Latin America (Only for the_ideas)

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Subverting Democracy: Elite Rule and the Limits to Political Participation in Post-War El Salvador*

SONJA WOLF

Abstract. After decades of authoritarianism and a twelve-year civil war ended by a negotiated peace agreement in 1992, El Salvador is a markedly different country. Despite important changes, however, public institutions have remained largely un- responsive, acute social exclusion persists and violent crime has soared. Rather than the possibly inevitable by-products of a post-conflict situation, these and other developments are the consequences of a regression from an incipient electoral democracy to electoral authoritarianism. The elite-controlled Alianza Republicana Nacionalista (ARENA) party had more to gain from the preservation of the status quo than from democratic changes and only accepted a politically inclusive system to restore the oligarchy’s dominant position through electoral politics. Uncommitted to democratic consolidation, successive ARENA administrations maintained an in- stitutional façade of democracy to reproduce authoritarian governance and defend elite interests.

Keywords: quality of democracy, electoral authoritarianism, elite rule, political parties, El Salvador

Introduction

After decades of authoritarianism and a twelve-year civil war brought to

an end by a negotiated peace agreement in 1992, El Salvador appears in

many ways transformed. Prior to this watershed in Salvadorean history, the

oligarchy had held economic and political power and sponsored security

forces to carry out violent repression of popular resistance against the pre-

vailing social and political exclusion.1 The persistence of these conditions

prompted the guerrilla forces of the Frente Farabundo Martı́ para la Liberación

Nacional (FMLN) to launch an armed struggle. Concerned to prevent the

erosion of their privileges, members of the elite began funding death squads

Sonja Wolf is Research Fellow at the Centro de Estudios y Programas Interamericanos, Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México, Mexico City. Email: [email protected].

* The author would like to thank the editors and the three anonymous JLAS reviewers for their constructive comments on earlier drafts of this article.

1 Tommie Montgomery, Revolution in El Salvador (Boulder, 1995), pp. 30–2.

J. Lat. Amer. Stud. 41, 429–465 f Cambridge University Press 2009 429 doi:10.1017/S0022216X09990149 Printed in the United Kingdom

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and founded their own party, the Alianza Republicana Nacionalista (ARENA).2

Presidential elections in 1989 saw ARENA triumph, and, spurred by a war-

shattered economy and a military stalemate, it initiated peace negotiations

and oversaw the subsequent transition to electoral democracy. Among the

most notable changes the country has since experienced are the FMLN’s

conversion into a political party and its electoral participation, judicial re-

forms, demilitarisation, the abolition of the old security forces, and the cre-

ation of a new Policı́a Nacional Civil (PNC). Civil society enjoys greater

freedom of expression than before, and declining poverty rates point to

apparently greater prosperity.

Despite these appreciable advances El Salvador’s democracy remains

weak and exhibits important continuities with past practices. Neoliberal

policies intensified economic inequalities, and poverty reduction is chiefly

attributable to out-migration and remittances.3 Social exclusion remains

pervasive and feeds the country’s gang problem.4 Deficient investigative

procedures permit high levels of impunity, and PNC members have been

implicated in criminal activities, human rights violations, the torture of de-

tainees, and death squads.5 The homicide rate has reached such alarming

levels that El Salvador now ranks among the most violent nations in Latin

America.6

Contrary to the belief that these are shortcomings in a country moving

steadily towards democratic consolidation, I contend that El Salvador has

relapsed into electoral authoritarianism (EA). ARENA, benefiting more

from the preservation of the status quo than from democratic changes, had

accepted a politically inclusive system only to end the war and restore the

oligarchy’s dominant position through electoral politics. Uncommitted to

democratic strengthening, rightist governments erected an institutional fa-

çade of democracy to reproduce authoritarian governance and continue de-

fending elite interests. The objective of this article is to explain the

emergence of EA in El Salvador and to trace its existence in the institutional

and electoral spheres.7 The article begins by locating the EA concept

in debates on the quality of democracy, before considering the elite’s

2 Ibid., pp. 132–3. 3 Programa de las Naciones Unidas para el Desarrollo (PNUD), Informe sobre Desarrollo Humano, El Salvador 2003 (San Salvador, 2003), p. 35.

4 Miguel Cruz and Nelson Portillo, Solidaridad y violencia en las pandillas del gran San Salvador (San Salvador, 1998), pp. 155–62.

5 Procuradurı́a para la Defensa de los Derechos Humanos (PDDH), Violaciones a los derechos humanos por responsabilidad de la PNC (San Salvador, 2007).

6 Fundación de Estudios para la Aplicación del Derecho (FESPAD), Informe anual sobre justicia penal juvenil, 2005 (San Salvador, 2006), p. 21.

7 EA also affects civil society, notably through the criminalisation of social protest, but an analysis of these developments exceeds the scope of this article.

430 Sonja Wolf

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transformation and its role in maintaining authoritarian practices. Sub-

sequent sections highlight the politicisation of state agencies and examine the

manipulations of recent electoral processes.

Electoral Authoritarianism

Post-war administrations have tended to affirm that El Salvador emerged

successfully from its conflictive past. External observers, though sensitive to

the country’s problems, generally believe that it remains on the path towards

full democracy.8 By contrast, I argue that El Salvador is neither democratic

nor currently headed towards democratic consolidation. Although the early

1990s witnessed important political openings and institutional improve-

ments, democracy building has since stagnated and has yielded a new and

ambiguous form of authoritarianism.

The academic literature on the quality of democracy has offered three

perspectives on political regimes that couple formal democratic institutions

with authoritarian practices. One school of thought describes these cases as

defective democracies or democracies ‘with adjectives’.9 For example,

O’Donnell’s ‘delegative democracy’ is devoid of checks and balances,

Zakaria’s ‘illiberal democracy’ fails to uphold the rule of law, and Wood’s

‘low-quality democracy’ lacks fundamental attributes of a liberal democracy.10

These authors continue to characterise such regimes essentially as democ-

racies, even though the extent of authoritarian regression they exhibit

challenges this position. A second line of enquiry locates ‘third-wave democ-

racies’ such as El Salvador at the centre of the political spectrum, considering

them neither democratic nor authoritarian. Concepts such as ‘hybrid re-

gimes’, ‘semi-authoritarianism’ and ‘semi-democracy’ all capture the notion

of genuinely mixed regimes.11 By contrast, the third and most recent way of

addressing this conceptual ambiguity is to identify these instances of non-

democratic rule as new forms of authoritarianism. Analysts who propose

8 Dinorah Azpuru et al. (eds.), Construyendo la democracia en sociedades posconflicto (Guatemala City, 2007); John Booth, Thomas Walker and Christine J. Wade, Understanding Central America: Global Forces, Rebellion and Change (Boulder, 2006); Frances Hagopian and Scott Mainwaring (eds.), The Third Wave of Democratization in Latin America: Advances and Setbacks (New York, 2005).

9 David Collier and Steven Levitsky, ‘Democracy with Adjectives’, World Politics, vol. 49 (1997), pp. 430–51.

10 Guillermo O’Donnell, ‘Delegative Democracy’, Journal of Democracy, vol. 5 (1994), pp. 55–69; Elisabeth Wood, ‘Challenges to Political Democracy in El Salvador’, in Hagopian and Mainwaring, Third Wave, pp. 179–201; Fareed Zakaria, ‘The Rise of Illiberal Democracy’, Foreign Affairs, vol. 76, no. 6 (1997), pp. 22–43.

11 Larry Diamond, ‘Thinking about Hybrid Regimes’, Journal of Democracy, vol. 13 (2002), pp. 21–35; Marina Ottaway, Democracy Challenged (Washington DC, 2003); Peter Smith, Democracy in Latin America (Oxford, 2005).

Subverting Democracy 431

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terms such as ‘pseudo-democracy’ and ‘competitive authoritarianism’ make

explicit the idea that these regimes display ‘the trappings but not the sub-

stance of [democracy]’.12

The emergent study of EA builds on this last body of literature by re-

cognising these countries to be authoritarian, albeit in ways that differ from

traditional authoritarian rule. EA regimes maintain the institutional façade of

democracy, including regular multiparty elections for the highest office, to

conceal and reproduce authoritarian governance.13 Schedler’s work situates

these systems between electoral democracies, which lack characteristics such

as checks and balances and an impartial judiciary but conduct free and fair

elections, and closed or full-fledged autocracies that refrain from holding

multiparty elections.14 EA regimes establish constitutions, parliaments and

courts, permit private media and limited but real political space for dissenting

civil society groups, stage elections, and tolerate opposition parties.

However, although opposition parties are allowed to win votes and seats,

they are denied victory. Elections are not outright fraudulent, but the elec-

toral playing field is tilted sufficiently to preserve incumbents’ hold on

national power.15 Thus, the shortcomings of the political opposition may not

be the primary reason for its setbacks at the polls.

By permitting competitive elections EA regimes are able to retain a

democratic appearance, yet, given their possible defeat at the ballot box,

rulers resort to authoritarian manipulation to exert control over electoral

outcomes. In an international environment in which depriving the oppo-

sition of its victory would be perceived as a serious violation of the electoral

process and would invite the loss of domestic and international legitimacy,

stealing elections is too risky.16 The governing party therefore needs to rely

on a combination of electoral manipulation and persuasion to ensure its grip

on state power.17 Notwithstanding these manoeuvrings, EA regimes may be

overturned and democratic consolidation restart. Strain usually arises when

socio-economic crises lead voters to grow so alienated as to seek change

through elections. Under these conditions regime persistence turns crucially

12 Andreas Schedler, ‘The Logic of Electoral Authoritarianism’, in Andreas Schedler (ed.), Electoral Authoritarianism (Boulder, 2006), pp. 4–5. On ‘pseudo-democracy’ and ‘competi- tive authoritarianism’, see Larry Diamond et al., ‘Introduction: What Makes for Democracy?’, in Larry Diamond, Juan J. Linz and Seymour Martin Lipset (eds.), Politics in Developing Countries (Boulder, 1995), p. 8; Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way, ‘The Rise of Competitive Authoritarianism’, Journal of Democracy, vol. 13, no. 2 (2002), pp. 51–65.

13 Schedler, ‘Logic of EA’, p. 1. 14 Ibid., p. 5. 15 Larry Diamond, Developing Democracy (Baltimore, 1999), pp. 15–16; Schedler, ‘Logic of EA’,

pp. 3, 12. 16 Mark Thompson and Philipp Kuntz, ‘After Defeat: When Do Rulers Steal Elections?’, in

Schedler (ed.), Electoral Authoritarianism, pp. 113–28. 17 Schedler, ‘Logic of EA’, p. 15.

432 Sonja Wolf

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on the skilfulness of the manipulations.18 When these interventions are

adept, they take place in a measured way. For example, furtive institutional

and procedural modifications may occur and media access may be more

subtly slanted than before. Where incumbents succeed in prolonging their

tenure only empirical analysis can determine whether they did so because of

authoritarian controls or opposition weaknesses.

Unlike traditional typologies of authoritarian rule, which emphasise the

exercise of power, EA focuses on the access to power. Despite this particular

analytical concern this concept does not ignore issues of governance. Indeed,

questions about how state power is accessed and how it is exercised are

inextricably intertwined and illuminate the extent to which authoritarian rule

erodes the freedom and fairness that democratic elections require.19 It is

important to underscore this link so that the characteristics of an EA regime

can be fully appreciated. The limitations of El Salvador’s democracy, in-

cluding a weak rule of law, persistent social exclusion and high levels of

violent crime, might simply be attributed to the state’s incapacity to address

these issues effectively. If this argument is accepted, then electoral irregu-

larities might be ascribed to institutional incompetence rather than deliberate

manipulations. However, although resource constraints contribute to the

country’s problems, I contend that an additional and in some ways more

important factor is at play here, namely the lack of political will to make

public institutions perform adequately. In other words, when the authorities

seem unable to respond to some of the population’s most basic needs and

expectations, the reason for this may not be that the state is not functioning.

