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Proceso 1181
February 15, 2006
ISSN 0259-9864

Índice

Editorial: They will deal with criminals

Politics: Saca's campaign

Economy: Considerations on the FMLN's legislative platform

Editorial

They will deal with criminals

New massive deployments of policemen, police students and soldiers, all of them using large weapons, presence of covered and uncovered police officers in buses and the search for the so considered most dangerous criminals. Those are the key elements of the new plan or the new police directorship in order to control the criminal boom (55.5 per 100,000 people). It is more of the same. Therefore, the result that should be expected is the same, which means that crime will develop without any obstacle and the gangs will seize more territory and will consolidate the territory they already control. The public transportation's businessmen will control streets as today, and also the informal trade and the illegal merchandise vendors will do so, away from police and fiscal control. El Salvador will keep, probably, the first place it has in the world ranking of homicides.

Too much deployment but without any precise objective. Police directorship is very acquainted with the gang's jargon, but it does not know their internal organization, their behavioral patterns, their sources for drugs and weapons, and their movements, etc. The current police directorship, in a few words, does not have anything new but a more mediatic director to offer. When the main responsible of citizen security hears about a neighborhood controlled by gangs in the capital city and reacts promising an immediate and drastic intervention, he is only improvising. Deployments are very eye-catching but completely inefficient. Even the unconditional media chokes with the police spectacle. Even they dare to warm the ARENA government that the gang members do not feel annoyed at all. They know more about the way the police operates than the police know about them. For this reason, they play the cat and the mouse with the police, but with advantages, because they have a better organization, more communication and flexibility, and higher spirit.

Police deployments are an opportunity for the media to collect the correct focus on the governmental efforts for security. The truth is quite different. Police can not capture anybody who is not surprised committing a felony. But criminals are hardly caught in flagrancy. For this reason, they always win the police in this dangerous game. The police have published a list of the most wanted, but it ignores their whereabouts and demands clues from the population, under the argument that security is a responsibility for all. In a wide sense, this is true, but it is essentially theirs and only theirs. It is contradictory that, while the police are looking for these alleged dangerous criminals, other criminals escape easily from jails. The possibilities to stop criminality lies, then, on surprising the actor committing a crime, or in someone's denounce. When someone denounces a crime, he or she should become a witness in order to bring the accusation forward, because scientific proof does not exist. Said in other words, the scheme fails because the government does not have a criminal policy at all.

The ARENA government likes to brag of being tough and repeats very often that they don't deal with criminals. But they always do it, maybe obliged, but they do, because they do not have any choice. When the inmates of the prisons protest against the penitentiary authorities, ARENA always deal and sign agreements. This growing weakness may oblige ARENA's government, in a not very far day, to negotiate directly with gangs, their declared enemy number one. On spite its tough appearance, Saca's government does not have authority. Reacting to the news that there were a neighborhood controlled by gangs, police director dressed for the war and went to the zone. But the operation was a fiasco. He didn't find gangs' members, neither drugs, nor weapons. Lacking of a visible enemy, the police director failed to fight his war in front of cameras.

When gangs advance in the progressive seizing of territory, ARENA's government could be obliged to negotiate power shares with their leaders. The police do not resist them. The three or four officers serving in the zones controlled by gangs are as frightened as population. Raids as the mentioned above are a failure, because the gangs successfully play cat and mouse with the police. Consolidating those "free territories" can move them to try their luck in local politics, for instance, in municipal or congress elections, under the umbrella of any opportunist right wing party. The gang's potential could be considerably increased if the leadership of the principal gangs, now fighting to death, ally themselves and, instead of destroying each other, use their destroying energies against the government and the society. Territorial and population control and their unification would turn them into a factual power of first magnitude in the country.

Politicians are only able to look to the country regarding their own party and electoral interests. The great capital and government only think in the country in terms of wealth and privileges. For the latter, the problem is just a matter of image. They are very concerned in changing the image of a violent country into the image of paradise for tourists and investors. The homicide statistics, which keeps going up, does not affect their plans. Their option is to trench themselves in the paradisiac zones. The new plan won't be able to content the rising power of gangs, neither that of the other local factical powers. ARENA's government is fighting the wrong battle and it is very probable that they will lose it. Then, they could be obliged to negotiate with the gangs' leadership. It will be a harder negotiation than with the FMLN, because the gangs have nothing to lose. It will be a negotiation in which the government, the great capital and the political parties will lose, because they are losing their power. This scenario may look aberrant, but in today's El Salvador absurdity prevails.

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Politics

Saca's campaign

It is obvious that mayors and deputies will be elected in the current elections. Not for ARENA, neither for their main leader, president Elías Antonio Saca. Right wing criticizes the FMLN of using the figure of their dead leader, Schafik Handal, for their campaign, but what ARENA is doing is even worse. The ruling party is not promoting their municipal or legislative plans —they do not have any, either—, but president Saca. Saca is not running for the Assembly. Neither he is doing so for any mayor's office. Even though, he is the most enthusiastic of the members of ARENA in requesting for votes. And the most outrageous thing of all is that he is requesting for votes for himself, not for his party and neither for its candidates.

This makes clear many things. In first place, on spite that polls made by those media close to the ruling party state that president Saca has a growing level of popularity, ARENA does not feel sure about their electoral triumph.

