing, and even the payment of taxes. The elimination of the exemptions on IVA, credit for the reactivation of the coffee-producing sector and the increasing customs and tariffs only benefit a little the peasant sector which is not registered as a contributor, does not grow coffee and, above all, only generates products for self-consumption. All in all, it cannot be denied that the agricultural and livestock policy aims to take up some for the real problems which the big and medium-sized farmers confront. It remains to be seen if they are dealt with the same interest and pragmatism as the topics of re-structuring of the banks offering credit and productive technical assistance for the rural sector.

SOCIETY

    No one denies that the biased elections of the President of the Legislative Assembly represents a step backwards in terms of the political behavior our country needs. We now see, after many years, the possibility that rotating powers within the Legislative body might become a politically instituted practice; but those who have taken over today the means for procuring this alternability make it unnatural when they submit it to their interests in an evident attempt to make it impossible for the opposition to exercise in a full and egalitarian manner its quota of power in the leadership body of the Assembly. The conjunct of votes which succeeded in reforming the internal regulations of the legislative body have left the country the same flavor as when the PCN, after challenging the governing party on various legal initiatives, end up submitting themselves to ideological control of its principal political benefactors. The right again strengthens its ties and feels itself with sufficient power to hold back the movement of the parliamentary opposition.

    A little more than a week of work has been enough for the new Legislative Assembly to show worrisome signs with regard to its political behavior; signs sufficient to lead us to hope for very little in the three years of legislative administration which have recently begun. Evidently, optimism is what least awakened by the Legislative Assembly. Today more than ever, this state body has become the perfect scenario for imposition. The necessity to engage in consensus-building lags behind, the courage which he who demands and exercises his right to dissent lags behind, as does the possibility to breathe life into a national agenda. In its place, the Salvadorans can feel sure that they will have many more under the table agreements and “high level” arrangements —inasmuch as there are some few, politically privileged, who participate in them— in the long run. Below we will glance at some of the facts which turn out to be fundamental at the point in time when drawing lines with regard to the behavior of the political factions in the Assembly and in the movements which their leaders could make in the future.

The election of the leadership body of the Legislative Assembly

    The election of the president and that of some of the members of the leadership body of that legislative entity have exhibited clear signs of conspiracy. First of all, for having placed in the presidency a very questionable politician with a doubtful work record during his term in the Comptrollers Office and, behind the scenes, for leading the PCN hand in hand with ARENA in each and every motion which the government party presented. Behind the urgency to set Ciro Cruz Zepeda in the leadership position —a man whom the news media have tried to present as an opportunist, anxious for political leadership since his incorporation in the PCN— was the evident intention to deny the FMLN its place inside the correlation of powers in the Legislative Assembly. The message was clear: the votes which the left party garnered in past elections did not oblige the right to allow for arm twisting in the struggle for political domination. The will of the electorate, ever inclined towards a single political offering, turns out to have very little value in the game of symbolic representations which were developed around the leadership positions in the parliament.

    These political interests came together at a propitious moment and, as a consequence, those called upon to take their place were few. And this was precisely another of the negative characteristics of the exercise of politics in the new Assembly: neutralize anyone who smells of opposition. Of the four vice-presidencies of the congress, two will remain empty throughout this entire year, as if they wished, in this way, to call to mind the negative “capriciousness” of the FMLN deputies. Meanwhile, the small parties took a walk, hoping that some of the right-wing forces would invite them to sit down at the legislative banquet. So it was that the conformation of the new junta was not just a blow to the FMLN. In this case, the conspiracy went beyond the conformation and touched the minor parties such as the CDU and PAN for whom the terms of the negotiations never joined together, first of all, the two principal political forces and, then, afterwards, the factions of the right.

The new “right-wing political block”

    In this sense, another worrisome fact is the construction of the so-called “political block” between ARENA, the PDC and the PCN, traditional political allies within the Salón Azul [where the Legislative Assembly meets. Translator's note] during the past legislative session. The express motivation of this alliance has been laid out in very simple terms: obstruct the initiatives and postures of the FMLN, now that it has a relative advantage in the legislative body. It is said that the FMLN will be given a lesson for its systematic counterweight to “conjunctural decisions”, as in the case of the approval of international loans. From this perspective, this “political block” does not represent a novelty in and of itself. Its existence was almost assured from the point in time that the work of these three factions began to work in harmony in 1997 and, even more, when that work began to bring benefits to those in the alliance. The PCN could feel sure that it held control of the Comptrollers Office while it did not dare to raise its voice to the political godfathers of ARENA. And some leaders of the PDC have preferred to offer support for the government party in exchange for cash payments, although the truth of this finger-pointing is still to be determined.

    What is of much concern now is the open recognition presented by the alliance, the pretension of which is to consolidate right-wing power in the Assembly. Behind this decision appears with clarity the impossibility of recognizing the right to participate of each and every one of the elected deputies by the voters on questions of national interest. This opposition is worthy of the most absolute marginalization for dealing with the projects of national interest, independently of the validity or applicability of its arguments. In this way, one of the most important implications of this alliance is its intent to strengthen the steamroller effect at the moment when legislative proposals are brought up for consideration in the assembly.