In reality the state may be working just as intended by those who control it,

the objective being the protection of minority interests rather than the pro-

vision of public services.

States that are considered democratic yet weak may be better con-

ceptualised as authoritarian. Elites in new democracies may not be commit-

ted to undertaking the necessary changes, especially if they have more to gain

from the previous status quo. Instead, they may embark on a form of state

building that is oriented toward the preservation of non-democratic rule. The

authoritarian state that emerges is one in which public agencies are ‘over-

whelmingly subordinated to partisan political ends’.20 The empirical separ-

ation between state and regime that is fundamental to a democracy becomes

blurred, and the conduct of public officials is essentially aimed at safe-

guarding the ruling party’s hold on power. Election officials may seek to

18 William Case, ‘Manipulative Skills: How Do Rulers Control the Electoral Arena?’, in Schedler (ed.), Electoral Authoritarianism, pp. 95–112.

19 Schedler, ‘Logic of EA’, p. 6. 20 Lucan Way, ‘Authoritarian Failure: How Does State Weakness Strengthen Electoral

Competition?’, in Schedler (ed.), Electoral Authoritarianism, p. 167.

Subverting Democracy 433

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manipulate electoral processes; the media may be pressured to provide

biased news coverage or be complicit in doing so; and the police may arbi-

trarily detain, and sometimes kill, political activists.21 EA regimes can be

further differentiated according to the extent to which rulers are able to

exercise control over other actors and the range of issue areas they can

influence. Where this control is strong and extensive in scope, leaders can

rely on election officials to twist electoral outcomes, on the police to harass

activists and opposition candidates, and on the media to censor criticism of

the government. They will also enjoy formal or de facto power over large

sections of the economy and other spheres.22

The key characteristic distinguishing EA from electoral democracy is the

quality of the electoral process. In order to determine the existence of

authoritarian manipulation electoral processes must be empirically scruti-

nised and judged on the basis of the available evidence. In particular, re-

searchers need to consider both the pervasiveness of the manipulation and

its impact on the results. Put differently, it needs to be ascertained, first,

whether irregularities may be occasioned by a lack of competence or re-

sources rather than fraudulent intent, and whether they are sporadic rather

than systematic; and, second, whether it was these irregularities, rather than

errors in campaign message or strategy, that led to the opposition’s defeat.23

These possibilities aside, EA regimes can differ considerably in the extent

to which they resort to repression, fraud or other tools of manipulation to

decrease the uncertainty of outcome that is normally associated with elec-

tions. Some of these tactics, such as vote buying, voter intimidation or ballot

box stuffing, may be so easily discernible that disinterested observers will

likely concur in their assessments of authoritarian practices. However, other

manipulative efforts are carried out behind the scenes to cover up the traces

and preserve the regime’s democratic appearance. In these cases it is infinitely

harder to unearth proof of dishonest conduct and reveal the existence of EA.

What criteria can be employed to identify an EA regime, and how might

one address the methodological difficulty this task poses? Electoral obser-

vation is often limited to aspects such as the voting process, the vote count,

preliminary results and the adjudication of disputes. However, increased

scrutiny of election day practices requires incumbents to become more

sophisticated in their deceptions, often well before the electoral event.24

Scholars therefore need to focus their attention on a longer time frame

and a wider range of elements. According to international benchmarks,

these factors include the neutrality of the electoral authorities and their

21 Ibid., p. 169. 22 Ibid., p. 179. 23 Jonathan Hartlyn and Jennifer McCoy, ‘Observer Paradoxes: How to Assess Electoral

Manipulation’, in Schedler (ed.), Electoral Authoritarianism, pp. 48–51. 24 Ibid., p. 44.

434 Sonja Wolf

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effectiveness in enforcing the electoral law; the use of state resources for

campaigning purposes; the process of voter registration and the accuracy and

transparency of voter registration lists; campaign finance/expenditure; media

access/coverage; the absence of voter intimidation and vote buying (or ab-

stention buying); and procedures for ballot creation and vote tabulation.25

Significant failure as regards any one of these factors may be sufficient to

qualify an election as undemocratic. Particularly, legal or structural biases,

such as unequal media access, unregulated campaign financing and the use of

state resources, constitute critical potential sources of authoritarian manipu-

lation that may help undermine or eliminate the competitiveness of the

opposition and render elections unfair prior to their realisation.26 Notwith-

standing the significance of these conditions, their impact is more difficult to

measure than that of disenfranchised voters or stolen ballot boxes.27 Further-

more, there exist as yet no guidelines on how to weigh these elements to

ascertain the existence of ‘authoritarian electioneering’.28 The development

of such a formula exceeds the scope of this article and remains an important

area for future research. Subsequent parts of this analysis will instead quali-

tatively examine to what extent these criteria apply in the Salvadorean context.

In order to determine whether manipulations have occurred I offer evi-

dence that permits judging the overall democratic quality of the electoral

processes. The focus is on the elections that have been held since 2004;

although irregularities arose in all post-war elections, they increased markedly

in recent years.29 Given the very nature of an EA regime, attempts to

gather proof of manipulations are complicated by the politicisation of the

state agencies and their failure to investigate wrongdoing. The sources I

therefore draw on include the Procuradurı́a para la Defensa de los Derechos

Humanos (PDDH), the Organization of American States (OAS) and respected

Salvadorean academic institutions and non-governmental organisations.

Origins and Transformation of Elite Rule

El Salvador’s economic and political affairs traditionally revolved around the

country’s oligarchy. Spanish colonial rule had seen the emergence of an

enormously wealthy and powerful landed elite that consolidated its financial

clout after independence largely on the basis of the cultivation and export of

coffee. Dubbed ‘the fourteen families’, after the republican family groups

that constituted its nucleus, the oligarchy not only established economic

structures that would endure for many years to come but also began enjoying

25 Ibid., pp. 45–6. 26 Ibid., p. 49. 27 Ibid., p. 49. 28 Schedler, ‘Logic of EA’, p. 9. 29 Universidad Centroamericana (UCA), ‘Editorial’, El Salvador 2009 _ en la mira, no. 1 (2008),

p. 1.

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greater political weight.30 In the early twentieth century its vast economic and

social power allowed the elite to exercise substantial influence over state

institutions and public policymaking. Political control was not acquired in the

electoral arena but merely transferred from one faction of the ruling class to

another.31 At the same time, the need to deal with periodic protest against the

deepening social injustice prompted the landowners to employ private ar-

mies, which upheld public order and soon acquired a reputation for brut-

ality.32 After 1931 the oligarchy ceded the reins of government to the military

but retained its control over economic policymaking. As part of this ‘pro-

tection racket’ the army served as the guardian of the oligarchy and sup-

pressed by force any challenge to the status quo.33

Over the decades the elite continued to dominate commercial agriculture

and extended its reach into the banking sector and the nascent industrial

sector. The embryonic middle class was no challenge to the oligarchy;34

indeed, the latter preserved its cohesion and dominance through kinship ties

and business alliances among the dominant family groups.35 Although this

situation has remained essentially unaltered, two developments triggered

changes that had important political ramifications. First, the civil war occa-

sioned a rapid decline in national output and massive capital flight, eventually

ushering in a sectoral shift: the profitability of the agro-export sector de-

creased sharply, whereas the commercial and service sectors surged,

prompting a shift in elite economic interests.36

Second, neoliberal reforms, which stimulated a new growth pattern based

on non-traditional exports, services and commerce, prompted some busi-

nesses to expand their activities within Central America.37 Since 1990 both

the globalised economic power groups (EPGs) that emerged from this pro-

cess and the transnational corporations (TNCs) that were drawn to the

isthmus by trade liberalisation and privatisations have pushed for even

stronger regional economic integration. Over the years the TNCs have

30 James Dunkerley, The Long War (London, 1982), p. 7; James Dunkerley, Power in the Isthmus (London, 1988), pp. 344–9.

31 Dunkerley, Long War, p. 10; James Mahoney, The Legacies of Liberalism (Baltimore, 2001), p. 36. 32 Montgomery, Revolution, pp. 30–2.

33 William Stanley, The Protection Racket State (Philadelphia, 1996), pp. 6–7. 34 Dunkerley, Long War, p. 53; Mario Lungo, El Salvador in the Eighties (Philadelphia, 1996),

pp. 11, 117–19. 35 Dolores Albiac, ‘Los ricos más ricos de El Salvador’, Estudios Centroamericanos (ECA), vol.

612 (1999), pp. 841–64; Carlos Paniagua, ‘El bloque empresarial hegemónico salvadoreño’, ECA, vol. 645–646 (2002), pp. 609–93.

36 Elisabeth Wood, ‘An Insurgent Path to Democracy: Popular Mobilization, Economic Interests, and Regime Transition in South Africa and El Salvador’, Comparative Political Studies, vol. 34 (2001), pp. 870–1.

37 Segovia, ‘Integración real y grupos centroamericanos de poder económico’, ECA, vol. 691–692 (2006), pp. 533–4.

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penetrated the sectors formerly controlled by national elites and become

economically powerful actors in their own right.38 Nonetheless, the EPGs

have themselves concentrated greater wealth and economic power in their

hands, and while this has reinforced the polarisation within the private sec-

tor, it has also shaped the ways in which the elite exercises its influence over

the state and public policymaking.39 Why and how this pressure is applied

cannot be understood without reference to El Salvador’s immediate pre-war

history.

In October 1979, concerned by the mounting revolutionary threat and the

Nicaraguan Sandinista victory a few months earlier, a progressive faction of

the Salvadorean army staged a coup. The officers installed a military-civilian

junta and promised to end repression, create a democratic political system

and initiate a series of pro-poor policies, including agrarian reform. These

measures would have nationalised the elite-controlled banking system

and affected many of the oligarchy’s coffee estates, but the Salvadorean right

ultimately deterred these changes.40 Significantly, the event broke the long-

standing military–oligarchy alliance. Its wealth and privileges at stake, the

right sought to regain control of the government, first through two unsuc-

cessful coup attempts and subsequently by other means.41 One of these was

the creation of death squads, built by ex-Major Roberto D’Aubuisson with

the financial support of wealthy businessmen, including the founder of El

Salvador’s second-largest newspaper, El Diario de Hoy.42

The second instrument employed by the oligarchy to restore the status

quo was the founding of its own political party. Established in 1981,

ARENA espoused an anti-communist ideology that perceived any reform

efforts as an assault on the existing order.43 The formation of this openly

partisan political vehicle signalled a major transformation of the way in

which the elite would henceforth exercise its power. By the time ARENA

won the 1989 presidential contest it had incorporated a broader range of

businesspeople and relative moderates who were more tolerant of democratic

norms than the traditional agro-export elite had been. The Cristiani

government (1989–1994) swiftly relaunched the faltering peace process, and

the warring sides eventually agreed on a negotiated end to the war.

The gamut of factors that facilitated this settlement include a change

in post-Cold War US foreign policy, the erosion of the FMLN’s external

support and a softening of its own ideological stance, a military stalemate,

international outrage at the Jesuit killings, the impact of the regional peace

38 Ibid., p. 543. 39 Ibid., pp. 539, 545. 40 Jeffery Paige, Coffee and Power (Cambridge MA, 1997), p. 34. 41 William LeoGrande, Our Own Backyard (Chapel Hill, 1998), p. 58. 42 Montgomery, Revolution, pp. 132–3. 43 Leigh Binford, The El Mozote Massacre (Tucson, 1996), p. 28.

