El Salvador

The upcoming Salvadorean elections in their context

Donald Lee

21/01/2011

Opinión

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The SALSOL Observer is concerned above all with the political and electoral process in El Salvador. But we are clear that these processes are located in their social, economic, cultural and environmental context. All these dimensions of Salvadorian reality are characterized and defined on the basis of poverty and a history of repression.

Centuries of repression produce a tendency not to offer your opinion, and with that a culture which is held back and limited. Economic desperation is produced and reproduced in an environment shaken by decades of super-exploitation and in the face of a permanent shortage of drinking water.

There are no easy solutions. There is no oil; not even a few drops. Yes, there is a little gold, but there is no way to mine it without putting the same water at risk.

The government of Mauricio Funes and the FMLN party, like anyone who wants to improve the conditions of the people-at-large, confronts the misery of 25 percent of the population, the poverty of another 50 percent, as well as the limited technical capacity and excessive corruption of both public and private institutions.

The state apparatus - consumed by 20 years of right-wing policies and several decades of corruption - does not have even the ability to maintain is own register of its citizens. No one hazards an estimate of the hours lost by the poor who form unending line-ups, hoping that the improvised apparatus might issue their new identity documents, obliged to renew them because there were too many errors in the previous version. Everyone speculates that a lot of errors remain - including hundreds of thousands of deceased who have not been removed. The same register serves to determine who has the right to vote.

Of all the calcified institutions, perhaps the most visible to the population is public transportation. In the entire country with a population of six million, there are only 600,000 private vehicles registered. Which is to say that the great majority depends on buses to play out their day-to-day activities, whether for work or for shopping or for education. The system of public transport is a chaotic [web] of routes contracted out to private companies which operate with recycled school buses from the United States of North America - producing black smoke, endless congestion at the transfer points, "taxes" payable to the gangs, and permanent insecurity for the passengers.

A few months ago, a bus was burned by a gang - in a dispute with the operator - taking the lives of 17 passengers, including children, who were not allowed to leave the burning bus. If there is just one word to describe the circumstances and their consequences, it is "barbarism".

To this sketch of Salvadorian terrain, we add the daily terror lived by humble merchants who saturate the most heavily travelled streets with their shops - more shacks and carts than installations - desperate in the search for a minimum income, obligated to pay a "tax" to the gangs in order not to suffer theft, or assault or death.

We add the neighbourhoods of the dispossessed, which sprout along the highways and ravines, improvised shelters of bamboo and mud, of corrugated metal and cardboard; mosquito infested labyrinths populated by sick children and parents unable to respond to their needs. This is misery.

Those who manage to save a little and who have the strength head north, in spite of the repressive laws of Arizona, in spite of the robbings and murders along the route, in spite of the anxiety they leave behind for their families, at a rate of some six or seven thousand per month, or in the year, about three or four percent of the labour force.

Those who save a little more, buy safe passage from the same gang members who terrorize their neighbourhoods. The typical price is some seven or eight thousand dollars - a fortune to a Salvadorian - but which offers the assurance of being delivered, by the "coyotes" to the door of your family in the States.

To this image traced in black on white, you could add a little colour, a little hope, painting the reality of the poor who are not homeless, who travel in the same buses, but who return home at night to a house with a roof; with water on most days; with power and telephone. These people, who are the majority, recently benefitted from the "student packages" which grant shoes and uniforms, books and food to their children, so that yes, they can attend primary and secondary school - a program of the new government of President Mauricio Funes and the FMLN party. Now they can take their sick to the hospitals and public clinics without being pressed to pay what were called "voluntary fees". They will face long line-ups because there are multitudes in need, but they will receive attention.

In those cases where the family lives in one of the 72 poorest municipalities, its oldest members will receive a minimum pension from the government in the amount of fifty dollars per month, and health services which come to their neighbourhood or rural community with mobile teams trained in prevention. The government expects to extend this new program to all 267 municipalities before its term ends - that is, before June of 2014. In the smaller number of families which include a government employee, in this new year they will enjoy an increase which represents approximately 10 percent of the lowest salaries.

These are the signs of hope, and the product of a year and a half of left-wing government - the first in the entire history of the country. The elections of 2009, were not the first in which an option on the left or centre won. But yes, they are the first in which the left won and the right was not capable of repressing the result.