    If, in May, 1997, it was thought that the correlation of forces in the Legislative Assembly would assure a richer discussion of the national democratic order, with the alliance of the right-wing parties it was confirmed that the political variety which has characterized the last two legislative sessions does not correspond to the quality of political exercise. This is so because after almost nine years since the signing of the peace Accords, it is still evident that the differences between the right and the left have not been overcome, and neither have those between officialist opposition. The arrangement between ARENA, the PDC and the PCN are owing to the exercise of that particular logic: the more committed politicians join one of these two tendencies —in this case, that of the right-wing— the more the possibility for punishing the opponent grows by turning its back on his proposals and arguments.

    In the same way, the possibility also increases that the rules of the democratic game are handled at the whim of the political parties. It cannot be denied that the three factions which have decided to form the block have sufficient power for advancing in proposals which require a simple majority. This power of manipulation on matters of “conjunctural political decisions”, as it has come to be called, leaves the door open for the parliamentary dynamic to continue to be the means of blaming those who play the game of power badly, in order to defend the entrenchment of functionaries and/or parties in public positions and, above all, in order to oblige the country to step back from the consolidation of a State of Law. So it is that each and every vote won in favor of the block nourishes the effectiveness of that criterion of imposition and, as a consequence, weakens the necessary consensus-building between political forces which have been heard since the FMLN incorporated itself into the political arena during the 1994 elections.

The elections of the heads of faction

    The right-wing members the legislative body are doing all they can to consolidate their line of work in the Legislative Assembly. This is evidenced in the recent naming of René Figueroa and Francisco Merino as heads of the ARENA and PCN factions, respectively. In both cases, the criterion which rules the selection of the ideal person for channeling the ideas of the deputies and for giving them shape on the basis of legislative commitments is not precisely that of a political opening. On the contrary, personalities have been chosen who have been characterized neither for their legislative work for an objective analysis of national reality nor for their capacity for garnering support vis-à-vis the rest of the political forces. In them, the deputies of those political parties can feel the surety of seeing representatives of their most inveterate ideological principles.

    The placement René Figueroa at the head of the faction can be read as part of the same strategy used with he elections of Francisco Flores in this post at the beginning of the previous Legislative session and who was substituted by Walter Araujo when he occupied the presidency of the Assembly. It is a question of distancing from this legislative post those who might identify themselves most easily with orthodox ARENA party lines who could remain in the party for a long time, since the time, in fact, when its errors began to be incubated. But nothing in the political background of Figueroa would make one think that he will know how to play his role as coordinator not only of the work of the ARENA grouping, but of the joint work required in the Legislative assembly. Far form that, his parliamentary work has been distinguished by adopting, with extreme facility, the authoritarian behavior of his successors, for maintaining the use of ridicule of the other as a repeated tool in the legislative discussion and for unfurling the banner of attack without giving quarter as they face the political rivals of the party.

    Of Francisco Merino nothing very good or hopeful can be said, either. Aside from being stained with a scandalous destitution from the presidency of the Comptrollers Office, his ARENA origins locate him as a just another recalcitrant politician, filled with repulsion for all that might be equitable —in his twisted perception of the things— with communism. For this reason, ARENA could be pleased with his election. The political marriage of these two parties can be guaranteed for a long period of time. To this panorama might be added the head of the FMLN faction, Salvador Sánchez Cerén, whose placement at the head of the faction does not break with the old criterion that those who have the most merit for having been in command of the party are those who played a historical role in the armed struggle. The belief that those who had the capacity to take up arms and confront the mechanisms of power have the same capacity on the political plane rears its head again among the rank and file of the FMLN. The leaders of the party have lost no ground in the struggle to “appropriate the political structure for themselves”.

What can be hoped for from the opposition

    But conclusions for the future cannot be extracted only from the political behavior of the right-wing legislative participants. It remains to be seen what the FMLN is capable of, together with the rest of the parties which for now are relegated to the group of opposition parties, when they begin their political practice inside the Salvadoran congress. In the worst of cases what could happen during the next three years is that this opposition will lend itself to the game of biased manipulation of the legislative dynamics. Definitively speaking, after the demonstration of the political force which it just suffered at the hands of the right-wing, the FMLN and the small parties have a lot to demand. But this does not imply that they ought to renounce the commitments acquired when the voters elected them, during the electoral campaign when they obtained the leadership of the country, by means of their constitutional mandate. The undeniable power which the FMLN holds ought not to serve to seek to impose itself in a match with the right-wing block. If this were to come to pass, it is a fact that many stories of stagnation, being at loggerheads and sterile fights are still to be seen in the Legislative Assembly.

    In its place, what can be hoped for is that this opposition shows that the application of political pressure does not necessarily imply playing dirty; that the FMLN and its potential allies are capable of pushing the rest of the factions towards a serious analysis of national reality. And this necessarily implies renouncing the subjective whimsical transgressions of an institutional order and the political handling of state institutions. Definitively speaking, the will to enter into consensus-building which has so much spoken of among the legislators in the days before taking up their posts has evaporated in the midst of the maneuver to name the president and the leader of this state organ. What remains is to allow the right-wing block to show its behavior by exhibiting a lack or democratic principles which is, in the last analysis, foreign to the needs which still persist in national transition. The opposition must free itself of this pattern of behavior if it can, at some future date, be said that they are truly interested in making of national political practice a renewed modality of seeking solutions and points of intersection between all political forces —not just with those which are most convenient for determinate groups, but those which offer major benefits to the country as a whole.