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The
crossroads of the FMLN
The political panorama in the
country after the celebration of the elections and the presidential
inauguration could not be worse for the opposition. Saca is at the peak of
the citizens’ preferences. The FMLN, on the other hand, is shipwrecked in an
internal crisis that does not leave them time nor space to make sure that
their voices are heard in the country’s political debate. In just a couple
of years, both the municipal and the legislative elections will be
celebrated, and it could be said that if this process follows the same
direction, Saca could take control of the majority in the congress.
Since the Peace Accords were signed, no party has managed to control the
relative majority in the Legislative Assembly by itself. The closest that
ARENA has been to obtaining the 43 necessary seats to hold a relative
majority in the congress was in 1994, when it obtained 45% of the people’s
votes and 46.4% of seats in the congress. Nevertheless, suddenly, with the
twist that the political reality took, there is an actual threat (or a
possibility) if ARENA is able to improve its performance during the next
legislative elections.
This consideration is not only based on the results of the recent surveys.
The present problems of the FMLN have also been considered. With the legal
disappearance of the rest of the parties of the opposition -unless the
Creole politicians keep inventing legal subterfuges to avoid the fulfillment
of the electoral code connected with the cancellation of these political
organizations- the election would be a confrontation between two unequal
forces: a dying force and an euphoric force, which is presently in the
context of a victory and positive evaluation. There is no doubt that the
members of the FMLN do not wish to arrive to the next elections in these
conditions. The different groups that take part in the internal conflict
have presented their ideas to strengthen and renovate their party. In the
lines that follow, although the documents available are not official, this
article will present a critical interpretation about the contributions made
by Handal, the orthodox leader, and the ones made by Oscar Ortiz, the
visible face of the renovators. The objective is to see if the members of
the FMLN actually have an option to be politically reborn in this particular
pre-electoral conjunction.
The vision of the FMLN leaded by Handal
When reading the perspective of this historical leader of the FMLN, one has
the sensation that he is describing a party whose many public officials are
sunk in the world of corruption. The temptation to monopolize the power of
the party makes him feel horrified, and he speaks about monarchic methods
adopted by some municipal and departmental leaders. These, in some occasions,
says the veteran leader, “usually consider themselves the owners of the
party in their Department or Municipality: anything that has to be done
there must count with their authorization”.
Beyond those considerations, which appear at the end of the document, Handal’s
proposal about the presence of a revolutionary thought in El Salvador, is an
observation against the “fellows” that allow themselves to be attracted by
the subtleties of the Salvadoran Capitalism, something that makes them think
that they need to change, instead of transforming the prevailing unfair
system. That is why he considers that it is necessary to repeat “we left the
arms, we became part of the system to change the system, and not for the
system to change us”.
“The fidelity to the mission, the fidelity to the revolutionary ideas and to
the commitment with the people” are the key words to understand Handal’s
text. The FMLN was born because of those ideas, and they should be the
party’s rock at any moment of uncertainty, says the congressman. Because,
“the highest levels of poverty and injustice increased by the Neoliberal
Capitalism, legitimize and strengthen even more” the mission of the party.
“This is about –according to Handal-, in short, working with that
perspective and facing a much more powerful sort of Capitalism, with
governments integrated by the owners of the country, those who control them
and run the show. They are governments that see themselves not anymore as
the allies of a foreign power, but as the unconditional people working under
the only pole that still stands in the planet and that tries to become the
owner of the world, supported in its super military power “.
In order to be able to face these problems, that are not actually different
from the causes that motivated the creation of the FMLN, Shafik Handal
thinks that the party cannot succumb to the logic of the parties of masses.
This logic kills the militants’ spirit of struggle and keeps avoiding the
fact that it is necessary to take the right way to demolish the oppressive
capitalist system of the country. The former commander thinks that an
example this idea is the inadequately called democratization of the
mechanisms to become a member of the FMLN, and what some political leaders
have done with this status. “Since the political struggle to become part of
the government is possible through the elections, without much of a
discussion, there was a strong belief that we had to become a party, as it
was said in that time, for the masses, rather than a party of lists, which
was a way to prioritize the amount and justify the lack of effort in the
ideological and the political education, the rejection of quality. This was
how in just a very short time we had a different party because of its
composition and the motivations of the people who belong to it”.
