Latin America (Only for the_ideas)
the turnover in el salvador Forrest D. Colburn Forrest D. Colburn, professor at the City University of New York and a visiting professor at INCAE, is the author of Latin America at the End of Politics (2002). His most recent work, written with Arturo Cruz S., is Varieties of Liberalism in Central America: Nation-States as Works in Progress (2007).
O n 15 March 2009, the candidate of the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (known as the FMLN) won the presidential election in El Salvador, the smallest but most densely populated country in Central America. The victory is historic. The FMLN was a coalition of guer- rilla groups that fought a bitter insurrection in the hope of ushering in revolutionary change—an insurrection that flared after the success in June 1979 of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) in oust- ing dictator Anastasio Somoza in Nicaragua. The fighting in El Salva- dor was prolonged and costly: Somewhere between 75,000 and 100,000 Salvadorans died before a peace agreement was negotiated in 1992. The FMLN reconstituted itself as a political party and began to compete in elections. But the Nationalist Republican Alliance (known as Arena) which had first won the presidency in 1989, succeeded in winning the three subsequent presidential contests, a remarkable feat in contempo- rary Latin America. Now, though, its twenty-year reign is ending. The FMLN is led by many of the same comandantes who laid down their weapons with the peace accords. Campaigning for elections was embraced, but militants quipped to one another: “Don’t change to win; win to change.” In the many elections held since 1992, the FLMN has scored some victories, including legislative seats and municipal posts.
But El Salvador has a presidential regime—and the presidency had elud- ed the party until this past March. Much has changed since the conflict of the 1980s, and winning control of the state is different today than it would have been a quarter of a century ago. El Salvador has become a vibrant democracy, with a reasonably strong set of political institutions Journal of Democracy Volume 20, Number 3 July 2009 © 2009 National Endowment for Democracy and The Johns Hopkins University Press 144Journal of Democracy and a political culture that places the rule of law above both charismatic individuals and favored political parties. A wide variety of institutions serves as a check on ambitious proposals for change, even those that emerge from the president’s office.
Moreover, the economy of the country has evolved in ways that make it decidedly less susceptible to political control—and thus to politically driven changes. Added to these structural limits is the confusion over just how to promote desired change in the twenty-first century. There is no single answer within the FMLN to the question so famously posed by Lenin: “What is to be done?” Finally, there is an uncertainty that stems from the FMLN’s electoral strategy. The party won the election by adopting a ploy that had been used by the opposition: They selected not a candidate from deep within party ranks, but instead a charismatic “outsider.” So who actually won the election? The FMLN or the candi- date himself, Mauricio Funes, a former television journalist who was never a guerrilla? They are not necessarily the same. El Salvador’s 2009 presidential elections were momentous. Their greatest significance is likely to be that they mark the country’s first peaceful turnover of power since the nation-state became independent in 1821. Sweeping social and political change will probably be elusive.
Instead, political and economic constraints are apt to lead to a surpris- ing—even, perhaps, embarrassing—continuity in public policy. The ad- vantages of this continuity would be peace and stability, highly valued in any country. The disadvantage is that pressing problems—poverty, inequality, and crime—are likely to persist. To be sure, there will be changes “on the margins.” There is even the possibility that the new ad- ministration will recklessly ignore constraints, at least until confronting a predictable crisis. Such a scenario is unlikely, however, and it is un- likely because of the country’s gains in building democracy—including, prominently, two well-structured political parties, Arena and the FMLN, both of which have capable and responsible leadership. These sober—and perhaps surprising—conclusions underscore the inadequacy of long-dominant concepts, typologies, and labels for dis- cussing politics in Latin America. The New York Times reported: “With the FMLN’s victory, El Salvador joins a growing number of Latin Amer- ican countries that have elected ‘leftist’ governments this decade.” 1 The Times counts Nicaragua among those Latin American countries with leftist governments. Yet the difference between Nicaragua and El Sal- vador is startling—and emblematic of the need for a new language, even a new paradigm, for discussing politics in the region. Nicaragua and El Salvador both were wrecked by civil wars in the 1980s. Both have political parties said to be on the “left” and on the “right.” The FSLN in Nicaragua, however, has degenerated into a corrupt vehicle for the political ambitions of Daniel Ortega. Similarly, Nicara- gua’s Constitutionalist Liberal Party (PLC) is little more than a tool for its 145 Forrest D. Colburn strongman, Arnoldo Alemán (who was convicted of embezzling US$97.6 million from the state while serving as president, but who, thanks to a pardon from Ortega, remains free). The collusion of Ortega and Alemán has led to petty, parochial, and corrupt governance in Nicaragua. The private sector has largely withdrawn from politics and, cynical about the country’s future, has not engaged in significant entrepreneurial endeav- ors. Nicaragua is stagnant. El Salvador, in contrast, has two political par- ties that are truly institutionalized, with both the leaders and rank and file committed to the welfare of their country. Moreover, El Salvador’s business community is well integrated into politics—overwhelmingly through its ties to Arena—and is engaged in entrepreneurial activities (as opposed to rent-seeking behavior).
