El Salvador

First reflections on the first round of elections

The FMLN’s main challenge was winning the first round of the elections, a victory aided by ARENA’s internal conflicts. The second round challenge is negotiating with Tony Saca’s UNIDAD party, which has become the third force. It’s a risk both for ethical reasons and for reasons of governance.

Lorena Argueta

For the first time in the country’s history, the elections on February 2 were to decide whether to reelect the Left or return the Right to government. The Right, hegemonically represented by the National Republican Alliance (ARENA), governed for four consecutive five-year terms until the Left, represented by the Faribundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) won the 2009 elections running a candidate from outside of the party, Mauricio Funes.

Over the past five years, the FMLN and President Funes have been able to demystify the idea that alternating political power in the government was impossible and neutralize the highly ideologized arguments ARENA used for many years to delegitimize any FMLN government by categorizing it as a party of the extreme Left.

During these same five years, the Funes-FMLN alliance experienced many ups and downs with both positive and negative impacts for the party. Despite it all, the alliance stuck and during these elections they displayed their best relations of all these years.

In the months leading up to the campaign, President Funes demonstrated clear and firm support for both the FMLN as a party and its presidential ticket (Salvador Sánchez Cerén, Funes’ Vice President, and Óscar Ortiz, the successful mayor of Santa Tecla), thus projecting the idea of “continuity” if the FMLN governs in the next period. For its part, the FMLN capitalized on what people perceived as this government’s main achievement—its social programs—by linking them to its successful handling of the investments made with resources from the Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA). This is the first presidential election in which the FMLN has been evaluated for its style of government and capacity to govern. Its reelection not only legitimizes it, but also strengthens it as a party.

ARENA went into the electoral process in the weakest situation in its history, both because it could no longer use the institutional power of being the incumbent government and because of its internal divisions and conflicts.

The electoral defeat of Rodrigo Ávila, ARENA’s presidential candidate in 2009, shattered the unity and cohesion the Salvadoran Right had maintained around ARENA for many years. The Right immediately divided, with former President Antonio Saca positioning himself at the front of this schism with his Grand Alliance for National Unity (GANA) party. A year ago, Saca launched his second presidential candidacy as part of the UNIDAD Movement, bringing together under that flag two more of the country’s traditional rightwing parties: the National Coalition Party (PCN) and the Christian Democratic Party (PDC). UNIDAD became the third option in the elections.

The PCN and the PDC represent El Salvador’s most conservative sectors. The PCN, the party of the military officers, was mainly responsible for the dictatorships in our history while the PDC was its ally before the civil war. GANA’s impressive wins in the 2012 legislative and municipal elections left both parties quite reduced.

Even though the FMLN and ARENA are still the two strongest parties, this was the first postwar presidential election in which they squared off with a third political party as a counterweight, thus forcing a second round.

This is also the first presidential election in our history in which the Right’s outmoded ideological concepts failed to have much impact on the results. They clashed with reality, as the FMLN demonstrated that the Left can govern without the “statist and communist dangers” the Right traditionally brandishes.

The evaluation by the population, particularly the most marginalized, of the first leftist government in Salvadoran history is that the FMLN has demonstrated its capacity to govern and its sensitivity to poverty. Everyone recognizes the positive impact of the social programs developed over these five years.

The FMLN’s alliance with ALBA, Hugo Chávez’s project for Latin America, has been a favorable factor. In El Salvador, unlike other cases in the continent, that alliance with the government of Venezuela was established by the FMLN as a party and that did not change when it became the government. The FMLN formed what have become profitable mixed-economy businesses in municipalities it governed and has plowed part of those profits into social projects.

Also using the ALBA resources, which were received under very favorable conditions, the FMLN created various businesses in different key areas of the economy in the last 6-7 years. In addition to its important participation in the distribution of Venezuelan hydrocarbons, the FMLN is also now involved in agricultural activity, basic grains distribution, public transport and urban planning projects. In the near future it plans to participate in alternative energy generation and the introduction of a low-cost airline (VECA). According to FMLN data, the investments made with these resources total US$800 million.

The FMLN’s business management has generated discussion from a number of different perspectives. The use of part of the profits from these investments in social benefit programs—credits for farmers, scholarships for poor youths, investment in social infrastructure projects—has earned the FMLN support from the beneficiaries. The projects have also served to show the FMLN’s business capacity, breaking the Right’s myth that the Left is incapable of successfully managing the country’s economy.

El Salvador’s traditional business class has been very critical of the FMLN-ALBA relationship due to the ideological ties ALBA could represent with the FMLN in government. These businesspeople point to the FMLN’s “unfair competition” in business matters, given the favorable conditions under which it receives the ALBA resources.

The image these businesspeople present contrasts with reality. During the last five years the traditional businesses, which support ARENA, have been unable to show any business drive, revealing how vulnerable they are when they don’t control the government. Several of the businesses this class displayed as successes were really basic public services privatized by the ARENA government, in which the original investment was made with public resources and demand is guaranteed because the population always consumes those services: the pension system, electricity distribution, telecommunications and the financial services of a privatized bank… The investments to restructure and financially balance those “privatized” service companies were also made with money from the government budget and thus public indebtedness, but that public tap has now been turned off.

Although there was discussion of the link between ALBA businesses and the FMLN in the election campaign, it didn’t have a great impact on people’s electoral preference for the FMLN. It simply isn’t one of the things people worry about, just as they weren’t previously concerned to separate ARENA members’ companies and their control of government. While in power, ARENA tried to positively position the business-government relationship in people’s minds, hoping to turn it into a disadvantage for the FMLN. Ironically the arguments of both parties have now switched.

