The proposal of the FMLN

The FMLN reveals its intentions

Very few people in El Salvador could deny that they know about the political intentions of the FMLN. However, before August 14th, a date in which this party presented its “Consultative document for the construction of a nation’s project”, there was not one single text that would explain, from an integral and an long term perspective, the vision that the left-wing party has about the country. With the text “Democracy, prosperity, and social justice, the FMLN’s followers seem to insist on filling that empty space. The project would represent an important step towards an improved institutional performance, not only for their political project, but it would also help to support the direction of its political battle. From now on, the FMLN will know what to expect from the party, at the same time that its representatives at the state’s institutions will have a sort of a journal to guide their steps.

Their aspirations are that this document becomes the base of the FMLN’s national project for the next decade. However, it barely had a positive echo in the main circles of the economic and the political power. The right-wing newspapers quickly rejected it, for allegedly attacking the freedom of the press: this rejection did nothing but reflect its objection to accept the diagnosis contained in the document about the country’s situation and the performance of the informative media. The rest of the political parties, when they did not ignore it, they said that it was nothing but an internal activity of the left-wing party that did not have much to do with them. However, if it grows, the FMLN’s proposal could affect the position and the possibilities of the rest of the parties.

It is necessary to examine the contents of the document to see how original it is, besides the propaganda around its presentation. The diagnosis that acts as a foundation for the document explains that “El Salvador needs to be transformed”. There is not much to say here, because at this point, despite the reluctance of some people, it is a cliché to say that the present economic, social and political model is far from being inclusive and that it condemns most of the population to live an infra-human life. In addition, the present model keeps moving away from a new society (those dreams were included in the Peace Agreements). There is no doubt that, juts as it is explained in the document, “the Salvadoran state has not guaranteed the fundamental human rights, and it has turned its back on its social obligations”.

The aspects that should be considered as the most important ones ought to be those related with the strategy, the compromises, and the democratic model. About the strategy to develop the transformation proposal, those who prepared the FMLN’s document were far from achieving that purpose. The reader becomes disconcerted –expecting a series of specific, regulated and measurable steps that would lead to the main objective- because of the ambiguity of the approach. It actually looks like a series of merciful votes that speak, ultimately, about the human side of the project. It is poorly explained how the country’s necessary transformations will be accomplished, they seem to confuse their objective with the method to achieve them. “The representative economic, social and political democracy is an objective, a life system, a task, and a method in that project”. Therefore, when someone wonders what is the strategy that the FMLN will follow, the answer would be “a representative economical, social and political democracy”. This idea could mean a lot of different things in terms of an electoral propaganda. However, it could technically mean very little for a document that intends to be a framework for a political party.

However, the FMLN took the time to identify some of the factors that could have a strong influence on the implementation of its project. This is the case of the social participation, the end of the polarization process, and the materialization of certain agreements with the business elite, among other factors. It is important to make an emphasis on this subject, since it represents a turning point in how this left-wing party approaches the national problems. In the past, the FMLN leaders did not usually consider the specific obstacles that their political and their electoral proposals would face. That is why they have usually found themselves without any resources to negotiate or to take advantage of certain aspects of the parliamentary arithmetic, as it has happened during this legislature.

As for its compromises, the FMLN shows its disposition to work for the construction of a “representative and an active democracy”. It also intends to “develop knowledge and culture as the fundamental source for the economic and the social development; to turn the wealth into a democratic feature; to develop the productive forces; to increase the income and the welfare of the population; to recuperate the national currency (colones), and to strengthen the integration of the Salvadorans who live abroad”. There is no doubt that these elements could technically help to change the economic, the political and the social environment of the country. However, once again, the question about how to develop a strategy to achieve these changes comes along. The hysteria attacks that some analysts have suffered cannot be justified. They insist to see the incarnation of a red devil in the “democratization of the wealth” proposal.

As far as the “democratic model” is concerned, the FMLN confirms its humanist conception of the state and its tasks. It has to be a decentralized regulatory device, and it has to be socially responsible from a common welfare perspective. On their own, the FMLN’s leaders compromise themselves to perform an active, a transparent, and an honest administration. Actually, if the present governmental model is considered, the country does need a little transparency and honesty when it comes to discuss the public administration issue.

In addition to the specific deficiencies that have been discussed in this article, the question is if the model proposed by the left-wing party has any possibilities to become a reality. It is also necessary to ask how will the state obtain the resources to accomplish all of these tasks that the FMLN has listed.

The left-wing party’s leaders should tell the population how expensive will their economic project be in terms of a direct investment (made by the state) during this decade. However, this information cannot be found in its proposal. They do not mention anything about the economic cost of the reforms. On the other hand, it would be really helpful if the FMLN’s leaders would start to think about the need to reform the judicial system. This aspect cannot be found in their proposal, they only mention it in terms of the juridical security. However, it is well known that among the country’s problems, the weakness of the justice system plays an important role.

In summary, the FMLN’s document about the country’s democratic needs, prosperity, and social justice has its flaws. It seems that those are circumstantial flaws as far as the ideology of the left-wing party is concerned. There is a lucid critic against the present system, but its proposals and how to accomplish them are the weak spots of the document.

The FMLN’s proposal: economic aspects

In less than eight months, the elections of both the municipal councils and the congressmen will take place. A year and a half away from the presidential elections, the FMLN has presented a new national proposal from its ideological and its political perspective. It is not the first time that the left-wing party adopts a posture on the country’s problems. During the last presidential elections, an electoral platform circulated. Back then, this platform proposed (for the economic field) to improve the employment situation, to create a new fiscal policy, to reform the financial system, to support the rural development, and to design a new policy for the industrial sector and for both the micro and the medium business companies (See Proceso 984).