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process, the socio-economic costs of the war and pro-peace public opinion.44

However, a prime factor was a shift in elite economic interests and an as-

sociated preference for ending the war and managing a transition to electoral

democracy. The structural transformations of the previous decades had seen

the rise of an agro-industrial faction of the elite which moved its capital into

the growing service and commercial sectors. Unlike the undiversified agrar-

ian faction, this modernising group was no longer reliant on repressive la-

bour relations and adopted a politically more moderate outlook.45 After 1979

the right closed ranks behind the army and ARENA, but as the war became

seemingly interminable and prevented the oligarchy from reviving the

economy and restoring its way of life, the moderate group accepted the need

for a negotiated solution: the military’s failure to defeat the FMLN made the

army decreasingly useful, and ARENA’s electoral success convinced parts of

the elite that a more pluralistic political system was a desirable concession in

return for a cessation of the conflict.46 Thus, the Cristiani government’s

acceptance of democracy reflected a purely pragmatic decision aimed at re-

viving the elite’s dominant position in the country, rather than a commitment

to a more inclusive regime as such.

This is all the more troubling given that the right’s conceptions of

democracy were limited and entailed little more than elections and free

speech.47 Interviews conducted with elite members at the turn of the decade

revealed that although the modernising elements among them had developed

support for democratic norms, they remained fiercely opposed to structural

reforms and attributed the war to a small group of terrorists who lacked

popular backing and would never be a significant electoral force.48 Thus, in

the early 1990s parts of the elite had come to accept the arrival of democracy

but not the notion that it might be used to redress the imbalance of social

and economic power. Since ARENA, and the groups it represents, had more

to gain from the preservation of the status quo than from the widely antici-

pated socio-economic and political change, resistance to the transition pro-

cess could be expected. The delays and obstructions were numerous and

reflected elite opposition to the attainment of institutional strengthening,

respect for human rights and socio-economic transformations that the dem-

ocratisation of El Salvador required.49 Throughout the post-war period,

44 James Dunkerley, The Pacification of Central America (London, 1993), pp. 25, 62–3; Montgomery, Revolution, pp. 215–16.

45 Paige, Coffee, pp. 88, 92; Wood, ‘Insurgent Path’, p. 871. 46 Tricia Juhn, Negotiating Peace in El Salvador (Basingstoke, 1998), pp. 9–11, 124–5; Lungo,

El Salvador, p. 26. 47 Paige, Coffee, p. 204. 48 Ibid., pp. 202–17. 49 Centro de Información, Documentación y Apoyo a la Investigación (CIDAI), ‘Los

acuerdos de paz, diez años después’, ECA, vol. 641–642 (2002), pp. 220–5; Gino Costa, La Policı́a Nacional Civil de El Salvador (San Salvador, 1999).

438 Sonja Wolf

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however, the elite has been wielding influence chiefly through three chan-

nels: ARENA, informal lobbying mechanisms and the media.

One of the ways in which this affluent minority, particularly the EPGs, can

shape government policies is through its control of ARENA. Since this party

is the prime vehicle for elite participation in politics, the government’s

economic agenda tended to coincide with that of the EPGs.50 Indeed, many

businessmen have held important posts in past administrations, affording

them involvement in strategic decisions. In a recent survey among

Salvadorean entrepreneurs most respondents stated that this created a con-

flict of interest and tended to result in policies that favoured only certain

groups.51

To ensure that the state would remain in the hands of market-friendly

political forces, the main EPGs began playing a central role in financing

political campaigns, generally supporting only pro-private-sector parties. For

example, large business groups in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras co-

sponsored Antonio Saca’s presidential campaign.52 In practice this has led to

an overfunding of parties that the EPGs prefer, because El Salvador lacks

legislation regulating campaign finance or expenditure. This omission is

problematic partly because money may derive from illicit activities or patrons

of electoral campaigns may later be rewarded with government posts or

policies. Equally, however, a glaring resource disparity tilts the playing field

among the contenders in the election process. In short, elite tactics and a

biased legal framework help make electoral campaigns undemocratic and

hamper an alternation in power.53

A second and more alarming way in which the EPGs promote their in-

terests is through a variety of informal lobbying mechanisms, including

think-tanks, business schools and periodic meetings.54 The most powerful

family groups form a kind of ‘big boys’ club’ (locally known as los grandotes

and los torogozones) and have ‘latch rights’ that permit them frequent and

direct access to the highest authorities, including the President of the

Republic, ministers, lawmakers and judges.55 The EPGs are not always suc-

cessful in advocating some measures and vetoing others, but analysts con-

sider their influence generally very effective.56 According to the previously

cited poll, most interviewees concurred that these big businesses determined

50 Segovia, ‘Integración real’, p. 550. 51 Instituto Universitario de Opinión Pública (IUDOP), ‘La transparencia en el Estado sal-

vadoreño’, Boletı́n de prensa, vol. 1 (San Salvador, 2005), p. 8. 52 Segovia, ‘Integración real’, p. 547. 53 On democratic electoral campaigns, see International Institute for Democracy and

Electoral Assistance (IDEA), International Electoral Standards (Stockholm, 2002), p. 56. 54 Segovia, ‘Integración real’, pp. 555–6. 55 Ibid., p. 546. 56 Ibid., p. 549.

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economic policy and were the only ones to have benefited from the policies

of the last four ARENA governments.57 The same study concluded that

EPG influence over the decision-making process was so profound as to

amount to a ‘capture of the state’.58 The elite’s preparedness to use its un-

paralleled wealth and power to impose its agenda has thus encouraged a

highly undemocratic and exclusive policy process that reduces popular pol-

itical participation to elections and fails to meet the needs of all Salvadoreans.

The country’s mass media are a third means for the protection of elite

interests. After decades of state censorship and repression that had suffo-

cated all critical journalism, the political transition engendered important

transformations in the Salvadorean media sector, including greater freedom

of expression, the emergence of alternative media, greater journalistic pro-

fessionalism and more pluralistic coverage by pro-regime outlets.59 However,

even these limited changes suffered a reversal, notably in the mainstream

press. The papers’ old political alignments persist and are perhaps most

apparent during electoral cycles, when the media become platforms for in-

tense power struggles rather than reasoned public debate. Overall, there is

concern that the advances of the first post-war decade have halted and have

resulted in the renewed silencing of critical voices and a qualitative deterio-

ration of news content. Patterns of the past, when the press helped preserve

elite dominance, are re-emerging.60

Today El Salvador appears to be blessed with an extensive range of print

and electronic media, including five national newspapers, some 180 radio

stations and ten TV channels. This picture of diversity, however, is decep-

tive. Each market niche is dominated by a handful of advertising-rich, audi-

ence-strong outlets that fail to offer a critique of the dominant political and

socio-economic order. While La Prensa Gráfica and El Diario de Hoy remain

the leading newspapers, the television market is controlled by the

Telecorporación Salvadoreña (TCS). Owned by media mogul Boris Esersky, a

long-standing supporter of El Salvador’s conservative causes, the TCS is the

country’s dominant and most established broadcaster. Its stations cater to

the agenda of ARENA and control 90 per cent of the nation’s viewing

audience.61

The contemporary media landscape exhibits three key features all of

which shape the production of news content. First, media power remains in

57 IUDOP, ‘Transparencia’, pp. 7–8. 58 Ibid., p. 8. 59 Sonja Wolf, ‘The Politics of Gang Control’, unpubl. PhD diss., Aberystwyth University,

2008, pp. 108–16. 60 Interview with Carlos Dada, journalist, El Faro, San Salvador, 24 May 2006; interview with

Wilfredo Hernández, journalist, El Diario de Hoy, San Salvador, 16 June 2006. 61 Rick Rockwell and Noreene Janus, Media Power in Central America (Urbana/Chicago, 2003),

pp. 44–9.

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the hands of three family businesses with ties to the elite and a commitment

to the political and economic interests of the ruling party and the private

sector. Whereas La Prensa Gráfica’s newsroom enjoys relative independence

and encounters limits only when the owners consider their social and econ-

omic status to be threatened, El Diario de Hoy exercises internal censorship

and the owner himself pens the editorial.62 A similar case is that of the TCS,

where stories are filtered and source blacklists are maintained. Esersky’s

stations provide free airtime to ARENA members and function as the party’s

propaganda arm.63 In what Hughes has termed an authoritarian news model,

reporting reflects the overlapping interests of media owners, government

and the private sector.64 The Salvadorean mass media’s political alignments

are unmistakable during electoral cycles but do generally yield coverage that

is supportive of the government’s agenda.65 Oligopolistic ownership struc-

tures thus contribute to the narrowing of voices that can be heard and to the

creation of homogeneous, uncritical and biased coverage. Insofar as such

messages favour a small segment of society they ultimately undermine the

consolidation of democracy.

Second, economic control mechanisms, notably the use of advertising to

reward compliance and punish dissent, constrain journalistic work and serve

to moderate media content or strangle alternative news organisations.

Advertising constitutes a critical source of media income, and the threat to an

organisation’s profitability, if not survival, that is implied by the loss of ad-

vertising may result in uncontroversial reporting to avoid offending import-

ant sponsors.66 The primary patrons are among the economic elite, but the

state maintains the largest media budget.67 Ever since ARENA first came to

power, official advertising has been allocated to the media according to their

editorial line. Traditionally, the government has rewarded news organisations

that offer favourable coverage with a greater share of its budget and punished

those that fail to do so with the withdrawal of advertising investment.68

Thus, the media are no longer exposed to attacks or open censorship but are

being strangled by advertising boycotts, skilfully used by government and

business to stifle dissenting voices.

Third, both the political and economic interests of advertisers or employers

and job security can propel media personnel to engage in self-censorship,

62 Interview with Carlos Dada; interview with Héctor Vides, Director, Asociación de Radios y Programas Participativos de El Salvador (ARPAS), San Salvador, 14 July 2005.

63 Rockwell and Janus, Media Power, pp. 45, 135. 64 Sallie Hughes, Newsrooms in Conflict (Pittsburgh, 2006), p. 50. 65 Guillermo Mejı́a and Raúl Gutiérrez, Medios y democracia (San Salvador, 2005), p. 9. 66 David Croteau and William Hoynes, Media Society (London, 2003), p. 71. 67 Interview with Mauricio Funes, TV journalist, San Salvador, 20 June 2006. 68 Ibid.

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a practice that works to distort news content and ultimately curbs free ex-

pression before it can begin.69 In short, although the overall climate is more

conducive to freedom of expression than in the past, the media remain under

elite control. The ideological affinity between ARENA, the private sector

and the press makes state censorship largely unnecessary and allows the elite

both to promote its own agenda and to marginalise voices that criticise the

general direction of social and economic policy.70

These circumstances also have important consequences for electoral

politics. Elections are meant to translate the general will of the electorate into

representative government. If this is to occur, all parties and candidates need

to be able to present their manifestos freely to the population during the

electoral campaign. However, this objective is difficult to achieve if media

access is unregulated and some outlets act as party mouthpieces rather than

providers of rigorous news coverage. Therefore, a country’s legal framework

needs to ensure that all political parties and candidates are afforded equitable

media access/treatment. This would allow the public to be informed of the

political platforms of all contenders in a fair and unbiased manner, which is

what the right to vote implies.71 However, El Salvador’s Electoral Code

contains no provisions on either media access during the electoral process or

the need for equitable and objective news coverage of candidates, parties,

their activities and their proposals. As a result, all post-war elections have

included an important source of structural bias that undermines inter-

nationally accepted standards for democratic elections.

