The myths of Flores and Saca

A government concerned about being liked?

Since the first day that he announced his intentions to win the presidency of the country, Antonio Saca had only one concern: to be liked by the people. Anyone can say without having a complex discussion about this subject that such strategy is valid for a candidate that nobody expected for the elections. In addition, the least that a presidential candidate can do is to be liked by his voters. In this sense, Saca definitively won. He did not only obtained the results that he expected and that everyone knows about at this point, but also most people claim to admire his charisma.

If the problem were to find the source of this overpowering sympathy, it would be necessary to study the meticulous image strategy that the media worked on since the beginning of the campaign. While Saca’s main contender was overwhelmed with uncomfortable questions, the good qualities of the new president were featured: his humble beginnings, and his atypical professional background that led him from a modest past to a successful career as a businessman. In other words, the intention was to indicate that the discourse of the golden band and the people who are born rich has been a myth created by the left wing, the enemies of development, and Saca represents the most palpable example of that allegedly false image.

The bet did not only worked, but from the elections to the presidential inauguration, Saca has been concerned about continuing with a campaign image. The day after the elections, on March 22nd, the elected President was surrounded by reporters in order to be the first one to remove all of the posters from the campaign that covered the walls and fences of the city. During the campaign, he had promised that he would do this if he was elected. The reporters printed: “Tony Saca fulfills the first promise of his campaign”. For the reporters that attended to this first symbolic event, Saca was giving the people a clear example of “a government with a new style”. At the same time, they said “this is a sign of how our next government will be like”

Said and done, since the presidential inauguration, Saca has given unmistakable signs of how his government will be like. He is concerned about portraying the image of an open and a close government, who’s main goal is to establish a direct contact with the citizenry. He announced during his speech that his office will be seen as the whole country, as the house of all Salvadorans. According to him, this decision is due to his idea to fulfill the promises he made during the campaign, that is to be accessible and have the capacity to reach favorable agreements.

In fact, the first guided tours for the “everyday” people to the office of the President have already been organized. On June 5th, the press announced the arrival of “unusual visitors at the Presidential House”. An extraordinary event to judge by the coverage that the media gave to it, which was full of compliments and sensational images of the President’s good heart. In addition, the press also said that several less fortunate people took the opportunity to ask for money to the President, a request to which, undoubtedly, Saca answered without hesitating.

Not only the humble Salvadorans were welcomed by the President. The opposition has been invited to gather with the President in order to find an immediate solution to the most critical problems. Because of what has been revealed to this point, these meetings have worked very well and the results are encouraging. Several issues that the former administration thought it was impossible to deal with are allegedly finding a solution today. A small increase on the lowest retirement pensions has already been announced. The need to improve the budget of the National University has been acknowledged. Even the case of the city halls could be resolved. In other words, while the Flores administration spent almost one year criticizing the bad faith of the opposition, in less than a week Saca has refuted the assertions of his predecessor.

The reporters have also highlighted the new features they count with since the arrival of the new President. It seems that they have now a better access to the information and that they are treated better inside the governmental facilities. For a journalist that wrote about this subject there is no doubt that the attitude that Saca has towards the press is something completely new for them. That is why they are talking about breaking up with the former policies followed by his predecessors. That is also why “the members of the press were able to have access without any difficulties to the governmental facilities in order to cover a meeting that the President held with the representatives of the political parties”.

In other words, since he arrived to the Presidential House, Saca has managed to relax the tension between the figure of the President and the politicians. The opposition, the less fortunate sectors of the country, and the journalists can say that this is a president who is closer to them, and that he is an accessible person capable to reach favorable agreements. This is another reason to keep saying that –as many analysts do- this is a new way to do politics. In addition, with a wink at the past of his party, Saca explains that his discourses are accompanied by specific actions. In other words, he is the antithesis of a predecessor who did not fulfill his promises, Saca seems willing to act according to what he preaches.

The dimension and the possible consequences of Saca’s political turning point
The fact that the new president has decided to show a different face in reference to the political and the social affairs, and a close relationship with the different social classes of the country is, by itself, a noble behavior, and its importance cannot be overlooked. The Flores administration ended with a considerable amount of frustration and with a political confrontation that had to be left behind in this new governmental period. There is no doubt that Saca was indeed the main beneficiary of this tense environment kept by Flores. Thanks to that he won the Presidency. The confrontation strategy that Flores used with the opposition rendered several political profits to the new President and his party.

