Between the change and the candidate, the FMLN chose the candidate

ARENA: ready, steady, go

ARENA celebrated its 22st ordinary General Assembly on October 12th. In this Assembly the party announced several changes for its directive board, the ratification of the candidate Antonio Saca was made, and they decided to reject the alliances. In other words, the members of the official party have assumed that they will win the next presidential elections. To reject the coalitions that were allegedly approved by the foundations of the party, is a clear expression of their confidence. Therefore, it can be predicted that the last changes in the directive board of ARENA point at the delimitation of the hegemonic groups and the priorities that Saca’s group will defend.

Saca, a President?
The recently celebrated General Assembly not only insisted to present Antonio Saca in the most spectacular way possible. Those who were present in the Assembly also decided to put him on a throne as the President of the country. A whole series of elements –the use of certain symbols of the Executive power and the tone of the discourse, for example- allow to affirm that ARENA is trying hard to demonstrate that the next president is already elected. It does not matter if the candidate in question is able to listen or if he is honest. The members of ARENA are not afraid to say that he is the best candidate to resolve the problems of the country.

What were the symbols of the Executive power used during the discourse presented by Saca? There was a cadet behind him next to the National Flag. Even if there is not a law to regulate this kind of events, anyone who has followed the routines of the State’s power know that only the President, and during the official events, can be accompanied by this symbol. During the meeting of ARENA, which was not an official meeting –even if the country’s most important leader were gathered there-, discretely, the President ordered the presence of a cadet for Antonio Saca.

There are no doubts about the effect that they are after with this provocation. They intend to penetrate in the minds of the population presenting Saca as a consecrated president. They have gone from an alleged advantageous position in the opinion polls to the promotion of a definitive victory. It is evident that we are before a wisely orchestrated deceiving campaign.

The members of ARENA are trying to get the population used to the idea of seeing Saca as their president. The members of ARENA define the country as “exemplar”, because of its democratic institutional recuperation after 12 years of civil war. That is why it seems odd that the Armed Forces accept to participate in the scenes prepared for Saca’s “coronation”, during the formerly mentioned meeting. An institution that is worried about its independence and its professionalism cannot participate in this ostentatious games of power that the members of the official party play. All of this pictures, without a doubt, the professional level and the pro-governmental posture of the Armed Forces in El Salvador. As it looks, it is still far from being a professional institution, distant from the fluctuations of the political life, a political life that several people claim to have built after the Peace Accords.

On the other hand, the discourse of Saca tried to avoid the proper arguments of the candidates, in order to present himself as the elected president. The candidate intended to set new standards for his future obligations. That is why his advisors wrote for him such a critical discourse, critical about his own party. However, in his discourse he seemed to believe that his party has been virtuous enough to change the face of El Salvador. He kept for himself the task of neutralizing the violence of the gangs, and take care of several economic and social issues that have been neglected. Among other aspects, Saca declared that he commits himself to “transform all the efforts that the last administrations have made in the macroeconomic and the social grounds into favorable actions for the population. Therefore, this government will be close to the people, and it will hold the social flag high”. The leading bets of this administration will be education, health, employment, and the fight against delinquency.

By the way, the paraphernalia that accompanied Saca’s discourse has not gone beyond approaching several common issues. Even if he spoke about corruption, he did not say how will he fight it in an efficient way, or what are the measures that he will take to end with a business in which several members of his party participate. This is an unmistakable sign for those who thought that, if he were to be elected, Saca would contribute with new elements, in relation to the former ARENA administrations. In other words, the discourse of the good intentions of Saca does not intend to attack the principle of the patrimonial State, which is at the service of the business elite that support his candidacy.

In addition, Saca made an emphasis on his idea to launch a crusade for the social values once he becomes president. The Salvadoran population should be worried about this because the members of ARENA are known for their hypocrisy when it comes to values. While many of them become wealthier because the State protects their companies that sell alcohol, while they preach about the effects of alcohol in a family. In the past, these discourses about the rescue of the social values have collided with the individual freedom. An those are the values that the candidate of ARENA defends. It seems odd that the candidate of a party that has violated fundamental individual freedoms for the last 15 years –freedom of speech, freedom to work, the right to get an education, and the right to have access to a health program- now uses the slogan “Let’s speak with freedom”.