Setting the Rules of the Game

The Peace Accords stipulated a series of institutional reforms aimed at the

construction of a democratic society. Many of the initial changes have since

been reversed, and the denaturalisation of some state agencies is such that

they fail to fulfil their mandate. Today the principal hallmarks of El

Salvador’s public institutions are their politicisation and subordination to

minority interests. It is beyond the scope of this article to provide more than

a brief assessment, limited to a consideration of presidential–legislative re-

lations, the judicial sector and the electoral system. However, available re-

search suggests that the trends identified below are indicative of a more

general, purposeful neglect of the task of equipping the country’s institutions

with the capacity and resources they require.72 In order to appreciate how

democracy has been subverted it is necessary to go beyond a reading of the

69 Rockwell and Janus, Media Power, p. 7. 70 Segovia, ‘Integración real’, p. 547. 71 IDEA, Electoral Standards, pp. 61–3. 72 Ricardo Córdova et al., ‘La contribución del proceso de paz a la construcción de la de-

mocracia en El Salvador’, in Azpuru et al. (eds.), Construyendo la democracia, pp. 53–290.

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state that focuses on formal institutions. Once the latter are seen as mani-

festations of social processes they can be understood as being created and

recreated by social relations and the power structures that shape them.73

El Salvador has a multiparty presidential system, designed to ensure strong

horizontal accountability between the various branches of government.74

However, presidential systems differ significantly in the interaction between

the president’s constitutional powers to affect legislation, his partisan powers,

and the extent to which the president’s party retains a reliable majority in the

legislature.75 Although ARENA has generally not held a parliamentary ma-

jority, it has formed alliances with parties of ideological proximity. The

smaller rightist parties, the Partido Demócrata Cristiano (PDC) and especially

the Partido de Conciliación Nacional (PCN), have played an important role in

sustaining the policy status quo. Furthermore, in Salvadorean political cult-

ure lawmakers commonly vote the party line.76 Party discipline affords a level

of predictability and facilitates executive–legislative relations. In El Salvador,

however, it has served to neutralise the checks and balances in the Asamblea

Legislativa (Legislative Assembly) and has permitted ARENA unified control

over the government.

To supplement routine procedures the party has repeatedly bought loyalties

in return for partisan legislative support.77 Additional tactics have included

the unauthorised alteration of debated bills and the enactment of ‘midnight

laws’ or bills that are passed without the required procedures, often in plenary

sessions that extend until the early morning hours. ARENA has used its

dominance in the Legislative Assembly to achieve the enactment of laws

that, though controversial if not actually unconstitutional, favour its agenda.

Examples include the 2004 pension reforms, the Central American Free

Trade Agreement (CAFTA), and anti-gang legislation.78 Similarly, the Código

Electoral (Electoral Code) underwent almost 200 reforms, most of which

modified the legal framework to suit partisan interests, not to democratise the

electoral system.79 Overall, the President of the Republic has exaggerated and

discretionary powers that are not tempered by adequate checks and balances.

73 Jonathan Barton and Laura Tedesco, The State of Democracy in Latin America: Post-Transitional Conflicts in Argentina and Chile (Oxford, 2004), p. 2.

74 UCA, ‘El desafió de la alternancia en el poder’, ECA, vol. 656 (2003), p. 526. 75 Scott Mainwaring and Matthew Soberg Shugart (eds.), Presidentialism and Democracy in Latin

America (Cambridge, 1997), pp. 13–14, 51. 76 UCA, ‘La perversión de la institucionalidad: El caso de la Asamblea Legislativa’, ECA, vol.

597–598 (1998), p. 568. 77 Luis González, ‘El Salvador: Partidos polı́ticos y democracia’, in Rodolfo Cardenal et al.

(eds.), El Salvador: la transición y sus problemas (San Salvador, 2002), p. 275. 78 Las Dignas et al. (eds.), El Salvador por dentro (San Salvador, 2005), p. 97; César Villalona, La

privatización de las pensiones (San Salvador, 2005), p. 18. 79 Álvaro Artiga, Las reformas a la legislación electoral salvadoreña (San Salvador, 2008), p. 1.

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Executive–legislative relations, and exclusionary lawmaking that often over-

rides democratic deliberative mechanisms, speak to an authoritarian decision-

making style that pre-empts public influence on policy and accountability.

The fair and independent administration of justice constitutes a key el-

ement of the rule of law. Judges are expected not only to apply the law fairly

and impartially but also to act as a counterweight to the other branches of

government. Given the past malfunctioning of the Salvadorean justice sys-

tem and its complicity in human rights violations, the Peace Accords man-

dated both a reorganisation of the Corte Suprema de Justicia (CSJ) and an

overhaul of the judicial appointment system. An independent Consejo

Nacional de la Judicatura (CNJ) was tasked with the oversight and removal of

judges, improving the selection of magistrates and ensuring judicial inde-

pendence. However, like other parts of the state the judicial sector remains

politicised and ineffective. For example, CNJ procedures have been modified

to influence the election process of CNJ members and CSJ magistrates.80

The CSJ itself displays a lack of independence that is evidenced by the Caso

Probidad: in 2005 the Court’s Probity Section requested two domestic banks

to supply information about the accounts of several former officials, in-

cluding ex-President Francisco Flores. The banks, however, refused to

comply with the request and asked the CSJ president to strip the Probity

Section of these powers. In a plenary session the Court decided to meet this

demand, thus preventing the officials in question from being investigated for

illicit enrichment.81

The Fiscalı́a General de la República (FGR) is tasked with undertaking legal

actions and direct criminal investigations in collaboration with the PNC. The

appointment of the Attorney-General is made by parliamentary majority

vote and generally meets ARENA preferences, with the result that the party

has retained control over the FGR. In practice, therefore, this institution

regularly fails to investigate members of the political and economic class and

enquire into police abuse.82 The PNC itself arose from the Peace Accords

and replaced the militarised security forces, which had maintained order

through intimidation and lacked specialised investigative skills, relying in-

stead on torture to extract confessions.83 From the very beginning, however,

the right sabotaged the restructuring of the public security apparatus partly

because it had agreed to it as a way of achieving the disarmament of the

FMLN and lacked the commitment to build a democratic institution.84 More

80 FESPAD, Estado de la seguridad pública y la justicia penal (San Salvador, 2005), pp. 85–90. 81 Ibid., pp. 95–7. 82 Ibid., p. 28: Luis González, ‘Acerca de la transición a la democracia’, ECA, vol. 573–574

(1996), pp. 631–7. 83 Margaret Popkin, Peace Without Justice (Philadelphia, 2000), pp. 26–7. 84 Costa, PNC, p. 189.

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importantly, the government appears to have been concerned about losing

its influence over a key instrument of political control and social order

maintenance.85 As a result, various attempts were made to perpetuate auth-

oritarian policing structures and to prevent the emergence of a professional

and democratic PNC. The government resisted the dissolution of the old

security forces and, most significantly, sought to ensure the dominance of

conservative elements within the PNC. For example, a disproportionate

number of former military staff were placed in the command structure from

where they could impose an authoritarian stamp on the entire police force.86

The politicisation of the police, particularly through the selection of its

most senior personnel, has persisted over the years. The Director-General’s

post has been staffed either by a civilian who identified more or less explicitly

with ARENA (Mauricio Sandoval and Rodrigo Ávila) or a member of the old

security forces (Ricardo Menesses). Similarly, the command structure remains

dominated by former military officers who have converted the police into a

vertical and authoritarian force.87 Since its early days the agency has lacked

meaningful investigative capacities and internal control mechanisms and has

witnessed growing police abuse.88 Corruption has been a persistent problem

within the PNC and has been actively encouraged by some of its directors.89

Perhaps the most serious problem concerns recurrent human rights vio-

lations that are compounded by the absence of effective control mechan-

isms.90 The PDDH has repeatedly condemned practices such as the

excessive use of force, the beating of detainees and the use of torture to

extract confessions (sometimes in the presence of police chiefs).91 However,

recommended corrections have been largely ignored, and the frequency of

abuses intensified during the 2000s.92 In addition, the 2004–06 period saw an

increasing number of murders by police-run social cleansing groups. Inves-

tigations into these extralegal executions were not undertaken, allowing these

acts to remain in impunity.93 The PNC’s institutional deterioration indicates

perhaps most clearly the official indifference to human rights and democracy,

suggesting that successive administrations have sought to maintain a pliant

and brutal police.

At the heart of the electoral system lies the Tribunal Supremo Electoral (TSE),

the maximum authority on electoral matters with complete jurisdictional,

85 Miguel Cruz, ‘Violencia, inseguridad ciudadana y las maniobras de las élites’, in Lucı́a Dammert and John Bailey (eds.), Seguridad y reforma policial en las Américas (Mexico City, 2005), p. 264. 86 Costa, PNC, pp. 204–11. 87 PDDH, Violaciones, p. 11.

88 Edgardo Amaya, ‘Las polı́ticas de seguridad en El Salvador’, in Dammert and Bailey (eds.), Seguridad y reforma policial, p. 222.

89 Anonymous interview, San Salvador, 25 July 2006. 90 Córdova et al., ‘Contribución del proceso de paz’, p. 230. 91 PDDH, Violaciones, pp. 23, 38. 92 Ibid., pp. 9, 23. 93 Ibid., pp. 60–1.

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administrative and financial autonomy. It is composed of five magistrates,

three of whom are proposed by the top three vote winners in the last

presidential elections while two are selected from lists drawn up by the CSJ.

The incorporation of party representatives into an electoral tribunal is likely

to undermine its independence and impartiality and, ultimately, to have an

impact on the integrity of electoral processes. The PDDH has repeatedly

noted that the TSE lacks independence, as is evidenced by its reluctance to

sanction violations of the electoral law, and has recommended that its

members be citizens without party affiliation.94 However, these observations

were not followed up; if anything, the tribunal’s partisan functioning has

worsened over the years.

Two decisions that illustrate this trend concern the illegal appointment

of one TSE magistrate and the cancellation process of three political

parties. After the 2004 presidential contest the parties entitled to put forward

a TSE magistrate were ARENA, the FMLN, and the PDC-CDU (Centro

Democrático Unido) coalition. In clear violation of electoral and constitutional

norms the Legislative Assembly appointed Julio Moreno Niños from the

PCN, thus ensuring a rightist majority on the tribunal. The nomination

was subsequently appealed against, but the CSJ ruled that the appointment

had been constitutional.95

In 2004 the outgoing TSE initiated the cancellation process of the PCN,

the PDC and the CDU, all of which had failed to reach the 3 per cent

election threshold and had to be dissolved. However, both the PCN and the

PDC submitted a constitutional appeal, which the CSJ’s rightist-controlled

Constitutional Chamber admitted, thereby infringing the TSE’s jurisdictional

independence.96 The CSJ held that both parties could remain registered, and

in January 2005 the TSE decided not to proceed with their cancellation. That

same month the Assembly passed a decree declaring the relevant legal pro-

visions inapplicable. A subsequent appeal against this decision was rejected

by the CSJ.97 These developments not only highlight the erosion of the

country’s democratic institutions and the rule of law but also demonstrate

how the state was turned into an appendix of the incumbent regime and the

power groups behind it.

94 PDDH, ‘Informe especial sobre las elecciones presidenciales de 2004’, in PDDH, Recopilación de resoluciones e informes especiales (San Salvador, 2004), pp. 307–15.

95 FESPAD, Otro fraude constitucional: Nombramiento de magistrado Moreno Niños ‘es apegado a la Constitución’ (San Salvador, 2008); PDDH, Informe especial sobre las elecciones legislativas y mu- nicipales de 2006 (San Salvador, 2006), pp. 54–5.