The one that has been evidently ridiculed by this new conjunction is Schafik Handal and his followers of the left-wing party. The fact that they went, in just a couple of days, from an extreme opposition to the acceptance of the power that the President has questioned the sense of the protests made by the leaders of the FMLN. It is very probable that this last minute reaction has to do with the results of the last opinion polls that upbraid the party for their visceral reaction against the new President. However, they have finally confronted Saca, and they have given more credit to his declarations in reference to the agreement issue.

Saca pretends, without a doubt, to take advantage of his share of popular sympathy in order to assure that his party will have a good performance during the next elections. At the moment, he is heading in the right direction. He is expecting to turn sympathy and patience, something that comes along with the conjunction, into solid political foundations over which his administration will be able to rest. In other words, Saca is building his political capital before a disarmed opposition that is still questioning its own future.

About the good qualities of the President with the press, these declarations have to be taken cautiously. It seems odd that several journalists are talking today about negative aspects of the Flores administration in reference to his relation with the press. These reporters who begin to see the wonders of the relation that Saca’s team offers to the press are the same ones that raved about Flores and spoke about his commitment with the freedom of information. That is why their declarations now cannot be taken too seriously. It is very probable that this is just a new campaign in order to create the idea that the ARENA administrations are the main allies of the freedom of the press in the country.

It is enough to see the information published by most of the news media to realize about the absence of any kind of objective and impartial analysis about their work. The official point of view about the news is assumed without questions. Most of the journalists are incapable of looking, with objectivity, for a different perspective of the news they use to entertain the citizenry with. In any case, instead of melting away with compliments for the new governmental team, they should ask themselves if the information they get is real and truthful.

Another aspect that has to be considered in the context of this new governmental offensive is its relation with the population. As it has been said in several occasions, one of the reasons that explains the discreditable image that politics have in this country is that the politicians tend to easily forget about the promises they make during the campaign. The fact that Saca remembered to honor the word that he gave during his campaign, is something to be thankful about, and it has to be considered as an important step that might help to gain back the prestige of the public officials of this country.

In addition, the fact that the President’s intention is to place the social issues as a priority in his agenda is also a subject that deserves some attention. On the one hand, it is expected that the poorest sectors of the society are finally able to get a break in the next five years. On the other hand, ARENA is expected to start paying, at last, the enormous debt that it has with the less fortunate. They always stood beside the official party. Instead, the country has never been administrated thinking about them. That is why there is an overwhelming level of poverty and an urgent need to leave the country in search for better conditions living abroad.

The media’s overwhelming amount of publicity that proclaims that Saca wishes to inaugurate a new way to do politics in the country is very familiar to the most inveterate populists. The first political decisions of the President seem to give us the sense that we are still under campaign. The concern that Saca has about administrating the country according to the thoughts of the people, the widely advertised information about his humble beginnings, his alleged feelings of empathy with the less fortunate, everything smells like populism. The reporters who praise his brilliant new way of doing politics do not seem to be aware about this fact.

Saca’s challenge: the sustainable human development of El Salvador versus just a few resources

At this point, the approval of the General Budget of the Nation is still in discussion and the panorama of the Salvadoran economy, according to the last statistics of the trimester provided by the BCR, keep revealing the small level of economic growth and the stagnation of the GNP per capita. A low economic growth imposes a budget restriction to the support for the sustainable human development, and it shows a structural weakness that works as an obstacle to meet the growing economic and social needs of the population. The main concern is the challenge that the Saca administration has to revive the country’s economic motor, and transform that economic awakening into integral improvements connected with social aspects such as the universal access to health, education, a decent housing, potable water, and a healthy and sustainable environment, plus the possibility to get a decent job, among other aspects.