This is how Antonio Saca presented himself in the convention organized by ARENA portraying the image that the opinion polls reveal: as the president of the country. However, no matter how creative the members of ARENA try to be, it will be necessary to wait until March to know if most of the Salvadoran electorate shares the same opinion about ARENA. In the meantime, the campaign launched by ARENA can only be interpreted as an exercise of political communication that intends to convince the people about the greatness of the candidate. In the end, this is a political propaganda, and many of these things are valid in an electoral campaign. The fairness or the failure of such strategy will be revealed when the result of the elections becomes public on March 21st.

Precisely because of this reason, the leaders of ARENA should be more careful with the symbols that they choose, and with the elements that they use in their propaganda. The fact that they have access to the resources of the State does not allow them, or any party, to use the national symbols to promote a candidate. When they do this, they attempt against the democratic institutional performance. This has been the case of the aforementioned use of the Armed Forces.

By the way, the members of the FMLN should denounce both the sectarian and the political event that is taking place with the use of the Armed Forces for the political propaganda, instead of putting themselves against the Cubans who slandered the Communist Castro regime of the island. This idea about discrediting any opinion of a foreign person in relation to the political life sounds like an old fashioned discourse, far from the present reality. If the same rule was valid for the Salvadorans who live abroad, they would not even have the right to organize themselves in order to defend their rights. The leaders of the FMLN should be worried about convincing the Salvadoran electorate of the party’s capacity to deal with the public issues, instead of using the xenophobic and the hypocritical argument that ARENA usually does against the foreign people who criticize their administration. This pathetic reaction to the presence of the Cubans in the ordinary General Assembly of the official party is perhaps an eloquent sample of how far the FMLN really is from the changes that it has promised to make in the political administration of the country.

The COENA exudes optimism
In addition to the “coronation” of the presidential candidate, the ordinary General Assembly of ARENA chose new authorities for the party. These changes in the directive board announced by the party are not enough to speak of a new direction. Although the stability of the most important positions is a relevant feature, ARENA has showed a hesitating attitude in the last few days. Ever since the results of the municipal elections were made public, the party has had three different presidents at the head of the directive board, and it has gone through several internal transformations. The most relevant episode of this situation was the departure of Roberto Murray Meza from the COENA.

With these antecedents, it is necessary to say that, thanks to the positive results that the different public opinion polls reveal, the waters are now peaceful in ARENA. The words of their candidate give us an idea about how much the present members of the COENA trust each other. They said that “this COENA feels that there is a bond between us and the country, it is not the same COENA of March; we have an enthusiastic ARENA, convinced about defending democracy, and about fighting to administrate the country in a responsible way”. The different changes that have taken place are confirming, most of all, the pole of power that is being organized around Antonio Saca. To somehow put it into words, those who are the present members of the COENA are those who did bet for the candidacy of Saca, those who are trying to make a profit out of their bet.

In this context, President Flores is, perhaps, the character who has seen his level of power grow weaker inside his party. After the unsuccessful attempt of Mauricio Sandoval in his struggle to obtain the presidential candidacy, and the public critics that Flores received because of his administration, ARENA took a different turn. The honorary presidents and other influential sectors of the business elite imposed the candidacy of Saca. Saca, even with his intellectual limitations, was their adequate candidate, in a context where different sectors of ARENA confronted themselves claiming for several substantial changes in the internal life of the party.

That is why the celebration of ARENA will continue until the results of the next elections are revealed. As long as the opinion polls keep reflecting a massive support to Saca’s candidacy, even the most arbitrary actors –some of them are not happy with the changes that have taken place inside the COENA-, will not find support in the press. Those who will be left out of ARENA have no choice but to believe that the present team has a victory ahead. However, in case that the results of the elections do not confirm this prediction, ARENA will collapse as it did after the last municipal elections.

The North American strategy worked

The departure of both Guatemala and Costa Rica from the G-21 confirms the dissuasive power of Robert Zoellick, the Superintendent of External Trade of the United States. His visit, which only lasted a few days, was enough for the aforementioned countries to abandon the group of less developed nations that were looking to keep a united position in the negotiations of the World’s Trade Organization (OMC, in Spanish). A possible interpretation of the events is that Central America has abandoned the opportunity to be heard in the free trade negotiations.

El Salvador had already abandoned the group by the time its representatives said that there would not be any easy agreements about the protectionist measures, in the reunion of the OMC that took place in Cancun. The position of the G-21 demanded an open attitude from the United States and the European Union for the products of the less developed nations, in order to compensate the existing differences.