96 UCA, ‘Vuelvan las cosas al estado que se encontraban antes _ ’, El Salvador 2009 _ en la mira, vol. 8 (2008), p. 2.

97 FESPAD, Elecciones separadas: ¿a favor de quién? (San Salvador, 2007).

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Electoral Politics

Post-war electoral preferences have largely revolved around ARENA and the

FMLN. Smaller parties have struggled to survive in the political system and

to constitute a real alternative to the principal contenders. ARENA success-

fully defended the presidency from 1989, but from 1997 experienced an

important reduction of its vote share at both the municipal and legislative

levels. By contrast, the FMLN began with a modest performance in 1994 but

steadily increased its number of parliamentary seats and won an important

number of mayoralties. In 2000 the leftist party further raised the number

of local governments it controlled and overtook ARENA in the Legislative

Assembly by two seats. The 2003 electoral outcome enabled ARENA to

maintain its numerical strength among the municipalities it governed. The

FMLN, however, capitalising on growing disenchantment with the country’s

economic direction, not only came to rule the most important and most

densely populated urban areas but also surpassed ARENA in the Assembly

by four seats.98 Given these results, it was widely felt that an alternation in

power was now more realistic than ever before.99 ARENA thus had to adapt

its strategies and, if necessary, resort to skilful manipulations if it was to

prevent a leftist victory and with it the start of a political project that might

erode elite interests and privileges.

The 2004 Presidential Elections

The campaign for the 2004 presidential contest unfolded in ‘conditions of

radical unfairness’100 and, in the case of ARENA, centred on two key ele-

ments, the Mano Dura anti-gang policy and a politics of fear. Although the

street gangs were not a new phenomenon in El Salvador no coherent anti-

gang policy had ever existed.101 In July 2003, just eight months before the

presidential elections, the Flores administration launched its Mano Dura

plan. With it came the Ley Antimaras, which permitted the arrest and criminal

prosecution of suspected gang members on the basis of their physical ap-

pearance alone. At the time officials held the gangs responsible for the

majority of homicides in the country, the implication being that tough

98 CIDAI, ‘Las elecciones municipales y legislativas del 16 de marzo de 2003’, ECA, vol. 653–654 (2003), pp. 171–96.

99 UCA, ‘Juicio polı́tico sobre las elecciones 2003’, ECA, vol. 653–654 (2003), p. 169. 100 Andreas Schedler, ‘The Menu of Manipulation’, Journal of Democracy, vol. 13, no. 2 (2002),

p. 43. 101 Jeannette Aguilar and Lissette Miranda, ‘Entre la articulación y la competencia: Las re-

spuestas de la sociedad civil organizada a las pandillas en El Salvador’, in Miguel Cruz (ed.), Maras y pandillas en Centroamérica: Las respuestas de la sociedad civil organizada (San Salvador, 2006), p. 58.

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measures against these groups would reduce the murder rate.102 This proved

ultimately not to be the case, but given the very real concerns about public

insecurity the dispatch of joint army/police patrols and PNC sweeps of gang

areas were widely applauded.103

Both the timing and its punitive focus suggested that Mano Dura con-

stituted a populist penal policy whose primary purpose was not to curb street

gang activity but to improve ARENA’s electoral advantage in the run-up to

the 2004 presidential elections.104 In a country where citizens had tired of

permanently high levels of violent crime and authoritarian attitudes remain

pervasive, the plan helped reverse the recent swing of political sympathies

towards the FMLN. Throughout 2003 El Salvador’s weak economic per-

formance had dominated public opinion and was considered the nation’s

principal problem. However, in an October survey, almost half the popu-

lation identified insecurity as the main challenge and for the first time as

many as 21 per cent of respondents specifically identified the street gangs as

the key problem.105

Within a few months, government and media discourses on the issue had

thus sidelined economic woes, instead successfully depicting gang violence as

the top policy priority, which ARENA proposed to tackle with Mano Dura.

Previous studies indicated that Salvadoreans’ views of the main national

problems have implications for their political preferences.106 Unsurprisingly

perhaps, the same October poll showed ARENA to lead in voter preferences

whereas the FMLN struggled to maintain its recently won popularity.107 The

leftist party, generally seen to offer more attractive responses to the country’s

socio-economic concerns, had evidently been marginalised in favour of

ARENA, which was perceived to deal most ably with crime. Given widespread

popular support for Mano Dura, ARENA’s presidential candidate, Antonio

Saca, pledged to continue his predecessor’s policy with the Súper Mano Dura

plan.

In an unprecedented publicity campaign ARENA presented itself as a

cohesive and efficient party and highlighted infrastructure projects and

CAFTA negotiations as its achievements. At the same time any blame for the

war and its destruction was laid squarely on the FMLN.108 An alternation

of power, it was argued, would jeopardise the country’s development and

102 La Prensa Gráfica, ‘Mano Dura contra mareros’, 24 July 2003, www.laprensagrafica.com. 103 IUDOP, ‘Las preferencias polı́ticas en octubre de 2003: La mano dura de ARENA’,

ECA, vol. 660 (2003), pp. 1074–5. 104 On penal populism, see Julian Roberts et al., Penal Populism and Public Opinion (Oxford,

2003), pp. 5, 66. 105 IUDOP, ‘Preferencias polı́ticas’, p. 1075. 106 Ibid., p. 1075. 107 Ibid., p. 1072. 108 CIDAI, ‘Una derecha inconsecuente’, Proceso, vol. 1087 (2004), www.uca.edu.sv/publica/

proceso/proc1087.html.

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political stability.109 The ARENA campaign was aided in several important

ways. State resources were spent on TV spots, and a number of public

officials participated in campaign activities even though they were consti-

tutionally barred from doing so.110 The mass media, too, played a key role in

promoting ARENA’s cause. The TCS, for example, openly sided with

Antonio Saca, whose own broadcasting company is linked to Esersky’s

corporation.111 The leading newspapers, on the other hand, published highly

favourable reports about the rightist candidate while speaking of the re-

maining contenders in disapproving tones.112 Both editorials and news pages

exhibited a clear bias towards the former and did not provide the analytical,

balanced coverage that would have permitted readers to make an informed

choice between the different party candidates and platforms.113

Furthermore, the PDDH received information that private and public

sector employees were coerced into voting for ARENA. Maquila workers,

for example, were threatened with dismissal, and in some cases individuals’

personal details were recorded or their ID cards withheld. Despite the

criminal nature of these incidents and the violation of people’s political rights

that they implied, the TSE and the FGR did not initiate investigations.114

Mostly, however, ARENA’s campaign revolved around a politics of fear that

focused on a vilification of the FMLN’s candidate and the alleged implica-

tions of an opposition victory. In order to understand why and how ARENA

could target its main rival, it is necessary to outline the FMLN’s internal

situation at the time and to explore briefly the weaknesses of the leftist

party’s manifesto and candidate.

Throughout the post-war period the FMLN has unsuccessfully wrestled

with its traditional divisions between the ortodoxos, the historical leaders who

remain firmly wedded to their revolutionary dreams, and the more moderate

renovadores, who argue for an overhaul of the party’s political project.115 Over

the years these disagreements have sparked recurrent conflicts between these

two tendencias which have regularly ended with the expulsion of outspoken

renovadores. The ortodoxos, meanwhile, have maintained a tight grip over

the party’s leadership.116 These internal squabbles, and an incapacity or

109 Miguel Cruz, ‘Las elecciones presidenciales desde el comportamiento de la opinión púb- lica’, ECA, vol. 665–666 (2004), p. 259.

110 PDDH, Informe preliminar sobre las elecciones presidenciales de 2004 (San Salvador, 2004), p. 9; PDDH, ‘Informe especial sobre las elecciones legislativas y municipales de 2004’ in PDDH, Recopilación, p. 320.

111 Laurence Whitehead et al., Perfil de gobernabilidad de El Salvador (Madrid, 2005), p. 56. 112 Nathaly Guzmán, ‘La prensa escrita y la cobertura noticiosa de la campaña electoral’,

ECA, vol. 663–664 (2004), p. 142. 113 PDDH, Informe especial 2004, p. 327. 114 Ibid., p. 331. 115 UCA, ‘FMLN: difı́cil aprendizaje democrático’, ECA, vol. 597–598 (1998), pp. 660–1. 116 Rubén Zamora, La izquierda partidaria salvadoreña (San Salvador, 2003), p. 60.

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unwillingness to address them appropriately, have not only been eagerly

seized on by the gossip-hungry press but also served to erode the FMLN’s

credibility. By the time the 2004 campaign commenced the party had en-

gaged in little debate about its identity and the policy ideas that it might

realistically offer to voters. These limitations could not but impact on the

FMLN’s electoral strategies in important ways.

First, the party seemed unable to present a platform that not only sug-

gested coherent and viable responses to the challenges facing El Salvador but

could also reduce the doubts and uncertainties that a possible FMLN victory

has traditionally created in some sectors. Its proposals, often vague, centred

on socio-economic reforms aimed at reducing crime and inequality, over-

coming high unemployment rates and slow economic growth, reactivating

the agricultural sector and – implausibly – reintroducing the country’s orig-

inal currency.117 Overall, the FMLN appeared to assume that the deterior-

ating standard of living and popular discontent with ARENA’s policies

would automatically translate into an opposition victory.118

Second, while ARENA had opted for a candidate who was not associated

with the party’s past, the FMLN reaffirmed its historical identity with the

selection of Schafik Handal. A former guerrilla commander and secretary-

general of the now extinct Communist Party, Handal was an emblematic

figure of the left and known for his integrity. However, not only did his

revolutionary trajectory make him an easy target of the right, but he also

failed to attract the sympathies of much of the population. An FMLN-

commissioned survey on pre-presidential candidates showed that Handal

was not popular, yet the party leadership insisted on his nomination.119 In the

internal selection process he defeated the renovador Óscar Ortiz. However,

subsequent polls on voter preferences indicated that 44.4 per cent of

Salvadoreans would never vote for Handal, who trailed in third place after

the ARENA and centrist coalition candidates.120

The leftist candidate was evidently a political liability for his party, and the

right understood how to shatter Handal’s image as a social justice advocate

and to inspire fear in a population that retains vivid memories of the war. The

mass media were of critical importance in conducting this dirty campaign

and repeatedly warned their audiences about the dangers of a communist

117 CIDAI, ‘Una (pre)campaña a la manera de ARENA’, Proceso, vol. 1066 (2003), www. uca.edu.sv/publica/proceso/proc1066.html; CIDAI, ‘El cambio del FMLN’, Proceso, vol. 1055 (2005), www.uca.edu.sv/publica/proceso/proc1055.html.

118 CIDAI, ‘Balance polı́tico’, Proceso, vol. 1079 (2003), www.uca.edu.sv/publica/proceso/ proc1079.html.

119 CIDAI, ‘El debate por las candidaturas’, Proceso, vol. 1050 (2003), www.uca.edu.sv/ publica/proceso/proc1050.html; William Grigsby, ‘Did the FMLN Lose or Did Fear Win the Day?’, Envı́o, vol. 273 (2004), www.envio.org.ni/articulo/2183.

120 CIDAI, ‘(Pre)campaña’.

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government.121 In clear violation of the electoral law, which limits electoral

propaganda to the political parties, a number of front organisations also

supported this campaign and sponsored dozens of defamatory TV and radio

spots and paid ads in the main newspapers.122 The images portrayed Handal

as a hot-tempered and despotic individual who had masterminded kidnap-

pings and was determined to turn El Salvador into a Cuban-style dictator-

ship.123 These messages were particularly irresponsible in suggesting that an

FMLN victory would jeopardise US–Salvadorean relations, ultimately ter-

minating the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) granted to Salvadoreans in

the United States and ending remittances, which help more than 20 per cent

of Salvadorean families meet their basic needs.124 In short, the electoral

campaign not only lacked serious proposals but was also marred by il-

legalities, the use of fear and lies, and relentless attacks against the dignity and

honour of the main opposition candidate.125

The FMLN could not, or did not, convincingly counter the right’s argu-

ments. Given its own financial limitations and media complicity in ARENA’s

cause the FMLN was unable to win the propaganda war. Instead, the party

sought to improve Handal’s image by highlighting his integrity and experi-

ence and to publicise its platform through house-to-house visits.126 By doing

so the FMLN implicitly accepted the idea that what mattered were the can-

didates’ personality and character rather than their competence and policy

ideas. The challenge, however, was to shift the electoral debate towards a

discussion of substantive issues and their possible solutions and to transform

people’s perceptions of the country’s reality and the actors capable of

changing it. The TSE, for its part, was largely inactive when it came to

investigating and sanctioning campaign abuses and electoral violence.127 For

example, the tribunal initially ordered the withdrawal of some of the privately

sponsored publicity spots but later remained silent on the issue.128

121 CIDAI, ‘La campaña subterránea de ARENA’, Proceso, vol. 1085 (2004), www.uca.edu.sv/ publica/proceso/proc1085.html; CIDAI, ‘El cuarto triunfo de ARENA’, Proceso, vol. 1091 (2004), www.uca.edu.sv/publica/proceso/proc1091.html; Nathaly Guzmán, ‘La prensa escrita’, pp. 138–44.