If we use modern criteria, and not the twisted criteria of El Salvador's particular history, Mauricio Funes is a politician of the centre, who is inclined to the left, but committed to a strategy of national unity - that is, committed to forming alliances with business sectors and the modern right to confront the country's challenges. The goal has been achieved.

The National Republican Alliance (ARENA), the un-modern right, which governed El Salvador throughout the post-war period up to 2009, has been badly split. From the remains, a new party has formed, also on the right, but centre-right, without the legacy of Roberto D'Aubisson, the founding god-father of ARENA, and leader of the death squads. The new Grand Alliance for National Unity (GANA) now has 16 deputies in the Legislative Assembly. ARENA continues with just 19 seats.

The new equilibrium leaves the government of President Funes with options in the assembly of 84 deputies. With the base of the FMLN caucus which holds 35, a simple majority can be obtained with the support of GANA or of the PCN which has 10 deputies. The Party of National Conciliation is an older party on the right - a party which pre-dates ARENA and which has proven more flexible.

These political options open a new space for national unity which permits the approval of the laws and decrees which implement the government's program without the support of ARENA. The strategy of forming a government of national unity has also managed to consolidate its base of financial instruments which require 56 votes - and this, in spite of the global crisis.

Although the FMLN holds the strategic advantage, the right remains stronger, if we add together the three fractions - ARENA, GANA and the PCN. But up until now, pride and personal interests in the three parties have held them back from forming practical alliances to block the left in the legislative and municipal elections in the coming year 2012.

GANA lacks a popular leader to represent the party in the presidential [contest] of 2014, but there is time. They are more focussed on the legislative and municipal [round] to confirm their permanence on the national scene. What remains of ARENA continues to be dominated by the historic leadership, and its few, more modern elements have not managed to imprint their renovations on the face of the party.

There are several structural changes which favor the FMLN: the use of a new census to set the distribution of seats in parliament amongst the departments [provinces]; bringing the voting centres closer to voters' residences in seven of the fourteen departments; the relief to the desperation of the poor; the clean-up of the voters' list, although many problems remain; the presence of well-known figures from the FMLN as ministers in the government of Mauricio Funes - the Vice-President and Minister of Education, the Minister of External Affairs; the Minister of Public Works; the Minister of the Interior; the Minister of Public Security.

- Donald Lee is a Canadian political analyst who lives in El Salvador.

Source: SALSOL Observer mail@salsolnews.ca

enU�aaX./H�.la distribución de escaños del parlamento a los departamentos; el acercamiento de los centros de votación a las residencias de los votantes en siete de los catorce departamentos; el alivio a la desesperación de los pobres; la depuración del padrón electoral, aunque se quedan demasiados problemas; la presencia de cuadros conocidos del FMLN como ministros en el gobierno de Mauricio Funes – el vice-presidente y ministro de educación, el ministro de relaciones exteriores, el ministro de obras públicas, el ministro de gobernación, el ministro de seguridad pública.

- Donald Lee es un politólogo canadiense que vive en El Salvador.

Fuente: El Observador SALSOL mail@salsolnews.ca

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Marisela’s murder practically at the steps of the State Capitol symbolizes the relationship between gender violence in the private and the public spheres, between the lethal sexism of men who kill women and of governments who let them get away with it, between an out-of-control counter-narcotics war and the long-boiling situation of unpunished gender crimes.

No one in the Mexican government acknowledges these relationships. The same holds true for the U.S. government. The last State Department report gave Mexico a pass on human rights to authorize more Merida Initiative support for the drug war. The current indignation over Marisela’s murder and the new “No More Blood” campaign demonstrate that the Mexican public has had enough excuses for the violence it has been forced to live with.

Until both governments turn their sights to the hypocrisy of their legal systems and policies, the downward spiral of violence will only continue. To honor Marisela and all the others who have dared to defend human rights and justice in Mexico, it is time for civil society on both sides of the border to demand an end to bloodshed.

- Laura Carlsen (lecarlsen@gmail.com) is a FPIF Columnist and director of the CIP Americas Program.

Source: CIPA Americas Program http://www.cipamericas.org

https://www.alainet.org/en/active/43723