Conventional labels (“left” and “right”) for political parties as well as past and present leaders are misleading, even deceiving. Nicaragua and El Salvador are both small and poor. But El Salvador progressed under Arena and will most likely continue to progress with the FMLN at the helm. Nicaragua, on the other hand, did not progress under the PLC and is not progressing now under the FSLN. The quality of institutions and the character of leaders matter more than political self-identifica- tion through the use of ideologically charged phraseology and symbols.
Moreover, the range of imagined public policies has so narrowed that there is not a significant difference in what can be expected from the left or the right, which further underscores the importance of the quality of public administration, of its efficiency and effectiveness. The Political Landscape In 1989, while the civil war still raged, Arena candidate Alfredo Cris- tiani won the presidential election. Cristiani is given a large measure of credit for the peace accords that ended the civil war. He is also credited with transforming Arena from a parochial, ideologically driven (even emotionally driven) political party into a more moderate and institution- alized party. From his perch, Cristiani reached out to the leadership of the FMLN, initiating conversations that were long deemed impossible and grudgingly winning the respect of the FMLN leadership. Still, it is widely held that Cristiani’s most difficult conversations were, in fact, with members of his own party, trying to persuade them of the need to coexist with the FMLN. Members of the business community, whose natural sympathy was with Arena, were cajoled into both supporting Arena’s evolution and supporting the peace accords. El Salvador at the end of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s was at a crossroads. The country’s civil war was in a stalemate—neither side could hope for a decisive victory. The international context was in flux. El Salvador had different paths from which to choose; Cristiani steered it firmly in the direction of democracy. There was no compara- 146Journal of Democracy ble figure in either Nicaragua or Guatemala, two neighboring countries also torn apart by civil conflict, and neither of them has progressed, at least institutionally, as well as El Salvador has. But how can Cristiani’s relative contribution be measured? The FMLN deserves credit, too, both for its role in the negotiation of the peace accords and for its ability to serve as a consistent counterweight to Arena. The FMLN fell prey nei- ther to corruption (as did the FSLN in Nicaragua) nor to factionalism (as did the guerrilla movement in Guatemala).
Cristiani’s success helped Arena to retain both the presidency and a working majority in the Legislative Assembly in the 1994 elections.
Arena’s successful presidential candidate, Armando Calderón, was drawn from deep within the party’s ranks and had served as mayor of the capital, San Salvador. He was an older man, though, and not particu- larly charismatic. Arena’s legislative position was weakened in the 1997 elections. Still, in the 1999 presidential contest it recovered its strength.
Arena benefited in part from divisions and unrest within the FMLN, yet the party also shrewdly selected its candidate for the presidency:
Francisco Flores. He was not a ranking member of the party, but he was young, dark-skinned, and of short stature (thus not looking anything like a haughty member of the upper class); he was also intelligent, well-ed- ucated (at Amherst College), and articulate, with a pleasant disposition.
Flores won and, at the age of 39, became the youngest chief executive in Latin America. With each election victory, Arena’s leadership—and the loyal busi- ness community, which has long been fearful of FMLN rule—gave thanks, but concluded that they were living on “borrowed time,” and that sooner or later the FMLN would triumph. It is hard for incumbents to keep public favor, especially in poor countries. Each successive Arena administration worked hard to improve the delivery of public services, driven by the fear that any misstep would have electoral repercussions.