122 Grigsby, ‘Did the FMLN Lose?’; PDDH, Informe especial 2004, p. 326. 123 CIDAI, ‘(Pre)campaña’; CIDAI, ‘Derecha inconsecuente’; CIDAI, ‘Cuestiones abiertas

por la muerte de Handal’, Proceso, vol. 1179 (2006), www.uca.edu.sv/publica/proceso/ proc1179.html.

124 Mario Montesino, ‘Economı́a remesera y proceso electoral’, ECA, vol. 665–666 (2004), p. 295; PDDH, Informe especial 2004, p. 327.

125 OEA, Informe de la Misión de Observación Electoral de la OEA en El Salvador, Elecciones pre- sidenciales 2004, OEA/Ser.G CP–doc. 3936/04 (2004), p. 10; PDDH, Informe Especial 2004, p. 326.

126 CIDAI, ‘Resultados modestos’, Proceso, vol. 1085 (2004), www.uca.edu.sv/publica/ proceso/proc1185.html.

127 PDDH, Informe especial 2004, p. 315. 128 Ibid., p. 327.

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Overall, ARENA and the mass media skilfully exploited Salvadorean

political culture: the desire for law and order, conservatism and aspirations

for success were all tapped into by offering Mano Dura, raising the spectre of

the civil war, and threatening job and remittance losses.129 Although the

electoral process was evidently manipulated, some uncertainty remains as to

the impact of the manipulation on the ballot box outcome. However, pre-

electoral surveys constitute a useful means to ascertain whether Salvadoreans

might have voted differently in the absence of conditions that discriminated

against opposition parties. Public opinion polls conducted prior to the 2004

elections indicated that both the anti-gang policy and warnings of remittance

losses were critical in swaying voter preferences in favour of ARENA. Mano

Dura enjoyed high levels of approval in rural areas and the interior of the

country, where ARENA’s support had dwindled in 2003, even though gang

violence was primarily a problem in the metropolitan area.130 Furthermore,

both remittance recipients and Salvadoreans whose relatives live in the

United States were more strongly inclined towards the incumbent party than

those who did not share these characteristics.131

On election day the voter rolls exhibited a series of anomalies that had also

occurred in previous years and again introduced a degree of bias into the

elections. Names had been changed or added to the lists, and some in-

dividuals could not vote either because their names had been deleted from

the electoral register or because someone had already voted for them.132 Such

practices distort popular preferences by violating some people’s right to vote

and amplifying the voice of others.133 These cases were few and were found

not to have affected the final outcome.134 Nonetheless, international stan-

dards were broken since the electoral register was not accurate and permitted

fraudulent voting.135 Similarly, no measures were taken to facilitate voting for

on-duty members of the PNC and the armed forces, provisionally detained

prisoners or patients and nursing staff in national hospitals. Moreover, in San

Miguel some individuals were arrested and barred from the polling station on

grounds of their tattoos.136 Although there exists no legal voting ban for

either of these groups, these practical suffrage restrictions amount to an

informal disenfranchisement of some citizens.

ARENA won the presidency by a substantial margin, a result that was

accepted by contenders and observers alike. The FMLN’s errors in campaign

message and strategy undoubtedly contributed to its defeat. Voting day ir-

regularities, though serious, were not decisive for the outcome. However, the

129 CIDAI, ‘Las elecciones presidenciales. Un triunfo del bloque hegemónico de derecha’, ECA, 665–666 (2004), p. 239. 130 Cruz, ‘Elecciones presidenciales’, p. 256.

131 Ibid., p. 302. 132 PDDH, Informe especial 2004, p. 340. 133 Schedler, ‘Menu of Manipulations’, p. 45. 134 PDDH, Informe especial 2004, p. 340. 135 IDEA, Electoral Standards, p. 45. 136 PDDH, Informe especial 2004, p. 339.

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electoral process violated a series of conditions that are recognised as es-

sential attributes of democratic elections. To be sure, democratic norms are

not fully adhered to anywhere in the world. Indeed, the bending of rules and

the introduction of tactics aimed at gaining a lead over other parties may be

considered the very ‘stuff of politics’. Mano Dura, which offered a wholly

inappropriate response to a complex and long-ignored problem, adroitly

exploited the public’s desire for security to boost ARENA’s popularity, and

constituted a key means of electoral persuasion. Yet the latter was combined

with authoritarian manipulations, largely in the pre-electoral period, and

these developments had important implications for the overall democratic

quality of the 2004 elections.

Observations on the existence of EA in the 2004 elections can be divided

into three areas: the formation of voter preferences, the expression of voter

preferences, and institutional bias. First, political parties and candidates need

to be able to disseminate their campaign messages without discrimination. A

party may fail to pursue a sophisticated enough strategy, select candidates or

adopt platforms that fail to impress voters, or disappoint the electorate for a

host of other reasons. However, if opposition forces lack reasonable access

to financial resources and the media, their campaign will develop in unequal

and unfair conditions. ARENA was favoured, financially and otherwise,

through the use of state resources and overtly sympathetic news coverage by

the elite-controlled media. Thus, the contenders stood no equal chance of

success, and citizens, unable to acquire full and fair knowledge about can-

didates’ electoral offers, voted on the basis of ‘induced preferences’.137

Second, voters must be insulated from undue external pressures if they are

to make an unconstrained choice. Intimidation, even in subtle forms, can

prevent individuals from freely expressing their electoral preferences.138

Media-based politics of fear and direct coercion exercised at workplaces,

casting Handal as committed to violence and threatening job and remittance

losses, deceived people and appealed to their survival instincts. In a context

of high poverty and unemployment/underemployment such tactics may or

may not succeed, but they have no place in democratic politics. Third, state

agencies, notably the TSE and the FGR, exhibited a lack of independence

during the electoral process. While the voting itself proceeded without major

problems, campaign abuses and reports of electoral violence and fraudulent

practices were not investigated, let alone sanctioned. By not acting impar-

tially and in compliance with the law the institutions in question failed to help

create the conditions for a democratic election campaign.

Overall, the above analysis makes it difficult to describe the 2004 electoral

process as democratic. These remarks are in no way meant to excuse the very

137 Schedler, ‘Menu of Manipulations’, p. 40. 138 Ibid., p. 44.

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real weaknesses of the opposition. However, there exists a set of minimum

conditions that must be fulfilled in a democracy worthy of the name. If any

one of these requirements is grossly violated, elections can be considered

undemocratic.139 Structural bias in media access and treatment and campaign

financing and expenditure, combined with institutional submissiveness,

precluded free and fair competition between the candidates and helped

pressure citizens to vote for the incumbent party. Such conditions, marked

by flagrant disrespect for human dignity and the rule of law, made demo-

cratic elections an unfulfilled aspiration.140

The 2006 Elections: A President in Campaign Mode

In many ways the 2006 electoral process differed little from the previous one.

The FMLN remained focused on socio-economic issues but failed once more

to present a coherent programme in this area. Instead, it proposed a series of

disconnected measures bordering on the simplistic, such as the reintroduction

of the colón and the derogation of CAFTA.141 ARENA, by contrast, again

made public security a key campaign theme and sought to exploit the FMLN’s

revolutionary origins. Schafik Handal’s sudden death in January 2006 initially

deprived the campaign of its traditional reference point and swung voter

preferences in favour of the FMLN. Apparently alarmed by this shift,

ARENA began casting the FMLN as an anti-system party, linking it to street

gang activities and anti-CAFTA protests. Destabilising actions of this kind, it

was argued, demonstrated that the FMLN had not abandoned violence and

would only deter the country’s development.142

Strategies of electoral control, however, commenced before campaigning

had even started. For example, in November 2005 the PCN-controlled Corte

de Cuentas imposed a fine of some US$ 4 million on a number of opposition

mayoral candidates for alleged irregularities in payments to a refuse collec-

tion service. The ruling targeted mayors of the FMLN and the Frente

Democrático Revolucionario (FDR) who were seen to have strong (re-)election

chances and, in case of non-compliance with the sentence, could have not

have stood for public office. The mass media soon depicted the matter as

proof of corruption among local FMLN governments, but the judgment was

repealed following an appeal by that party. To all appearances the case had

been politically motivated and sought, in subtle ways, to exclude certain

139 Ibid., p. 38. 140 PDDH, Informe especial 2004, p. 318. 141 CIDAI, ‘La campaña electoral a principios de 2006’, Proceso, vol. 1176 (2006), www.

uca.edu.sv/publica/proceso/proc1176.html; CIDAI, ‘Consideraciones sobre la plata- forma legislativa del FMLN’, Proceso, vol. 1181 (2006), www.uca.edu.sv/publica/proceso/ proc1181.html.

142 Luis Alvarenga, ‘El desafı́o del cambio en el FMLN’, ECA, vol. 665–666 (2004), pp. 203–5.

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opposition candidates from the electoral arena.143 In a separate attempt to

manipulate the voting results, ARENA members gave talks to banking and

private-sector employees, warning them of the adverse consequences of an

FMLN victory for their job security. Some workers publicised these forms of

voter intimidation, but the authorities never investigated these reports.144

Similarly, the issue of vote buying arose when a representative of the

National Agrarian Institute promised some communities to resolve their

land title problems if they voted for ARENA.145

As in previous years the ruling party invested considerable sums of money

in its publicity campaign. In 2004 ARENA had already controlled more than

64 per cent of the political advertising market in TV, radio and newspapers,

while the FMLN retained a mere 24.61 per cent and the remaining oppo-

sition parties were effectively excluded. In 2006 advertising spending re-

mained highly asymmetrical and again saw ARENA’s share rise to over 64

per cent.146 The inequitable access to funding was exacerbated by the use of

state resources for overt or veiled electoral propaganda. Neither the TSE nor

the Corte de Cuentas, however, moved to investigate these incidents.147 Such

glaring differences in campaign expenditure, allowing one party to saturate

the media with electoral propaganda and seeing smaller groups struggle to

present their platforms to the population, created unfair competition among

the contenders.148 As a result, voters were denied the balanced and pluralistic

information they required to make an informed choice.

The dominant media, for their part, provided ample and sympathetic

coverage of ARENA’s colourful rallies and CAFTA’s entry into force on 1

March 2006, a date that had been shrewdly chosen to coincide with the final

campaigning week. Reporting depicted the trade agreement as a major op-

portunity for investment, economic growth and employment creation, im-

plicitly associating President Saca with economic development. By contrast,

news outlets supplied scant and discrediting coverage of the opposition

parties, particularly of the FMLN, which was branded an instigator of viol-

ence and disorder.149 Thus, a combination of biased news treatment and the

143 CIDAI, ‘Balance polı́tico’, Proceso, vol. 1175 (2005), www.uca.edu.sv/publica/proceso/ proc1175.html. 144 Luis González, ex-Director, CIDAI, email, 28 Nov. 2008.