The most serious aspect of all this change without order or ideological
principles, according to Handal, is that his organization decided to adopt
the electoral process of the parties of masses. This way, “to declare that
we are still a party of the left wing and a revolutionary party became more
of a rite for some people, without a consistent or solid content”. They
surrender themselves to the political realism in order to be tolerated by
the owners of the system.
For that reason, the historical leader thinks that it is advisable to
reaffirm the idea about the meaning of the political realism for the true
revolutionaries. “For the revolutionaries, realism responds to another
concept: to know and to study reality in order to change it, not to be
subjected to it. And viability does not have to do with sacrificing
principles or missions, but with knowing how to define and to apply
organizational and confrontation strategies able to lead us to a superior
level of conscience, to the mobilization of the people, to the creation of
alliances, to the accumulation and the correlation of forces to transform
the situation”.
The vision of the FMLN leaded by Ortiz
The first thing that calls one’s attention is the similarity that exists
between the critical speeches of Ortiz and Hándal about the corruption of
some of the public officials from the party. Both of these declarations make
us take a closer look at the performance of the public officials of the
FMLN. It would be possible to think that the lack of serious reports about
the corruption of the public officials from that party was a positive signal,
in the sense that the State’s institutions connected to the Public
Comptroller’s Office are in the hands of the right wing, and that they could
easily use them as political weapons to discredit the left wing.
Nevertheless, the declarations of these two leaders of the FMLN are an
invitation to reflect more in depth on the subject.
The coincidences end there, though. Unlike Handal, who considers that the
party must strengthen itself first in its ideology and avoid the non-revolutionary
contamination, Ortiz campaigns for an open party for the society. Not to
control the society, but to receive even critical opinions from it.
Ortiz believes that the solution of the country’s problems has to go through
a new analysis of the party, and that such analysis has to be very clear for
the population. In other words, it could be said that he adopts the position
of those that Schafik criticizes, those who let the system shape them before
they get to change it themselves. “The different surveys that took place
during the last electoral process -says the text of renovators- had
something in common: most of the population was in favor of a change.
However, the direction of our party misinterpreted the change and the
governmental party took advantage of the aspirations for a transformation.
This seems odd enough when it is evident to see that the governmental party
is responsible for the serious social and economic deterioration of the
country”.
This analysis intends to discuss that the electoral defeat was the result of
the incapacity of the FMLN leaders. Schafik Handal speaks about the
incapacity of the system, and about the lack of will of the owners of the
country’s resources to tolerate a revolutionary party that tries to change
the roots of the economic system. In order to become a true option of power,
Ortiz claims, “we must create a strategy of power according to the country’s
reality, and not a simplified and superficial strategy exclusively designed
for the particular interests of the present leadership of the FMLN, that
sees the problem of the party and the power in the country like their
personal patrimony”.
Therefore, it is necessary to reconstruct the party. “So that the FMLN
becomes an alternative and seriously outlines itself to become the motor of
the transformations during the presidential elections of 2009 –indicates the
text -, it is necessary to have a force able to promote a transformation
inside the FMLN in order that the party improves its performance. This is
not only about changing the faces of the party, but a change of strategy,
ideas, methods, and attitudes; as they are now, these elements violate the
revolutionary principles and the democracy of the party”.
What is the option?
There is no doubt that the capacity of the FMLN to face the increasing but
empty popularity of Saca goes through the solution of its internal division.
In any case, in accordance with the aforementioned ideas, there are two
different interpretations of the coexistence with the political system. In
spite of the declarations made by Handal, his position condemns the FMLN to
a permanent state of opposition while they manage to accumulate the
necessary strength to make the masses aware about the need to defeat the
resistance of the business elite. This is valid as a strategy, but the
question is if this goal is reasonable in this national and international
political conjunction, or if the masses are actually interested in it.
The position of Ortiz, however, seems to be more compatible with the
requirements of the new system. He speaks about the need to overcome the old
vices of the party to guarantee that the FMLN is a true option to reach the
political power in the country. This is a strategy that does not intend to
accumulate revolutionary forces to change the system. In that sense, this
proposal is more realistic and coherent, and it is connected with the world’s
present situation. Will it count with an internal support to go ahead his
proposals? This depends on the answer of the militants for the next internal
elections of November. The result of this elections will reveal if the left
wing party has chosen the strategy of a permanent opposition to accumulate
forces, or if it has decided to take the road of a true transformation to
neutralize the populism promoted by Saca.
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