Likewise, when the FMLN won municipal posts it demanded steady, competent performance from its representatives. There is no doubt that heightened electoral competition in El Salvador improved—and contin- ues to improve—public administration. It is revealing that El Salvador is widely held to have decidedly less corruption than its neighbors—Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua. It is a mystery why the two-party regime in Honduras has seemingly had the opposite effect, promoting collusion to such a degree that Hondu- rans say of their two political parties: “They eat from the same plate.” Does the ideological gap between Arena and the FMLN explain this favorable consequence of electoral competition in El Salvador? Or is the difference between the two-party regimes in Honduras and El Salvador further evidence of the inadequacy of present labels, typologies, and conceptual models? The answers are elusive. In the 2003 legislative and municipal elections, the FMLN achieved 147 Forrest D. Colburn significant gains, leaving Arena with only 29 of the 84 seats in the unicameral Legislative Assembly. This did not bode well for Arena’s chances in the 2004 presidential election. The FMLN, however, chose as its candidate the aging and gruff comandante Schafik Handal. Be- tween 1973 and 1994, Handel served as the general secretary of the Communist Party of El Salvador. In 1997, he was elected to the Legislative Assem- bly, where he served as the leader of the FMLN bloc. Although it had appeared for some time that the FMLN’s base (or “floor”) of support was somewhere be- tween 40 and 45 percent of the electorate, Handal received only 36 percent of the vote. Arena’s personable candidate, Elías Antonio (“Tony”) Saca, won handily with 58 percent of the vote. The outcome of the election, ironically perhaps, suggested a certain “maturity” in El Salvador’s fledg- ling democracy. The two dominant politi- cal parties had each built a countrywide organization and a cross-class constituency. Moreover, it appeared that voters were increasingly influ- enced by factors other than their party identification, as they were will- ing to cross party lines to embrace an appealing candidate—one whom they judged as best suited for the country. The resounding defeat of Handal exacerbated a long-simmering ten- sion within the FMLN between those who favored “reform” and those who were labeled “orthodox.” Handal’s death of a heart attack in 2006 eased the way for the reformers, who were pushing to moderate the FM- LN’s policy prescriptions and to revise its electoral strategy. Indeed, the selection of Mauricio Funes to head the FMLN ticket in the 2009 race was emblematic of the shift within the party. Funes, a popular television journalist, was never a guerrilla. His campaign was bland, with slogans like “This time it’s different.” No promises were made for a radical re- structuring of the country. Funes’s campaign was boosted by his charis- ma as well as by a general weariness with Arena’s two decades in power.
In addition, Arena candidate Rodrigo Ávila was widely considered unin- spiring. Funes won the presidency with 51 percent of the vote. As there were no other candidates, the remaining 49 percent went to Ávila. The election was well organized. There were four-thousand interna- tional observers and eight-thousand Salvadorans who monitored every detail of the casting and counting of votes. 2 At 7:30 p.m. on election day, the electoral tribune reported the results of 34 percent of the votes. An hour later, it reported the results of 72 percent of all votes cast. At 10:15 p.m., the results of 91 percent of the votes were reported. When the last votes were counted and reported, all political parties and organizations Funes did not cam- paign on a platform of radical change—just the opposite. There is no electoral mandate for the revolutionary proposals of the ear- lier incarnation of the FMLN. 148Journal of Democracy in El Salvador immediately accepted the results. This acceptance is all the more noteworthy given the narrow margin of Funes’s victory.
Nicaraguan journalist Pedro Chamorro drew a pointed contrast with the recent municipal elections in Nicaragua, where international observ- ers were shunned, voting irregularities were widely reported, there were unexplained delays in reporting results, and the final results were—and remain—not accepted by the losers. 3 It is difficult to explain why El Salvador’s elections are so superior to Nicaragua’s. Regardless, El Sal- vador benefits from the strength and legitimacy of its electoral process, a key component of democracy. The FMLN won the presidency, but the Legislative Assembly is di- vided, with no party having a majority. Funes will begin his presidency with his party having 35 votes in the Legislative Assembly, Arena hav- ing 32, and three smaller parties that are sympathetic to Arena having the remaining 17 votes. Given this balance of forces, the new president will have options. He is not absolutely dependent on the continued back- ing of the FMLN, and is free to seek legislative support from other par- ties. Most likely, though, he will have to carry out a delicate balancing act, pushing or supporting legislation that has the consensual backing of both the FMLN and Arena. Pragmatic public policies will have the most chance of winning broad support. Practical policies are also most likely to be embraced by public opin- ion. Funes did not campaign on a platform of radical change—just the opposite. There is no electoral mandate for the revolutionary proposals of the earlier incarnation of the FMLN. Moreover, El Salvador’s popu- lation is young—the median age is just 23. Many voters are too young to remember the heated debates of the 1980s. Finally, there is now no model, no blueprint, for radical change. Bookstores on the university campuses are revealing: There you will find few books on politics, and nothing that outlines a proposal for radically remaking a small, poor country in Central America. In a series of ruminations on the left in Latin America, Héctor Agui- lar Camín, a Mexican intellectual, asserts that throughout the region the left continues to view the private sector and the market with suspicion, as sources of “exploitation.” 4 What the left has failed to do, he asserts, is to identify novel ways of creating wealth. Given this failure, when the left comes to power it often governs in a manner remarkably similar to previous regimes, resulting in charges of a “left lite” or a “decaffein- ated left.” The FMLN does indeed continue to exhibit a disdain for the private sector, seemingly accepting it only as a necessary evil. In the aftermath of its electoral victory, the FMLN posted on its website a “manifesto,” but it is strikingly bereft of policy prescriptions. There is no suggestion of alternative ways to generate the foreign exchange that is so necessary for the small country’s well-being. Militants in the FMLN surely recognize, too, that Funes has the ca- 149 Forrest D. Colburn pacity for distancing himself from the party if it makes uncomfortable claims on him. For his part, Funes has said little about how he intends to govern except that his model is Brazilian president Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva. Given the many differences between Brazil and El Salvador, however, it is not clear just what that means. It does seem to suggest a heightened effort to address social problems and a strategy of avoiding political conflict. In sum, the political landscape of El Salvador suggests sober and responsible governance from the new administration. Economic Constraints One of the aspirations of the guerrilla movements in Central America during the 1980s was to reduce the region’s economic dependence on the United States. Ironically, the conflicts of that era only heightened the influence of the United States in the individual countries of the re- gion. Nowhere is this more apparent than in El Salvador, with a roughly a quarter of the country’s population now living in the United States.