145 PDDH, Informe especial sobre las elecciones legislativas y municipales de 2006 (San Salvador, 2006), p. 49.

146 Fundación Nacional para el Desarrollo (FUNDE), Observatorio de gastos de campaña pub- licitaria electoral: Primer informe, abril–noviembre 2008 (San Salvador, 2008), p. 6.

147 PDDH, Informe especial 2006, p. 44. 148 Organización de Estados Americanos (OEA), Informe de la Misión de Observación Electoral

sobre las elecciones legislativas, municipales y de Parlamento Centroamericano de El Salvador, 2006, OEA/Ser.G CP/doc. 4359/08 (2006), p. 11; PDDH, Informe especial 2006, pp. 79–80.

149 Xiomara Peraza et al., ‘La prensa escrita y la cobertura de la campaña electoral de 2006’, ECA, vol. 688–689 (2006), p. 280.

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non-regulation of media access meant that coverage of the political parties

and their electoral offers was lopsided and lacked the necessary objectivity.150

Again, the information that circulated in the public domain served to con-

strain voter preferences rather than to facilitate analysis.

Despite the nature of the 2006 elections ARENA’s campaign centred not

on municipal and legislative proposals but on the image of President Saca.

Notwithstanding a constitutional provision barring public officials from

participating in electoral activities, a number of ministers, parliamentarians,

mayors and mid-level officials ignored this rule.151 Police appearances in an

ARENA publicity spot were similarly illegal.152 However, the most startling

of these interventions were Antonio Saca’s campaigning efforts in favour of

ARENA’s candidates. Given his position as head of state, his involvement in

party political activities amounted to a particularly serious violation of elec-

toral and constitutional norms and testified to a less than minimal respect for

the laws governing his conduct.153 The TSE, however, did not pronounce on

the issue, nor did the FGR seek to sanction violations of the Electoral

Code.154 At the same time, President Saca’s campaign appearances afforded

his party additional press coverage and contributed to the already extremely

unequal media access by the political parties.155

Reports about an unusual increase in pre-electoral address changes, raising

concerns about the occurrence of transfer votes, prompted the TSE to call

for an OAS audit of the electoral roll. Despite the OAS mission’s confir-

mation that the necessary criteria of reliability had been met, on election day

the register continued to exhibit a series of irregularities. The PDDH was

informed of almost 500 anomalies, including fake ID cards, the fraudulent

registration or removal of voters, deceased voters on the lists, and some

individuals’ inability to vote because someone had already done so in their

place.156 Although these manipulations were neither pervasive nor decisive

for the outcome, they helped distort popular preferences, subtly disen-

franchised some citizens, and jeopardised the transparency and credibility of

the elections.157

The final results were mixed. While ARENA reversed existing voting

trends, increasing its number of parliamentary seats and municipal govern-

ments, it experienced a significant overall drop in votes and failed to achieve

its two main objectives: win the capital and secure an absolute majority in the

150 OEA, Informe elecciones 2006, p. 11. 151 CIDAI, ‘Valoración crı́tica de la campaña electoral’, Proceso, vol. 1184 (2006), www.

uca.edu.sv/publica/proceso/proc1184.html. 152 PDDH, Informe especial 2006, p. 49. 153 OEA, Informe elecciones 2006, p. 35; PDDH, Informe especial 2006, pp. 45–6, 78. 154 PDDH, Informe especial 2006, pp. 46, 62. 155 Ibid., p. 47. 156 Ibid., p. 27. 157 Ibid., p. 78.

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Legislative Assembly. The FMLN, on the other hand, gained one seat in the

Assembly and made a poor municipal showing, gaining control over only

22.5 per cent of local governments. The party’s loss of four departmental

capitals and its defeat in several traditional strongholds were surprising and

may have been invited by the decision to abandon some of its coalitions and

the earlier expulsion of some mayors who were subsequently re-elected on

another party ticket.158

While the results were eventually accepted by all contenders, a major dis-

pute occurred over the capital. San Salvador, the country’s economic and

political power centre and the city with the highest population density, re-

mains for all parties the most coveted mayoralty. Following the TSE’s release

of incomplete tallies both the FMLN and ARENA declared a premature

victory. The tribunal’s failure to disqualify these statements, and its decision

to conduct a count of the impugned votes after the results showed the leftist

candidate to have won by a slight margin, raised the spectre of fraud among

some FMLN supporters. In an attempt to voice their discontent, a group of

protesters marched towards the hotel where the TSE magistrates had gath-

ered and clashed violently with police. The incident raised fears about yet

greater violence, but calm returned to the capital when the tribunal finally

proclaimed the FMLN the winner by a mere 44 votes.

The needlessly delayed announcement, the TSE’s non-transparent hand-

ling of the electoral process, and the mistrust this provoked in some sectors

of society, were debatable. More important for this discussion, however, is

the possibility of fraud that loomed on the horizon and its implications for

EA in El Salvador. If the right had contemplated the idea of manipulating

the final vote count, that option may have been unrealistic and unnecessary

for a number of reasons. First, the prospect of stolen elections encouraged

opposition supporters to defend their victory through violence, and the in-

cipient crisis may have escalated and become uncontainable. Second, and

more crucially, San Salvador may be the country’s political bastion, but local

elections are necessarily limited in nature.159 In other words, although

ARENA failed to regain control over a prestigious municipal office, it

maintained ultimate political power and had to fear neither the eventual

discontinuity of its policies nor the loss of traditional privileges. If the party

had indeed considered depriving the left of its victory, both the loss of

legitimacy this would have invited and the limited incentives for stealing the

elections made acknowledging the FMLN’s win a sensible choice.

158 CIDAI, ‘Las elecciones legislativas y municipales de 2006: Polarización sociopolı́tica y erosión institucional’, ECA, vol. 688–689 (2006), pp. 208–9.

159 Thompson and Kuntz, ‘After Defeat’, p. 114.

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The FMLN’s difficulties in developing a more compelling campaign may

have contributed to its losses at the polls, especially its disappointing

municipal performance outside San Salvador. Election day irregularities,

occasioning the informal disenfranchisement of some voters, were not per-

vasive and did not affect the final results. However, a number of criteria that

are part and parcel of democratic elections were not met. Issues of structural

bias remained critical sources of manipulation prior to and during the cam-

paign and made the elections ‘not less democratic but undemocratic’.160

Specifically, the 2006 electoral process exhibited signs of EA in four areas:

the development of opposition choices, the formation of voter preferences,

the expression of voter preferences and institutional bias.

First, democratic elections presuppose the free formation of alternatives

from which voters can subsequently choose. The Corte de Cuentas ruling

against FMLN and FDR mayoral candidates, though subsequently revoked,

appeared to constitute an (unsuccessful) attempt to exclude contenders from

the electoral arena and narrow the range of opposition choices.161 Second,

citizens can only cast an informed vote if they have previously been able to

consult pluralistic and independent sources of information. For this to occur,

all political parties and candidates need to enjoy free and fair access to the

media. If some participants in the contest are given a much smaller oppor-

tunity to publicise their platforms than others, they do not stand an equal

chance of success, and the electorate is required to vote on the basis of in-

duced preferences. The non-regulation of campaign financing/expenditure,

together with the abuse of state resources, allowed ARENA to flood news-

papers and broadcasting time with its political advertising, putting the com-

paratively underfunded opposition parties at a considerable disadvantage.

Similarly, the Electoral Code’s silence on media access and treatment per-

mitted the leading press to release biased and unreliable information. Since

the oligarchic media system backs ARENA’s agenda, state interference was

unnecessary for the production of coverage that favoured the ruling party

and marginalised opposition forces. As a result, voters were offered only

highly homogenous and uncritical media content to help them decide be-

tween the available alternatives. If anything, this situation was exacerbated by

President Saca’s campaign activities, which were among the most blatant

violations but went unsanctioned and unfairly afforded ARENA an un-

rivalled amount of publicity.

Third, in order to express their preferences freely voters need to be

shielded from bribery, actual or threatened coercion, or other forms of undue

outside pressure. Vote buying, albeit in isolated cases, and voter intimidation

at the workplace and through media reports depicting the FMLN as

160 Schedler, ‘Menu of Manipulations’, p. 41. 161 Ibid., p. 39.

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unwilling to shed its affinity for violence, undermined a basic element of

democratic elections. Fourth, public institutions that were expected to per-

form key functions in the electoral process did not act independently of

political interests and neglected to fulfil some of their chief duties. While the

Corte de Cuentas omitted to launch an enquiry into the use of state re-

sources, the FGR failed to initiate criminal investigations into the multiple

violations that had been committed.162 Similarly, the TSE’s refusal to pro-

nounce on campaign abuses, electoral violence and officials’ participation in

party propaganda did nothing to ensure the overall credibility of the electoral

process, and the inefficiency it displayed during the San Salvador vote count

triggered tensions that might have ended in the breakdown of law and order.

Without the level of politicisation that permeates the state agencies, these

could have displayed greater impartiality and professionalism, thus helping to

make the elections fairer for all candidates.

Over the years El Salvador’s electoral processes have experienced ap-

preciable advances. However, developments in 2006 differed little from

previous ones: certain suffrage restrictions persisted, the authorities’ per-

formance continued to be inefficient, political actors broke the law with

impunity, the campaign was marred by violence, and political competition

remained highly unequal.163 Given both its complexity and relatively recent

emergence the electoral system is unlikely to undergo the necessary trans-

formations in the near future. However, observation findings also suggest

that there is no political will to promote changes that would reduce, if not

eliminate, existing problems and make electoral processes fairer.164 While

opposition weaknesses contributed in some way to its losses, the discussion

showed that biased structural conditions and the ruling party’s manipulations

helped tilt the outcome in its favour. The 2006 electoral process thus re-

vealed the persistence of EA.

2009: El Salvador at the Crossroads

In January and March 2009 El Salvador held municipal/legislative and

presidential elections, respectively. The first contest permitted the FMLN to

increase its mayoralties to 96 and to obtain 35 parliamentary seats, making it

the single largest party in the legislature. By contrast, ARENA took control

of only 32 parliamentary seats and 122 local governments, but received an

important boost through its win in San Salvador.165 The most serious elec-

tion day irregularities concerned voting by foreigners, vote buying and vote

162 PDDH, Informe especial 2006, p. 62. 163 Ibid., p. 28. 164 Ibid., p. 80. 165 OEA, Informe verbal del Jefe de Misión de Observación Electoral sobre las elecciones municipales y

legislativas de El Salvador, 2009 (San Salvador, 2009), p. 4.

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transfers in favour of the ruling party.166 These practices gave rise to ‘lega-

lised fraud’ in the capital and other important municipalities and produced

distrust and a high degree of conflict in some areas of the country.167 These

anomalies, combined with the political tension surrounding the narrow and

highly symbolic presidential race, prompted widespread fears of yet greater

fraud and violence during the March elections.168

Given the left’s very real chance of seizing national power, this second

event undoubtedly attracted much greater interest both domestically and

abroad. While ARENA nominated former police chief Rodrigo Ávila as its

candidate, perhaps the more surprising developments had occurred in the

leftist party. Contrary to previous presidential contests, the FMLN put for-

ward not an historical leader but a party outsider, the widely-respected news

anchor Mauricio Funes. Some saw the journalist’s nomination as a sign of the

FMLN’s increasing moderation; for others the choice of former guerrilla

commander Salvador Sánchez Cerén as Funes’ running mate cast doubt on

the party’s apparent transformation. Ultimately, this formula suggested a

degree of political pragmatism, allowing the FMLN both to attract its core

supporters and to broaden its electoral appeal.

Pre-electoral polls had consistently predicted a leftist victory, although

such projections meant little: in 2004 the FMLN’s earlier lead was over-

turned by a substantial margin, and in 2009 Mauricio Funes’ initially sub-

stantial lead dwindled considerably during the final weeks of the campaign.