This situation has defined the profile of the country, which became evident in the speech delivered during the presidential inauguration. The economic behavior defines everything: it is necessary to save the Salvadoran population from a crisis in the near future since the worst is yet to come. The main concern is clear: a decreasing production and a low level of employment means that the income will decrease as well, and therefore there will be less possibilities to improve the purchasing power of the families, as well as the one of the State. The State and the Salvadoran families, in a stagnated economic context, seem to be confronted, on the one hand, with the impossibility of dealing with the basic aspects of surviving in human conditions; on the other hand, the indebtedness of the State keeps growing and it is necessary to pay the debts and the loans in order that the governmental machinery is able to work and restrict its influence on the social matters with programs that do not have the necessary dimensions to improve the living conditions of the population.

In this context it would be convenient to examine three key aspects of the situation:
1. A depressed economic context.
2. The challenge to meet the social needs of the population.
3. The solutions proposed by the new cabinet as part of a coherent answer in accordance with the present conditions of the revenue of the States Treasury.

Less resources available
As for the depressed economic context, statistics are eloquent. The pulse of the growth rate of the GNP has placed itself in the last three years in the lowest levels that the country has had in more than a decade, and under the historical average of the last 50 years (3%). The growth rates of the real GNP clearly show it: 2.2%, 2000; 1.7%, 2001; 2.1%, 2002; 2.2%, 2003. The general projection for 2004 is 2.5%.

By examining the GNP it is possible to see that it is precisely the productive sectors the ones that have become unimportant for the country’s economy. The agricultural contribution to the GNP has descended from 17-19%, the percentages that prevailed in the seventies, to levels of 11-12% for the present time. This percentages keep decreasing. The manufacturing industry has also been stagnated when it comes to see its contribution to the GNP. Since 1998, this contribution has been kept between 22.5% and 23.7%.

On the other hand, what has been definitively intensified is the fragility of the economy, since by describing the structure of the source of currency obtained by the country we have that the remittances are the leading source. For instance, according to the information provided by PRISMA and the BCR, for 2002 the remittances represented 67% of the total amount of currency that came to the country, while the maquila industry represented 16%. This means that more than 80% of the currency that keeps the Salvadoran economy afloat rests over a very vulnerable foundation, since the remittances as well as the maquila are not internal sources of growth and they are vulnerable to the external shocks.

If when it comes to production the national economy is in deplorable conditions since it does not generate enough income, and it excessively depends on currency resources such as the remittances and the maquilas, its total is not enough to meet the budget needs of the nation. In this case, to look for loans as a way to finance the public administration has been a frequent process for the last administration of ARENA. The balance for the public debt in 2003 was higher than the PIB by 40% already. This is something to be concerned about, since 40% is close to the acceptable limits traced by the international financial organizations such as the FMI and the BID. If this tendency (indebtedness) is kept under the same pattern of systematic growth, according to the PNUD, by 2010 the balance of the public debt would already be representing more than 60% of the GNP, something that would put any government out of the game, technically speaking, and that is an obstacle to promote an expansive fiscal policy aimed to improve the social indicators.

The growing social challenges
As for the challenges of the social indicators, it is evident that the government should destine a larger amount of the budget to those sectors that improve the level of human development and welfare of the population. That has been the slogan of Saca’s presidential inauguration, he stated that “the Salvadoran population should not resign themselves to a condition such as poverty. Those of us who have the responsibility to conduct the destiny of the country should fight poverty in a frontal manner. In that sense, our government will immediately start to conduct a social welfare net, and its purpose will be to offer the necessary encouragement to all of those compatriots who are in a situation of economic disadvantage and social exclusion, in order to make them part of the productive life”.

Certainly, one of the best indicators of an improvement on the welfare of a society is to see if in fact the poverty levels of a country have been actually reduced. By doing so, according to the Economics Department of the UCA, the percentage of poor homes is approximately 53.5% by 2003. Therefore, the challenge that Saca has to face would be to reduce these poverty levels as much as possible. However, from the governmental vision there is already one obstacle that must be put out of the way: the official statistics have never told the truth about this issue, and this is a requirement to be able to go anywhere. During the last few years there has been a tendency to hide or disguise the true state of poverty using untrustworthy methodologies to measure the levels of poverty that have been criticized by the PNUD, FUNDE, the UCA, and other non-governmental organizations. Therefore, the first step to overcome this problem would have to be a systematic effort to identify and detect the true levels of poverty of the Salvadoran population: who are they, how many are they, and what are the circumstances that prevent them from breaking the cycle of marginality and misery.

