False freedoms

Requiem for a project that was born dead

If the electoral predictions are accurate, on the evening of March 21st, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE, in Spanish) will announce the death of the presidential aspirations of the center coalition. The different opinion polls indicate that the coalition between the CDU-PDC will not work out all right. Apparently, Hector Silva, the presidential candidate for this coalition, was not able to get the attention of “the sector of the unhappy ones”, the people that have spoken about how much they reject both the FMLN and ARENA, the people that have refused to vote during the last elections. The last opinion poll presented by the Universidad Tecnologica, published on February 17th by the local press, seems to indicate that the candidate of the coalition is not moving ahead at all.

In less that a month, the elections will take place, and that means that the situation of the coalition has to be handled with care. This is no obstacle to examine the position of the center wing and its project. It is necessary to analyze the problems of those who intend to depolarize the Salvadoran political life. The reflections about this matter might contribute to enlighten the discussions between the leaders of the coalition, and this could lead them to reactivate their campaign and avoid a predictable (an a definitive) defeat.

A defeat that repeats itself
If the coalition is defeated during the next elections, the project of the center would be added to the list of parties that have crashed against the polarization wall. After the Peace Accords were signed, fourteen political parties that belonged to a center wing and that intended to depolarize the political life of the country have disappeared. Regardless of their ideological differences, all of these organizations have vindicated for themselves an influential status among ARENA and the FMLN.

As the different pieces of information seem to indicate, the so called “central” parties have not lived very long inside the electoral context after the Peace Accords took place. There have been many reasons to explain these failures. People usually talk about the lack of participation of the Salvadorans when it comes to vote, and how this affects the parties that consider themselves as political alternatives. This opinion intends to explain that both of the most important parties already count with an enormous amount of votes, an amount that represents more than 60% of those citizens who actually vote. The absence of the other 40% makes winning a sure thing for the extremes, at the same times that the central alternatives run the risk of disappearing. In other words, the only way to remain alive that these alternative political institutions have is to convince the other 40% to participate in the elections.

The different opinion polls that have been revealed throughout the year contradict this approach. All of them speak about a relevant growth of the electoral participation level. On the other hand, the presence of these new voters is no guarantee of a positive result for the coalition of the center. Therefore, it is necessary to wonder if the explanations are not accurate or if the opinion polls have not been able to reflect the political will of the new electorate. In either case, it is necessary to wait for the results in order to have a clearer idea of this matter. Those responsible for the coalition should consider a very recent background note. During last year’s legislative elections, the amount of voters increased. However, that was not reflected in the results obtained by the parties of the center wing. On the contrary, One of the two poles received the benefits brought by the new voters, and that created an even more polarized political situation in the system.

The center against the left wing
The story of the continuous failure of the parties that belong to the political center is an invitation to wonder what is the factor that this force is actually lacking in order to occupy an important place in the country’s political life. To dream with higher levels of participation is not enough to achieve this goal. Is this a lack of political pragmatism? The thesis of a political pragmatism has been continuously defended by those who analyze this kind of subjects. Substantially, the argument is about underlining the end of the utopias of the left wing, which conceived an economic revolution in order to attend the needs of the less fortunate ones.

Those who agreed with this perspective (some of the former militants of the guerrilla), sustain that Neoliberalism is the only way to reach prosperity. In a somehow distorted version of the thesis promoted by the philosopher Hans Geor Gadamer about the alleged superiority of the cultures that have survived until the end of history, it is said that the best sample of the superiority of a Neoliberal Capitalism can be found in its undefeatable superiority over the Soviet Block and its proposals of social and economic freedom. Some believe that any project of the central wing should undertake this premise and move further defending an unlimited freedom of the market, and the rights of the business elite. This thesis is called “pragmatism”, and this is the message for the projects of the political parties of the center.

However, regardless of how appropriate this thesis might be, the main defenders of pragmatism, and those who do not give credit to the left wing have personally experienced the failure of the central project. Despite their alleged brilliant ideas, the superiority of their concepts, and the way they defend them, they have been irrelevant items that have not been able to transform the country’s political life.