The new proposal of the FMLN once again includes these aspects, explaining that it does not intend to be an electoral instrument, and that is why it presents a long term strategy (ten years). This goes beyond the administration period. Without a doubt, a quick overview to its contents evokes a different vision of the country. It is different from the economic policies that the government and that the private business sector presented. The proposal to “democratize the property” alone leads to question the “state of rights” that the right-wing eagerly defends. The same thing can be said about other proposals, which would intervene in the financial system or that could end with the dollarization process.

This article will briefly analyze the economic diagnosis of the document called “Democracy, prosperity, and social justice”. We will also review the strategies and the compromises presented in the document, and we will reflect over the possible implications that the implementation of an economic model could bring along.

According to the formerly mentioned document, the economic activity in El Salvador reveals that the “Neoliberal model digs deep into the underdevelopment phenomenon and into dependency”. In order to explain such affirmation, it is said that the productive sectors are paralyzed in El Salvador, the free trade negotiations intensify the economic dependence, and that the economic policy is being handled by the “oligopolies”. The poor development of the of the productive sectors is evident because the industrial activities have not been fully developed, the exportation model failed, the commercial balance keeps a growing deficit, and the exportations are mostly produced by the maquila industry.

On the other hand, it is considered that the free trade agreements “subject the country, the population, the nation, and our independence to the interests of the international capital”. The free trade agreements involve a complete commercial openness, the absence of performance standards for the new investments, and the elimination of the agricultural subsidies. As far as the financial sector is concerned, the diagnosis affirms that it has forced the state to put itself at the service of the accumulation of capital. This would explain measures such as privatization and dollarization, which would have consolidated the economic and the political power of the sector.

The diagnosis also includes reflections over the international insertion of El Salvador, which is based on the essential products. Its prices go beyond the country’s control and, what is worse, the policies of commercial openness and the abandonment of the agricultural policies are leading to the loss of a steady supply of the essential nutrients, and to a deep crisis inside the agricultural sector. The diagnosis also dedicates some space to the situation of the public finances; this point highlights the fact that the fiscal deficit is the result of the following: privatization, the elimination of the taxes on the capital, and corruption. In addition, it is mentioned that the public debt has reached higher levels (42% of the GNP, in 2001).

In summary, the FMLN sees a dislocated economy, with a paralyzed industry and a paralyzed agricultural sector. It also sees a Machiavellian economic policy, and a context where the tendencies towards the commercial openness, as well as the fiscal and the commercial deficit, would be driving the economy through a “growing structural debilitation”.

With this diagnosis, the document of the left-wing party presents a “development strategy”, that looks more like a public declaration about the conception of the country and the contents of the development model. The proposals are not exactly a strategy designed to reach an objective. The proposals are, most of all, a list of the contents and the objectives that could be reached with a strategy, but there is no explanation about what the components will be. For instance, it mentions the reduction of poverty; a steady supply of the essential nutrients; the consolidation of the regional integration activities; the economic, public, and cultural relations to respect the rest of the world; and the rupture of the illegitimate protection of the financial elite. However, it does not specify what will be the precise measures that will be included as policies, or how they will be applied.

As far as the compromises are concerned, some of them carry enormous social implications, such as for example, democratize the wealth, develop the productive forces, and increase the growth rates. Proposals about increasing the income, recuperating the national currency, and modifying the monetary policy are also included. The democratization of the wealth would be achieved by encouraging the development of the micro, the small, and the medium size business companies through favorable credit policies, and also through a progressive fiscal policy that would allow us to transfer to “the population a part of the national wealth that is socially produced”. A higher production level would be the result of the investment policies related with both the science and the technological field, the qualification of the business companies, the relaunch of the agricultural production, and the “encouragement of the economic freedom in favor of the society, the efficiency, and a healthy competition”.

On the other hand, to improve the income level, they propose to promote a higher generation of employment, to increase the labor qualification, to increase the real salary, to promote the establishment of the local development poles, and to create a banking system that can encourage the development activities. The restoration of the national currency would simply depend on the reestablishment of an “unrestricted circulation and the emission of the national currency”.

The FMLN’s economic proposal is destined to cause a controversial reaction in the governmental and in the private business sector -and in the news media that sympathizes with the governmental and the business circles-. Not just because it contradicts the victorious tone of the official discourse, but because it proposes important changes in the economic system and in the list of those who receive the benefits of the public policies. Most of the elements of the diagnosis are accurate; however, its foundations are weak. They recall the most imperative topics for the national agenda, such as: the dependency on the remittances and the maquila, the division of the economy, the chronic deficits, the slow growth, and the reduction of the poverty levels.

The point is to find new conciliatory formulas that can be added to the initiatives of the social reform, most of all in a context of opposing interests, and in which the prosperity of some people is resting on the worries of others. To drastically restructure the financial sector or to achieve the redistribution of the wealth through higher taxes or even to increase the minimum wage can be logical and advisable measures, but they could probably lead to the unacceptable levels of an ungovernable situation.

It is undeniable that there are clear problems that must be resolved, and for which it is necessary to develop a strategic plan able to involve most of the population, without necessarily excluding the minorities. A plan of this nature must redefine the role of the state in the promotion of the development process, since the state’s mission is not only to negotiate the free trade agreements and to take measures for its own liquidation.