It can be inferred that the FMLN’s demonstrated capacity to invest in electoral propaganda, which is very similar to ARENA’s, is backed up with the profits from the ALBA companies.

It is very probably already possible to start talking about an ALBA economic-business group with undeniable strength. Although the FMLN failed to convince President Funes of the advantages of a government-government ALBA alliance,
it has managed in just a few years to consolidate most of the businesses backed by ALBA resources with the participation of several FMLN-governed municipalities and to disseminate a social vision, investing in social projects. It has also demonstrated a capacity and willingness for its profitable businesses to abide by the tax regulations. According to information from the FMLN, the ALBA companies have paid US$187 million in taxes since they began operating.

There has been speculation about the impact Venezuela’s crisis could have on its ALBA partners. But nearly a year after the death of Hugo Chávez, the alliance has continued and the FMLN probably already has enough capital to continue with that same business strategy without being affected by the negative impacts of the Venezuelan crisis.

Winning the government is key to consolidating the FMLN’s alliance with these companies. If properly managed, the investment the alliance has made in areas such as urban transport and the low-cost airline could attract more support for the FMLN, particularly if those projects imply more efficient modern management of public transport, opening intra-region air flights up to competition after many years of a monopoly by TACA, now called AVIANCA, which charges very high prices.

Greater San Salvador’s urban middle class has represented an important portion of the undecided sector in all elections. This time another group of undecided voters also had an influence. These are people who used to be ARENA’s “hard vote” but are now very dissatisfied with the party’s performance. A certain percentage of them supported former President Saca and UNIDAD in the first round. But how much of this vote will return to ARENA in the second round and how much will decide to “punish” the party and vote for the FMLN?

The problem of insecurity, particularly the “truce among youth gangs” and the government’s responsibility in that process, has been repeatedly used in ARENA’s messages against the FMLN. But the problem of corruption, proved in former ARENA President Francisco Flores’ shady handling of a US$10 million Taiwanese donation, was very relevant in the FMLN’s campaign messages against ARENA. The fact that the country’s institutionality is acting against a former President’s impunity is made even more significant by the fact that it coincided with the last moments of an election campaign.

Fundamental issues such as the profound fiscal crisis, which has been building throughout the post-war period and so negatively conditions the country’s development, together with impunity, institutionality and checks and balances among the branches of State, were expressly avoided during the campaign.

Neither ARENA nor the FMLN chose charismatic candidates, but both are very organic members of their respective party and unquestionably represent its thinking.

ARENA’s choice of San Salvador’s current mayor Norman Quijano as its presidential candidate caused greater divisions within ARENA than there have been since 2009. The FMLN’s choice of current Vice President Salvador Sánchez Cerén, an absolutely organic militant, to head its ticket was a clear message that it was not repeating its 2009 decision to select Mauricio Funes, an ally.

A few months later, after seeing that Sánchez Cerén didn’t bring together all of the sectors and ways of thinking within the party and analyzing opinion polls on the possibilities of winning with him, the FMLN designating Santa Tecla’s very popular current mayor, Óscar Ortiz, also an organic militant, as his running mate. This ticket made the party look very united and more open given the possibility of governing again.

UNIDAD’s situation is very different. Unlike the other two candidates, former President Saca doesn’t come from a strong party. The GANA party was formed and the UNIDAD coalition later negotiated around his figure and financial resources.

Saca headed the ARENA government between 2004 and 2009 and has been the consistent object of corruption rumors, not only by his political adversaries but also by people who participated in his government and belong to ARENA. According to diplomatic cables leaked by Wikileaks, US Embassy officials shared the generalized perception of brazen corruption in the Saca administration, specifically including a comment to that effect by the charge d’affaires at the end of the Saca government’s term. Herbert Saca, one of Saca’s cousins and his adviser during his government, has been linked to illicit businesses and rumored to be part of a network of drug traffickers.

Less than two years ago it could not have been foreseen that President Funes would support the FMLN in the elections the way he did. Funes’ relationship with the FMLN during his term in office was not exactly one of complete understanding, leading to many moments of tension over their different positions. But there was never a break; it was rather a relationship of mutual tolerance, although the FMLN didn’t adhere to everything President Funes implemented, making it hard for the population to identify the FMLN as responsible for the government.

In recent months, however, thae Funes-FMLN relationship has become very harmonious and the presence of both actors in the campaign, promising to continue the social programs that get high marks with the population, strengthened the FMLN as a good government manager. Both Funes and his wife Vanda Pignato, the secretary of social inclusion and promoter of the successful Ciudad Mujer (Woman City), have very good public images and have fully accompanied the FMLN campaign.

Throughout the electoral campaign that culminated in the first round, ARENA fought two adversaries: the FMLN and UNIDAD. The same didn’t happen with UNIDAD and the FMLN, both of which only ran against ARENA.

In the second round, the cost the FMLN will have to pay to ensure victory is to negotiate with UNIDAD and Saca. That puts it in a very complex situation, particularly because of the latter’s discredited image and low ethical standing.

The most important thing for UNIDAD, and particularly for Saca, was to make sure there would be that second round, so it would be able to negotiate with one or the other of the two big parties. For him, the negotiations won’t only be about obtaining quotas in the government, but also about consolidating the power UNIDAD already has in key justice bodies and in the comptroller general’s office.

That possible alliance between the FMLN and UNIDAD in the second round poses the greatest risks for the FMLN for both ethical and governance reasons .

The challenge of governance should the FMLN win in the second round would also involve having to establish basic agreements with the other state branches, the other political parties and the different social sectors. The way it would handle that immense task could only be evaluated in five years’ time.

Lorena Argueta is with the Heinrich Böll Foundation office in San Salvador.

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