The defenders of the pragmatic logic do not dare to judge their continuous political failures in the light of the theory that they defend. This should not lead to a discussion about the pseudo-theory of pragmatism, but it should encourage a reflection about the genesis of those who lead the projects of the center. They have seemed to imply that their project mostly obeys to an anti-left wing propaganda. The so called “new” left wing usually denounces the allegedly inappropriate and orthodox behavior of their former colleagues. They usually accuse them of not having understood the true spirit of the Peace Accords.

However, beyond their mutual complaints, it is important to remember that the first expression of this political modernization project was the Pact of San Andres. At the time, a few days after the celebration of that electoral event, the congressmen that recommended an open attitude in the new left wing also supported the governmental project aimed to increase the Value Added Tax (IVA, in Spanish). Since then, it is known for a fact that this decision dug the grave of the Democrat Party (PD) because its leaders had “pragmatically” participated in that game.

If the electoral results constitute the most efficient mechanism that the democratic regime has to measure the right decisions that the political leaders make, there is no doubt that the Salvadoran did not agree with the decision of the PD. This is how simple this really is, beyond the declarations of those who said that they had been demonized by their former comrades from the left wing. What has happened is that many sympathizers of the left wing do not clearly see the objective of the project prepared by the so called “moderate” members. In this sense, the electorate has noticed the identification of the “new left wing” with the interests of the right wing, and not necessarily with an actual alternative project.

The present coalition formed by the CUD and the PDC is facing the same dilemma. This alliance is still a surprise for many followers of the left wing that, even if they are discouraged by the project of the FMLN, they do not sympathize with the fact that the PDC is still close to ARENA. That is why, once again, the coalition does not seem serious enough as an electoral possibility because it follows the line of the failed projects leaded by former followers of the left wing.

The fact that they left the PCN out of a coalition did not help them to clarify the objectives of their project. Some people can wonder about the sense of a pact with the PDC, a party with a clear right-wing tendency. That is why the proposal of the center seems to be ambiguous, and it also seems that they are definitively not taking advantage of a good opportunity to gain importance in the political life.

They did not take advantage of the votes of the PCN to launch a legislative alliance able to return a certain amount of power to the center. What its defenders have not yet understood is that this political option should be trying to get ahead inside the national political agenda if they intend to call the attention of the electorate. The propaganda about the political personalities is not enough to integrate a moderate project. The important aspect of this whole matter is the contrast of their skills to find the solution for the country’s problems. The project that the center had to put an end to the strike inside the Salvadoran Social Security System was a complete failure. Today, everyone knows that they did not resolve the problem precisely because of the close relationship between the main leader of the PDC with the Flores administration.

The dead spot of the General Budget of the Nation

The General Budget of the Nation has not been approved yet. This is a fundamental instrument for the performance of the State’s apparatus, since the national institutions work with the resources provided by this budget. Inside the Legislative Assembly, the congressmen find themselves discussing the proposals. Most of them, except from those who belong to the official party, are wishing to make certain transformations inside the budget. These discussions are going nowhere because of the inflexible attitude adopted by ARENA, a party that is extremely interested in delaying the approval of the Budget because of electoral reasons that are convenient for them.

Their differences have to do with the following elements:
a. The opposition intends to increase the resources assigned to the Fund for the Economic and the Social Development (FODES, in Spanish), which go to the city halls of the country and promote the decentralization of the State.
b. The opposition also intends to increase the amount of resources assigned to the National University and several hospitals of the public system of health.
c. They are looking to assign more financial resources to the performance of the Public Ministry.

Of all of these aspects, the most important one for the opposition is a substantial budget increase for the FODES. The FMLN, the PDC, the CDU, and the PCN are interested to increase the budget for the city halls by $37 million. If this measure became a reality, the city halls would not receive only $167.2 million, just like the law proposal established, but they would receive a little more than $200 million.