In second place, the relevance of the figure of the president is obvious. El Salvador has a long and sordid presidentialistic tradition. Since the times of military governments, the president of the nation is seen as someone who can do everything. President Saca does not escape from this tradition. Even more, he exacerbates it for his own benefit.

For this reason, it is not strange to see the president inaugurating any kind of public works, as a mayor could do. For this reason, it is not strange that the president openly requests for votes. He explains that these votes will help him to have a Legislative Assembly "that is willing to help him to run the country", which means a legislative branch submitted to the president.

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Economy

Considerations on the FMLN's legislative platform

The FMLN's legislative proposal, known as Platform for Hope, 2006-2009, contains many points on economy, which are intended to "recover the economy for the people and legislate on behalf of those producers who are punished by Neoliberalism". There are two remarkable economic measures in the FMLN's proposal: "restitute Colón" and "derogate Free Trade Agreements (FTA)". The plan also remarks the candidates' commitment to establish measures in order to halt the high cost of life, redistribute the expense of National Budget and eliminate the IVA tax for the basic consumption products.

The key points of the FMLN: the restitution of Colón and the derogation of CAFTA
One of the most determining measures of the Executive's branch economic policy has been, undoubtedly, dollarization. Such measure was intended to expand credit to lower interest rates. By today, the results of these measures are presented in an ambiguous form. In one hand, the ruling party remarks the reduction in the interest rates and the improved conditions for credit access. However, the data show that, after the Monetary Integration Law was approved, credit growth has not been enough in order to improve economy. In the other hand, the FMLN maintains that dollarization has a key role in inflation. For this reason, according to the opposition party, restoring the circulation of Colón is mandatory to halt the high cost of life.

For some experts, dollarizating was a sudden decision that did not take into account the economic situation of the country in the future. This policy was executed in a short-term vision that did not understand that institutionalizing the stable change could harm the country in a big extent, if the country was not ready for "external impacts". After dollarization, foreign investment was reduced, because of the terrorist attacks against the U.S. Salvadoran economy also faced a constant fluctuation of the coffee prices and an increase in the fuel prices. In this environment of international instability, dollatization made easy that economic adjustments come from the fluctuation in production and employment, instead of the currency type.

It is true that dollarization did not give the expected results. However, this does not mean that reversing it could be the answer. Reversing dollarization could bring more costs than benefits, because both consumers and producers make their economic decisions according to the reductions of transactions and the stability of currency. It is also unsuitable to blame dollarization the price increase. Under oligopolic and monopolic conditions as those given in El Salvador, with dollars or colones, it is difficult to reduce prices. In this sense, it would be more suitable that the FMLN defends a correct application of the Free Competition Law.

Other proposal of the FMLN that opposes itself to the interests of the ruling party is the derogation of CAFTA. According to the left wing party, CAFTA will have perverse effects for agriculture and for the economic activity of the micro and small enterprises. The Executive branch thinks the opposite: CAFTA is the best economic development strategy in the country. What is true is that CAFTA contains unfavorable laws and norms for many sectors in the country. Many of the legal norms in the agreement do attempt against many enterprises. This point is recognized by many industrial and entrepreneurial organizations that have some links with the ruling party. On spite of this, the FMLN should not try to derogate the agreement. It would be more feasible to push for reviewing the agreement in order to stop those unfavorable points. In this sense, it would be suitable that the FMLN establish consensus with some entrepreneurial sectors in order to push the Executive branch to make changes inside the CAFTA.

The redistribution of expense in the national budget
The FMLN's candidates commit themselves to strengthen social investment, in health, access to water and education. They also commit themselves to halt "the useless debt". In their optimistic proposal, the FMLN does not take into account the difficulties that they would face in order to restructure the national budget, even in the case that they won the majority of the Assembly. The left wing party must not forget that the Executive branch has a strong control of the budget. It is true that national budget is voted in the Assembly every year, but legislature has small margin to influence in the structure of the national budget. This does not mean that the FMLN should give up their struggle for restructure the national budget. They should take into account that their proposal goes beyond their legislative power, even in the case that they win the legislative majority.

On the "reduction of useless debt", the FMLN should be more flexible. It is obvious that the lack of support for government's loans is the point that the right wing prefers to use against the FMLN, presenting them as "enemies of development". It would be better that a consensus with other parties supports the denial to acquire more foreign debt.

In many of their points, the FMLN's legislative platform seems to be designed for a party with legislative majority. May this lack of realism do not frustrate the opposition deputies and they decide, as in most of the cases, to quit negotiations in the Assembly.

The proposal to reform the bid law in order to give more opportunities to the micro, small and medium enterprise is feasible. It is a corroborated fact that the Executive branch permits fraudulent bids that privilege businesses owned by some ruling party members. This measure may help to strengthen the development of businesses and to promote free competition.

In a general approach, the FMLN platform for the coming elections is very ambitious, and most of their proposals lack of politic realism. They do not take into consideration two important points: that legislative majority is very difficult to be won and that the Executive branch controls the administrative part of the government. In fact, as was said before, there are proposals that are not realistic, on spite that the FMLN had the majority in the Assembly. The left wing party platform seems more proper for a presidential campaign. May the FMLN acts with more pragmatism during the next years in the Legislative Assembly.

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