Meanwhile, the campaign developed patterns reminiscent of previous elec-

toral processes. By January 2009 ARENA and its front organisation Fuerza

Solidaria were dominating 73 per cent of the political advertising market.169

Fuerza Solidaria also sponsored TV and radio spots and gave talks to public-

and private-sector workers, ‘educating’ voters about the FMLN’s links

with Hugo Chávez and the adverse consequences of a leftist win for El

Salvador.170 Similarly, government officials and the leading media sought to

associate the FMLN with Colombian rebels, street gangs and irregular armed

groups supposedly active in the country, insinuating that an FMLN win

would invite more violence.171 Despite persistent and serious irregularities on

166 Concertación por la Paz, Institucionalidad electoral colapsada (San Salvador, 2009), pp. 16–19; OEA, Informe elecciones 2009, pp. 6–7 167 Concertación, Institucionalidad, p. 19.

168 OEA, Informe elecciones 2009, p. 5. 169 FUNDE, Observatorio de Gastos de Campaña Publicitaria Electoral: Segundo informe (San

Salvador, 2009), p. 6. 170 El Faro, ‘Venezolano en gira de campaña contra el FMLN’, 16 Jan. 2009, www.

elecciones2009.elfaro.net. 171 Contrapunto, ‘Gobierno y prensa: El complot de los fusiles plásticos,’ 22 Dec. 2008,

www.contrapunto.com.sv; El Diario de Hoy, ‘Se sospecha de alianza de FARC y FMLN en secuestro’, 15 Oct. 2008 and ‘Piden al FMLN no utilizar a mareros’, 8 Jan. 2009, www.elsalvador.com.

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election day, voting occurred in tranquillity and ended in an historic triumph

for the FMLN.

Although a comprehensive assessment of the 2009 electoral process ex-

ceeds the scope of this article, the left’s victory warrants some brief reflec-

tions on the implications for EA in El Salvador. As indicated earlier, this

concept does not imply that the opposition can never win, but that the

incumbent party systematically manipulates electoral contests to control their

substantive outcomes. Regime continuity or change hinges on a number of

variables, notably the opposition’s strength, the skilfulness of the manipula-

tions, and voter preferences. Widespread wariness with persistent economic

problems and violent crime had put ARENA under considerable strain.

Given its reluctance to implement appropriate public policies the party

necessarily needed to resort to authoritarian manipulation to reduce the un-

certainty of the 2009 election results. Nonetheless, disenchantment with the

country’s direction and the popularity of the FMLN’s candidate occasioned a

massive voter turnout, which was crucial in neutralising the manipulative

strategies.

Since El Salvador had never seen an alternation in power it was unclear

whether ARENA would relinquish office peacefully. Rodrigo Ávila’s prompt

acknowledgement of his defeat can be seen in light of both the general risks

associated with stolen elections (particularly the most heavily observed

contest in the country’s history) and a series of other factors specific to the

current Salvadorean context. First, ARENA’s reaction was shaped by its

relative strength in the Legislative Assembly, where the party remains in a

position to defend elite interests while blocking unwelcome FMLN measures.

A future leftist government could thus be faced with a defiant opposition

and find it difficult to implement its policy agenda. Second, El Salvador’s

media sector is unlikely to experience significant transformations in the near

future. The mass media can be expected to maintain their antagonism to-

wards the FMLN and, together with the country’s top entrepreneurs, may

develop into an informal opposition force. Third, the FMLN’s past propo-

sals were insufficiently credible, which is partly why voters tended to con-

sider ARENA the lesser evil. On this occasion the FMLN’s manifesto was

more coherent, but past weaknesses and the party’s inexperience in running a

country raise questions about its capacity to govern El Salvador effectively.

The FMLN’s failure to deal ably with the nation’s socio-economic problems

would play into the hands of ARENA and pave the way for a return to elite

rule.

Mauricio Funes’ presidential victory constituted a significant moment for

El Salvador’s democracy, and the left is now in a position to promote the

changes that Salvadoreans have long been waiting for. Ultimately, this will

depend as much on the right’s maturity as on the FMLN’s own competence

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and ability to work with all sectors of society. The Funes government can

begin to address a host of issues that previous administrations were reluctant

to tackle, notably institutional reform, respect for human rights, public se-

curity, the rule of law and social justice. Time will tell how effective the

FMLN will be in this role. At any rate, the country has broken with years of

EA and can restart its much-delayed democratic consolidation.

Conclusion

When El Salvador emerged from years of authoritarian rule and armed

conflict the ruling ARENA party was required to implement the Peace

Accords and start building a democratic society. In the early post-war years

the country experienced important changes, including the staging of multi-

party elections, institutional reforms, transformations in the media sector

and greater space for civil society organising. Yet public institutions re-

mained largely unresponsive and acute social exclusion persisted, intensifying

violent crime and street gang activities. Rather than the perhaps inevitable

by-products of a post-conflict situation, these developments were the

consequences of a regression from an incipient electoral democracy to EA.

The latter concept offers a novel way of understanding political regimes

that have established the institutional façade of democracy to conceal and

reproduce authoritarian governance. Specifically, it invites us to rethink both

the nature of the difficulties El Salvador’s democracy has encountered and

the reasons for them. The analytical focus rests on incumbents’ manipulative

practices, aimed at controlling electoral outcomes and subordinating

state agencies to partisan political ends, and enables us to probe alternative

explanations for the opposition’s electoral defeats and the ineffectiveness

of public institutions. ARENA, and the elite it represents, had more to

gain from the preservation of the status quo than from democratic

changes. The party had only accepted the introduction of a politically

inclusive system to end war-induced economic collapse and restore the oli-

garchy’s dominant position through electoral politics. The right lacked in-

centives to foster democratic consolidation and found in EA the means to

subvert the country’s rules and institutions and defend elite interests and

privileges.

Over the years EA has encroached on various areas. In the institutional

sphere El Salvador has seen the formation of an authoritarian state where

officials largely act not to fulfil institutional mandates but to protect incum-

bent power. Successive administrations lacked the political will to equip state

agencies with appropriate resources and instead politicised them. At the

same time ARENA developed extensive regime influence over other

actors. The elite retains control over the state and economic policymaking;

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lawmaking in the rightist-dominated Legislative Assembly has tended to fa-

vour ARENA’s agenda; conservative leadership in the FGR has served to

suppress investigations of powerful individuals and police abuse and in the

PNC permitted the formation of a corrupt and abusive police force; and the

TSE, its independence compromised by its composition, has neglected key

duties during electoral processes. Finally, shared political and economic in-

terests between the media oligarchy and ARENA lead to coverage that is

biased in favour of ARENA and its governments, notably, but not only,

during electoral cycles.

In the electoral arena irregularities intensified with the 2004 elections,

when the right began to fear the FMLN’s ascent to power. EA regimes differ

in how they seek to control electoral outcomes, and ARENA relied on a

combination of electoral persuasion and manipulation, notably in 2004 when

Mano Dura and the threat of remittance losses helped sway voter pre-

ferences against the left. However, criteria for democratic elections were

repeatedly breached. Voter list anomalies remained sporadic, and technical

problems, though oddly recurrent despite El Salvador’s two decades of

electoral experience, did not indicate an intention of fraud. Voter intimi-

dation, both at the workplace and through the media, affected the free ex-

pression of voter preferences and reflected the poverty of ideas that prevails

among the political parties and leads to second-rate campaigns. While the

FMLN has often failed to convince, so have the other parties. ARENA in

particular has shunned debates and instead relied on the media-fuelled anti-

communist rhetoric that has featured in all elections despite its long-lost

relevance.

Furthermore, electoral processes have been affected by a serious institu-

tional bias, notably the TSE’s tendency not to investigate and sanction

campaign abuses, electoral violence and fraudulent practices (no matter how

intermittent). Most importantly, electoral campaigns regularly unfolded in

unequal and unfair conditions, denying contenders an equal chance of suc-

cess and undermining the free formation of voter preferences. Again, al-

though opposition weaknesses facilitated incumbent victories to a degree,

structural bias, notably the non-regulation of media access/treatment and

campaign finance/expenditure, constituted a subtle but significant source of

electoral manipulation and afforded ARENA substantial advantages over the

remaining parties. Ultimately, elections cannot be democratic unless they

permit free and fair political competition.

El Salvador is a markedly different country today, and no one would argue

that it continues to see the kind of electoral fraud that characterised the past.

However, manipulations typical of an EA regime reappeared, and traditional

structures of economic and political dominance remain in place, subverting

public institutions to the extent that these guard minority interests and fail to

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design the policies that the nation requires. The notion of EA helps reveal

how democracy became an instrument for the perpetuation of elite rule and

the inequalities underpinning it. The key actors in this process have shown

deep disrespect for democratic norms, the rule of law and the country’s

institutions, and Salvadorean society has paid a high price for these viol-

ations. In the past the FMLN, like other opposition parties, did little to

become politically more competitive and reverse EA any sooner. The

FMLN’s 2009 presidential victory has restarted democratic consolidation,

but this endeavour will require everyone, both the elite and the public, to

contribute to it. Regardless of the political regime that develops, or the party

controlling the presidency, Salvadoreans will need to begin to press the

government of the day to work for society as a whole, not only for some of

its members.

Spanish and Portuguese abstracts

Spanish abstract. Tras décadas de autoritarismo y de una guerra civil de doce años que finalizó con un acuerdo de paz en 1992, El Salvador es un paı́s marcadamente diferente. A pesar de cambios importantes, sin embargo, las instituciones públicas se han mantenido en buena medida paralizadas, persiste una aguda exclusión social, y el crimen con violencia se ha disparado. En vez de ser probables productos colaterales de una situación de post-conflicto, estos y otros desarrollos son la consecuencia de una regresión desde una democracia electoral incipiente hacia un autoritarismo electoral. El partido Alianza Republicana Nacionalista (ARENA) controlado por las élites tiene más que ganar con la preservación del status quo que con los cambios democráticos, y sólo aceptó un sistema polı́ticamente inclusivo para restaurar la posición dominante de la oligarquı́a a través de la polı́tica electoral. Sin estar com- prometidas con la consolidación democrática, las sucesivas administraciones de ARENA mantienen una fachada institucional de democracia para reproducir la gobernabilidad autoritaria y defender los intereses de las élites.

Spanish keywords: calidad de la democracia, autoritarismo electoral, gobierno de élite, partidos polı́ticos, El Salvador

Portuguese abstract. Após décadas de autoritarismo e uma guerra civil de doze anos encerrada por um acordo de paz negociado em 1992, El Salvador é um paı́s nota- velmente diferente. A despeito de importantes mudanças, no entanto, em grande medida instituições públicas continuam não correspondendo às expectativas; per- siste a exclusão social aguda enquanto a quantidade de crimes violentos aumentou drasticamente. Ao contrário de serem subprodutos talvez inevitáveis de uma situa- ção pós-conflito, estes e outros desenvolvimentos são consequências do regresso iniciado quando a incipiente democracia eleitoral transformou-se em autoritarismo eleitoral. O partido Alianza Republicana Nacionalista (ARENA), controlado pelas elites, tinha mais a ganhar pela preservação do status quo do que através de mudanças

464 Sonja Wolf

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democráticas, somente aceitando, inicialmente, um sistema politicamente inclusivo para depois restaurar a posição dominante da oligarquia através de polı́ticas elei- torais. Sem compromisso com a consolidação democrática, sucessivas adminis- trações da ARENA mantiveram uma fachada institucional de democracia para reproduzir governança autoritária e defender os interesses das elites.

Portuguese keywords: qualidade da democracia, autoritarismo eleitoral, governo das elites, partidos polı́ticos, El Salvador.

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