In this context, the unemployment levels have been therefore underestimated by the official discourse, while it is necessary for this government to react and communicate the truth about unemployment in El Salvador. No one receives the benefits of these manipulated or biased statistics used by the General Direction of Census and Statistics (DIGESTYC, in Spanish) in order to give the impression that in El Salvador there are low unemployment levels probably lower than the ones of the developed countries. The growing remittances are nothing but an expression of the growing level of unemployment in the country. The departure of thousands of Salvadorans who are part of the Economically Active Population (PEA, in Spanish) from El Salvador is an irrefutable sign of this problem. These people go to countries such as the United States looking for the opportunities they have not been able to find in El Salvador in order to support their families.

In addition, the education and the health levels, and the access to the basic services should go beyond the present accomplishments. The Human Development report of 2003 presented by the PNUD states that some progress has been made in these areas during the last decade, specifically in the Human Development Index (IDH, in Spanish) in a national level (1999: IDH 0.704; 2002: IDH 0.726). However, when the IDH is analyzed through its different factors and in accordance with the different areas and municipalities of the country, it turns out that there are enormous differences. While in the urban area, the IDH is close to those of the countries with a medium level of human development, the contrary occurs in the rural areas, where the indicators can be compared with those of the African countries (Cabañas, for example, had an IDH of 0.637 in 2002).

The deterioration phenomenon of the life standards in the rural areas and in the urban marginalized sectors has had much to do with the same Neoliberal economic model that has concentrated its hunger for profitability in the sector of services, for instance, towards the financial sector, abandoning the agricultural and the industrial sectors as well as their corresponding productive chains. It is the duty of the new government to take care of those areas if it does not wish to leave more than six million Salvadorans in misery.

The solutions of Saca: ministers for everything
If we continue with the present Neoliberal model, the vices of the former administrations will remain the same, and this can become a point of no return for the country. In this sense, it would be convenient to evaluate the size of the promises made by the new President to see if they meet the standards of intensity of the population’s economic and social problems, and, especially, if those promises meet the standards of the State’s funds.

To increase the Value Added Tax (IVA, in Spanish) from 13% to 15% is not the panacea of the solutions for the State to rise its revenues, since it is a regressive tax and its positive effect in the State’s treasury could be diluted in the negative effect of considerably increasing the cost of living. This would also have a negative impact on the country’s levels of poverty.

The real foundation of the promises made by Saca does not exists when it comes to the social matters. However, the strategy of ARENA has been to advertise the image that “something is being done” by specifically placing ministers or commissioners next to each of the country’s problems. The negative aspect of this decision is that several of those that have been chosen to face the future of El Salvador are not the best “instruments” to resolve the present complications.

An example of this line of action adopted by Saca is the one concerning the officials assigned to positions such as the Vice-Minister of Attention for the Brothers that Live Abroad (the Close Brothers), Margarita Escobar; the Minister of the Environment, Hugo Barrera; or the new Minister of Tourism, Luis Cardenal. In the first place, the “close brothers” have always been kept away from the economic policies prepared by ARENA, and this is basically why a considerable amount of them felt like they were practically expelled from the country, and that is why they now work abroad to support their families. Therefore, the solution to this problem is presently just a façade and not a structural project. This situation shows that for the Neoliberal economic model used by ARENA it is convenient to keep the remittances and make this source of income last as a life-saving strategy for the government.

As for the Ministry of the Environment and the Ministry of Tourism, there are doubts about their actual contribution to the national problems and how they will create a sustainable human development. The misery of tourism and the environment do contrasts with some of the quality standards reached by Costa Rica, Honduras, and Guatemala, for instance. What is the plan? How much will it cost? Will it be possible to actually use it in this austere reality? In the case of Barrera, because of his professional background, his position in the Ministry of the Environment, and his absolute lack of experience regarding the environmental problems only seems to show how the interests of the private business companies and its hunger for profits will prevail, and that they will be more important than the future of the sustainable development of El Salvador.