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King and Karabell BS May 2004 El Salvador Stays the Course By Mark Falcoff The March presidential election in El Salvador, Lost Opportunity for the Left in which the conservative ARENA (Alianza Republicana Nacionalista) Party won its fourth One would have thought by now that the country consecutive victory in fifteen years, invites seri- could move on. After all, the war in El Salvador ous consideration and analysis. At a time when ended in a reasonably hopeful way, with the for- many governments in Latin America are being mer Marxist guerrillas of the Farabundo Martí voted out of office by anti-establishment (and Liberation Front (FMLN) acknowledging the fact sometimes, anti-party) candidates, and attacks that they could not defeat an elected government on “neo-liberalism” and globalization are increas- by force and accepting the challenge to fashion ingly the order of the day, El Salvador seems to themselves as an ordinary political party. This be swimming strongly against the tide. What lies it has accomplished with some success. In the behind this anomaly? municipal and legislative by-elections of 2003, Although one of the smallest countries in Latin for example, the party continued to win thirty- America—roughly the size of Massachusetts— one out of eighty-four seats in the unicameral El Salvador has rarely been out of the news National Assembly, as well as seven of the four- since 1979, when it was the site of one of the teen departmental capitals, including the most last engagements of the Cold War, as a Christian populous cities, where their administrations have Democratic government with strong U.S. sup- often won approval for good administration and port was struggling to fend off an insurgency by honest government. More significantly still, the forces backed by Cuba, Sandinista Nicaragua, FMLN’s Carlos Rivas Zamora was elected to the and the Soviet bloc. Indeed, for a time U.S. mil- mayorship of San Salvador, the capital, the third Latin American Outlook itary aid to the struggling Duarte administration consecutive time the party has captured this cru- (1984–1989) became one of the most important cial constituency. All indications suggested that issues in American politics. Although the war the presidency was but one election away. concluded more than a decade ago—that is, Unfortunately the party bureaucracy chose to roughly at the same time as the collapse of the throw that opportunity out of the window by ced- Soviet Union and the electoral defeat of the ing control to its most hard-line factions, selecting Sandinistas in Nicaragua—it still inspires painful as its candidate Schafik Handal. Seventy-three memories in El Salvador, and rightly so, since years of age, a former guerrilla chieftain, and an by some estimates it claimed as many as 70,000 unreconstructed Communist, Handal ran a cam- lives out of a population of roughly 6 million paign that antagonized and frightened many Sal- people. Small wonder, too, that it continues to vadorans, not all of them by any means wealthy figure as the principal divide among the Salvado- or privileged. His rhetoric was strident and apoca- ran electorate. lyptic and his program far out of the mainstream. Specifically, he made it clear that if elected he Mark Falcoff is a resident scholar at AEI. would deliberately distance the country from the 1150 Seventeenth Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036 202.862.5800 www.aei.org - 2 - United States and draw closer to Cuba, China, Libya, he made it clear that El Salvador would continue to align and North Korea. He also promised to put an end to dol- itself with the United States, which is now home to one larization of the economy and renationalize state-owned out of four Salvadorans. companies recently sold to private investors. He pledged Saca also had the advantage of running on a reason- to withdraw the small but politically significant Salvado- ably sound, if not brilliant, economic record established ran military contingent in Iraq.1 More improbably, he by his predecessors. Substitution of the local currency for promised free state education and health care to all, as the U.S. dollar in 2001 led to three-fold drop in local well as guaranteed jobs to all university graduates. In spite interest rates and also helped the government place of a record turnout of 69 percent of eligible voters, Handal more bonds abroad (though it made traditional exports managed to attract only 37 percent (compared to 57 per- like coffee, sugar, and shrimp less competitive than those cent for his ARENA opponent). of Costa Rica and Honduras, whose currencies have depreciated). Foreign direct investment, most of it in ARENA Builds on Its Success assembly (maquila) industries, amounted to $317 million in 2002, a 14-percent increase over the previous year. The ARENA story is a study in contrasts. Although fre- Although El Salvador is still a country with wide gaps quently described in the U.S. and foreign press as “right- between the rich and poor, over the