The congressmen of ARENA and the Executive power are acting differently. The official propaganda is raving about how they constantly invest on the benefit of the population. However, the congressmen of ARENA are not interested in the importance of the social investments. In this sense, it is necessary to explain the behavior of the public investment. It is true that the public investment has increased every year; however, the levels of that type of investment are not enough to face the most important social needs of the Salvadoran population. The social investment should protect the less fortunate sectors of society that are affected by the country’s economic stagnation, and this requires more of a solid financial compromise from the State.

Another dimension of the discussion revolves around assigning a higher amount of resources to the performance of the Public Ministry. The different political parties, except for ARENA, are interested to strengthen the institutions that are relevant for the State’s operations. The opposition wishes to increase the budget of the Public Ministry by $3.6 million (the last amount assigned to this sector was $35.6 million).

El Salvador is a country with serious economic needs. The economic stagnation has affected many sectors of the population. The General Budget of the Nation is an important instrument to activate the economy in moments like this. However, it is also necessary to admit that the Budget also has its limitations, and therefore it cannot satisfy all of the needs of the economic policies.

The budget changes are urgent. The intention is to improve the health and the education standards of the population, to strengthen the work in the municipalities and inside several institutions of the State. As positive as all of this might be, these changes are not aimed to those areas of the budget that have the strongest influence on the productive activity of the country. It is true that it is necessary to increase the social expenses and to strengthen the institutional performance; however, it is also important to increase the resources destined to the productive activities. The administrative area connected with the economic development has not been the object of a serious discussion inside the Congress. In other words, it would be necessary to give more importance to the rehabilitation program of both the agricultural and the cattle raising sector.

After analyzing the initial Budget proposal, it seems clear that several congressmen are giving more importance to the expenses of the State than to the productive investment area. When it comes to discussing the transformations that the congressmen from the different political fractions intend to make, they should be more interested on the budget unities that might encourage the country’s production, instead of just favoring bureaucracy.

The search for higher investment levels for the productive activities, and the budget increase destined to the most important sectors for the social development of the country should be requested cautiously. This means that it is necessary to pay special attention to the indebtedness of the country. The most important transformations of the budget should be made carefully in order not to effect the fragile macroeconomic situation of El Salvador. In the last years, it has become a tradition to finance the General Budget of the Nation through loans. This is viable because the resources that the country gets through this mechanism could be used to strengthen the national productive apparatus. If this does not happen, the country could be facing an economic unbalance in both the medium and the long term.

It is necessary to seriously wonder how and when it would be more efficient to assign the resources obtained with the external debt. Especially because if the country is acquiring more and more debts to finance the regular expenses, the future capacity of production and the growth of the economy are at risk. What the country presently needs is an investment for the development, an investment focused on the implementation of a coherent economic policy able to deal with the fundamental needs of the Salvadorans.

In other words, the economic development mostly depends on the type of investments made. If the amount of public expenses destined to the area called “Economic Development Support” are analyzed, it can be observed that they have decreased along the last five years. This is really something to be concerned about, since this area includes the expenses of sectors such as the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Ministry of Economy, the Ministry of Agriculture and Cattle-Raising, the Ministry of Public Works, The Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources, the Vice-Ministry of Transportation, the State’s General Transactions, and the sector of Housing and Urban Development.

That is why the concerns of the Flores administration do not consider that it is a priority to strengthen the branches that should stimulate the productive sectors. The present administration is far from being a State that favors the country with its policy of expenses. The alarm goes off when a negative percent of growth is experienced by the productive sectors. In the past, these sectors were potentially able to create a high level of employment; however, during the last five years, they have not received enough support from the present government.

It is necessary to prevent that the social expense of the budget becomes a plain source of “social charity”, since the resources are neither infinite nor elastic, and the budget restrictions implemented by the external debt will not allow its increase. One of the objectives of the government should be to expect a growth in the expenses per capita, and focus it on the endogenous employment sector (the national and the productive one). Panama and Costa Rica have higher standards of real total expenses per capita than any of the other countries of Central America, and even so, those standards do not guarantee a productive development. El Salvador has not been able to go beyond those standards in the last 30 years. The only guarantee is to have a reactivation policy for the productive apparatus, especially now when the free trade agreements threaten the weak structures that support our economy.