Remittances are the most important source of foreign exchange; they total close to $4 billion annually, nearly equal to the value of all exports, thereby allowing El Salvador to import $8 billion worth of goods. The remittances are suggestive of the tiny country’s deep integration into the world economy. Agriculture—and, in particular, the production of such commodities as coffee and sugar—is no longer the backbone of the economy. And there is no longer such a thing as a “landed aristocracy.” Only 11 percent of the country’s gross national product (GNP) is gener- ated by agriculture. 5 Although El Salvador continues to export coffee and sugar, it now imports significant amounts of food. In fact, so much land has been taken out of cultivation that forests are returning. Industry today accounts for 29 percent of El Salvador’s GNP, while the nebulous “service” sector accounts for an astounding 60 percent.
The industrial sector is centered on assembly plants (maquilas)—most prominently of textiles. Foreign firms are conspicuous in the industrial sector, and they are sensitive to the economic climate in the country.
Multinational corporations with investments in El Salvador range from the U.S. firm Kimberly-Clark, which manufactures paper products, to the Brazilian company Pettenati, which manufactures textiles, to the Spanish company Calvo, which processes and packages tuna. 6 The enormous service sector includes regional transportation (San Salvador is home to Central America’s regional airline, TACA) and tourism. The bulk of the service sector, however, is tied to the con- sumption of goods and services. Salvadorans commonly caricature their economy as being nothing more than a huge shopping mall supported by relatives laboring in the United States. Indeed, shopping centers, restau- rants, and stores of every kind dominate urban centers. When Salvadorans labor abroad (cleaning offices in Maryland, for 150Journal of Democracy example), they can be said to be metaphorically picking coffee beans in Santa Ana. In other words, the country’s newest export commodity is labor—or, to be blunt, laborers. Yet this money-making activity, so cen- tral to the country’s economy, is beyond the state’s control. What would Karl Marx say about this novel “means of production”? And what does a president who claims intellectual legacy to Marx’s dream of socialism do in a country dependent on remittances? Salvadorans working abroad send money to mamá and not to the Republic of El Salvador. Special ef- forts were made in the recent election to facilitate voting by Salvadorans living abroad; it is revealing that few bothered to cast their ballot. Ties are to family members and, to a lesser extent, local communities—not to the nation-state. Being a small, poor country, El Salvador is dependent on many imports.
It brings in more than 3,500 types of goods from the United States alone.
In order to import, El Salvador has to generate foreign exchange. Yet the country has few natural resources, certainly no highly-valued natural re- source that can easily be exploited. El Salvador’s foreign exchange earn- ings are not easily controlled. The most important source, remittances, is completely outside the control of the state—and those at its helm. Agri- cultural exports are significant, but prices do not leave much margin for additional taxes. The industrial sector is sensitive to marginal costs and is, in fact, in a period of decline, in large part because of stiff competition from Asia. El Salvador’s economy is not just poor, it is fragile as well. Successive Arena administrations promoted an open trade and in- vestment environment. There have been waves of “privatizations,” ex- tending to telecommunications, electricity distribution, banking, and pension funds. There have also been “concessions” to private enterprise to perform tasks previously undertaken by the state, including, for ex- ample, the maintenance and management of infrastructure. There has been a concerted effort to promote the economic “competitiveness” of the country, to make it attractive for national and foreign investors.