There was little hope when both the Guatemalan and the Costa Rican governments said that their association with the G-21 was not an issue in the agenda of Zoellick’s visit. There are a couple of evident aspects in this situation. In the first place, the fact that Zoellick’s arrival would take place immediately after the failure of the negotiations in Cancun. In the second place, the fact that Guatemala and Costa Rica changed their minds after Zoellick’s tour ended.

An quick change
The Minister of Economy of Guatemala, Patricia Ramirez, declared after her meeting with Zoellick –which took place on October 2nd – that her country would not walk out of the G-21. However, it seems that the Guatemalan government suddenly changed its mind. In the following week, Ramirez said that they would walk out of the group because this one “has been politicized” because the G-21 “has adopted a different course, and, by fighting against the agricultural subsidies, it has forgotten to guarantee the access to the markets, and that is why it has been politicized”. Quite a poor argument that does not speak about the actual reasons for making that decision. Evidently, free trade is an issue that goes beyond the economic aspects. In fact, it is impossible to consider the economy as something chemically pure, that is, without the “contamination” of politics.

The free trade issue is so political that it has become emblematic, and it is an unavoidable aspect of the pre-electoral agenda of the Salvadoran political parties. The fact that the present governments of the country have made out of the free trade agreement with the United States one of the vertices of their economic policy is also an emblematic issue. To state that they have to walk out of the G-21 because of its “politicization”, would be as absurd as to say that they have to abandon the project because it is too involved with the economy.

The same arguments have been used by the Costa Rican government, which dropped the project earlier than Guatemala did. For Costa Rica, Zoellick made a couple of demands: to open the telecommunication’s market, and their departure from the G-21. This decision has been imitated by Peru and Colombia. The “G-X”, as the Brazilian chancellor, Celso Amorim, calls it because of its different parts, still includes eleven Latin American countries.

If the “politicization” of the group was obvious when it questioned the United States and the EU in Cancun, why Costs Rica and Guatemala did not leave the G-21 as El Salvador did, before the situation became more difficult? Let us see what kind of “politicization” actually caused the departure of the aforementioned countries from the G-21. This group showed in Cancun that it was strong enough at least to make a pause in a negotiation in which the promoters are interested to speed the process, without leaving much time to analyze the social implications of the free trade. While they would not contradict the world’s most powerful countries –especially the United States-, something as political as a group of less developed countries seeking to establish a common agenda in connection to the free trade, the G-21 would have been all right. It sounds as if the defense of the commercial interests of a block of countries would have to be peaceful, something that would not cause any frictions with the countries that are after other interests.

It is evident that if the trade between nations were not a mixture of different interests, it would not make any sense to establish a negotiation. The G-21 has been built realizing that there are different interest between the developed and the less developed nations. The countries that became a part of this project have worked under this perspective. Now it turns out that the G-21 is contaminated with politics and that, therefore, it is now a brittle project.

That is why Zoellick’s visit intended to undermine the consensus around the G-21, and reaffirm it around the CAFTA, the free trade agreement between Central America and the United States. A CAFTA that, by the way, is not perfect, even if the Central American countries have not been able to join forces among themselves to defend their “sensible issues”, such as agriculture, for instance.

It has not been necessary for the Central American countries to take “politicized” positions –that is, a position “against the interests of the United States”- to slow down the negotiations in the most recent discussions. Each country realized about the negative aspects of the free trade agreement with Washington, and how this will affect their economic activities. That was enough to slow down the rhythm of the negotiations –the “fats track” craved by the Bush administration-. The negotiations are stagnated not only because those involved stopped and listened to the claims of the civilian society, but also because those negotiations crate more doubts and less certainties about the alleged benefits. Only a few administrations completely defend the CAFTA, as if it were the panacea of the economic problems.

When the free trade begins to contradict the interests of a variety of social and economic sectors –and not only the interests of those social groups that reject globalization-, it is destined to cause friction. The “politicization”, that is the reaction of those affected by the free trade agreements, will have to be seen not as a threat, but as a request to get the attention of the promoters of these projects.

So far, it seems that only the recommendations made by Zoellick have gotten the necessary attention. The G-21 runs the risk of becoming a “G-X” if the countries that integrate it do not consolidate an adequate agenda connected with their interests, in order to create a following common agenda between the less developed nations. This could be the starting point of the consensus between those countries.