past fifteen years the wing,” presumably dominated by wealthy bankers and indices of poverty, infant mortality, and unemployment businessmen when not indeed tied to “death squads,” have been steadily dropping. As Carlos Alberto Mon- ARENA has in fact experienced a remarkable renova- taner pointed out in the Miami Herald (March 30), dur- tion over the last decade and a half. It is the only conser- ing every day of the Flores administration 106 homes, vative party in Central America, and indeed one of the three schools, one kilometer of highway, and one health few in Latin America, with a genuinely popular base, center were built. representation throughout the national territory, and a The hidden financial advantage that has accrued to vibrant youth movement. Though it has never had a all Salvadoran governments for the past twenty years has clear majority in the National Assembly, it is still the been the existence of a large and growing diaspora in the largest single force represented there. It is also a party United States remitting slightly more than two billion that has shown itself to be consistently open to new tal- dollars a year to its homeland. This figure—spectacular by ent. Outgoing president Francisco Flores, a former acade- Central American standards—represents 15 percent of mic with no previous political experience, was elected at GDP and covers 90 percent of the country’s trade deficit. age thirty-nine. His successor, Elías Antonio (“Tony”) It probably makes it easier (together with dollarization) Saca, is a former sportscaster who, on June 1, will assume for the government to place $1.25 billion of debt paper office just short of his fortieth birthday. More signifi- in foreign bond markets. Remittances have also funded cantly, Saca comes from one of Salvador’s immigrant an explosion of micro-enterprises such as garages, repair families of Palestinian origins.2 He was forced to quit shops, and various cottage industries for which local bank school and go to work at a radio station at age fourteen, credits would normally be unavailable, thus creating a when his father’s cotton business went broke. He eventu- burgeoning small-business class, which naturally has no ally became the owner of several stations in his own appetite for wild-eyed social experimentation. right. The crucial importance of remittances was underscored In contrast to Handal, Saca is a firm defender of El Sal- during the election campaign, during which ARENA tele- vador’s integration into the global economy. During the vision commercials claimed that, if Handal were elected, campaign he proposed an ambitious trade policy whose there would be a massive expulsion from the United cornerstone is integration into the Central American Free States of undocumented Salvadorans, sometimes esti- Trade Area (CAFTA) with the United States—an agree- mated to amount to 200,000 persons. This message was ment now signed and awaiting ratification by our Con- underscored by some highly undiplomatic remarks by two gress and the regional parliaments. Saca expects CAFTA visiting congressmen from the United States and elliptic to generate 180,000 additional jobs in his country over comments by a major Bush administration official. In fact, the next ten years. He also advocates similar agreements however, the impact of such threats was probably marginal with Canada, the European Union, Japan, Taiwan, and to the final result; Salvadorans rich and poor are strongly South Korea. In a broader political and diplomatic sense, oriented toward the United States in a variety of ways, - 3 - and Handal’s hostility to Washington and all its works most populous cities of San Salvador’s greater metropoli- cannot have worked to his political advantage. tan area. The party’s many electoral victories to date attest that this overhaul is well underway, but the party’s Needed: Truly Competitive Politics choice of presidential candidate this time around also reveals that the turnaround is clearly not complete. If Salvadoran democracy is to grow and flourish, at A similar movement is afoot in neighboring some point ARENA must eventually cede power at the Nicaragua, where renovating forces are attempting to national level to an alternative; otherwise it may fall detach former president Daniel Ortega from his ironclad into to what political scientists often call the “Mexican control of the Sandinista Party. The problem for the Left temptation”—institutional one-party rule, and with it, in both countries is roughly similar. To the extent that increasing corruption and political alienation. Unfortu- they make each national election a referendum on civil nately there seems no such prospect in the near future; wars they have lost, or wave the tattered banners of an the other parties, including the Christian Democrats, extinct social and political system, they are handing who ruled the country in the mid-1980s, together conservative forces a victory that they may not invari- scored less than 6 percent this time around.
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