This commitment led to the adoption in 2001 of the U.S. dollar as the official currency. With this decision, El Salvador surrendered control over monetary policy, and as a result it must concentrate on maintain- ing disciplined fiscal policies. Both the state and the country at large must live within their means. Dollars must be in hand before they can be spent. Under Arena’s leadership, El Salvador’s economy has been stable, with low rates of inflation. Growth, however, has been modest—on av- erage, 3 percent a year. Progress has been made in reducing poverty, a success acknowledged by the World Bank. Nonetheless, the country is poor, with roughly half the population still held to be living in penu- ry. 7 Moreover, despite El Salvador’s slow-growing economy and modest achievements in poverty reduction, income distribution remains highly inequitable, and there are also uncomfortable regional disparities. 151 Forrest D. Colburn The new administration of Funes will surely attempt to invest more in social welfare. There are many exigencies in El Salvador, and finding revenue to fund social programs will be difficult. There is also a press- ing need to tackle violent crime, in particular crime tied to the coun- try’s notorious gangs. Here, the leaders of the FMLN have long been mystified—they do not understand the phenomenon of gangs any more than those who have led Arena do. Equally complex—and fraught with risk—is addressing income inequality. The economic elite of El Salva- dor is a productive elite, often at the forefront of crucial initiatives such as finding and exploiting niches in the international market and intro- ducing more environmentally sustainable business practices. 8 This elite is also politically well organized, and is likely to respond quickly to any threats to its well-being. Funes will have to proceed with caution both in overseeing the econ- omy, which is already under great stress from the global economic cri- sis, and in seeking change. Reforms will have to be carefully planned and implemented. There are many constraints in small, impoverished countries, and even more in democracies that have developed reason- ably strong institutions, both private and public. Countries as Works in Progress The significance of elections in the poorer countries of the world, such as those of Central America, varies. With weak institutions that are extremely malleable, elections can lead to sweeping change. They can even lead to a regime change, one that may appear to be “democratic” because it was sanctioned by an open, competitive election. For democ- racy to fulfill its promise, however, elections must be embedded in an institutional setting that allows political competition both to constrain politicians and to convey preferences to them. 9 Such is the case in El Salvador. The transformation of Central America since the turmoil of the 1970s and 1980s consists of five separate stories: Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua. 10 In the 1960s, neighboring Nica- ragua and Costa Rica had comparable per capita incomes. Today Costa Rica’s per capita income is roughly six times that of Nicaragua. It is said that they are both democracies, and maybe they are. But that label obfus- cates as much as it reveals. The other three countries of the region—El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras—are also said to be democracies.
Yet political and economic differences abound among the three coun- tries. And these differences are not easily explained by existing typolo- gies, concepts, and paradigms. Each country is unique—and complex.
Moreover, countries are always “under construction”; they are works in progress. There is a continuing need to study each one individually. The nation-state is an inevitable unit of analysis. 152Journal of Democracy El Salvador has fared well in building a robust democracy, better than its immediate neighbors. Its recent election will surely bring changes, but its strong institutions will mediate and guide these changes, enhanc- ing the likelihood that reforms will be constructive and move the coun- try forward.
NOTES 1. Blake Schmidt and Elisabeth Malkin, “Leftist Party Wins Salvadoran Vote,” New York Times, 17 March 2009; available at www.nytimes.com/2009/03/17/world/ americas/17salvador.html?scp=1&sq=March%2017,%20el%20salvador&st=cse .
2. Data is from an essay by Pedro J. Chamorro B., “Las elecciones en El Salvador,” La Nación (Costa Rica), 22 March 2009.
3. Chamorro, “Las elecciones en El Salvador.” 4. Héctor Aguilar Camín, Pensando en la izquierda (Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2008).
5. These calculations of the composition of El Salvador’s economy are from the World Bank and are consistent with estimates made by El Salvador’s Central Bank; see “El Sal- vador at a Glance,” available at http://devdata.worldbank.org/AAG/slv_aag.pdf .
6. Data on these and other foreign firms are presented in the regional newsletter Infor- press centroamericana, available at www.inforpressca.com/index.php .
7. María José Nú~nez, “Tierra de desigualdades,” Estrategia y negocios 42 (December 2008): 42–43.
8. See Forrest D. Colburn and Fernando F. Sánchez, Empresarios centroamericanos y apertura económica (San José, Costa Rica: EDUCA, 2000).
9. Douglas C. North et al., “Violence and the Rise of Open-Access Orders,” Journal of Democracy 20 (January 2009): 65.
10. Forrest D. Colburn and Arturo Cruz S., Varieties of Liberalism in Central America:
Nation-States as Works in Progress (Austin: University of Texas, 2007): 95–105.
