Winter 2003 Feature

Exploring Democracy in El Salvador

by William B. Vogele
Associate Professor of Political Science

Democracy in Process

El Salvador’s political system today provides the possibility of all political opinions to be expressed legitimately. The struggle for power between left and right continues, but now in the electoral process at both local and national levels. The former guerrilla coalition—the FMLN (Faribundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional) is now the largest party in the National Assembly, although a coalition of two conservative parties control the executive council. In addition, FMLN mayors hold office in many municipalities, including San Salvador.

Catedral Metropolitana, San Salvador. The country’s Catholic cathedral, where Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romeros was assassinated in 1980.

All of the individuals I interviewed suggested that these political reforms were important positive progress. Some pointed out that the FMLN is the only guerrilla army in Latin America to be successfully incorporated into the political system as a political party. Critics from the left argued that the institutions are “well designed, but badly used.” The challenge identified by almost all individuals was the need to improve the functioning of these institutions.

Press freedom provides one of the obvious mechanisms for continuing to improve Salvadoran democracy. El Salvador’s media are noticeably free to cover politics, investigate government actions, and offer critical viewpoints, although all views are not equally represented. As in the United States, the concentration of ownership, the economic obstacles to access, and the political sympathies of media owners tend to constrain the broadest exchange of views. But direct government control of the press appears absent.

During my visit, for example, the jockeying for power among the political parties in the Assembly was carefully reported. A significant scandal involving suspect credentials for many of the country’s magistrates and justices was emerging—with the implications reaching high into the government and into several political parties. These traditional institutions of authority were not easily criticized in previous eras.

Perhaps the greatest achievement of the peace process so far—a point made by all of the individuals I interviewed—is the reform of the armed forces. No other institution has been so successfully transformed. Prior to the 1992 Peace Accords the military dominated political life, acting in close alliance with the civilian elite. However, the first postwar minister of defense (himself a career officer and retired general) told me, “The military’s actions in 1972 [to overturn the election of an opposition presidential candidate] were one of our big mistakes.” This stolen election arguably turned the opposition to increasingly violent means, as the political left was driven out of the system.

The Peace Accords envisioned a dramatically different armed forces. Under the accords, the armed forces of El Salvador have been explicitly removed from politics, their size cut by half, and their structure altered to make their reentry more difficult. They are now focused on a mission of national security against external aggression and threats to security—not on internal policing and political control. Civil security is the task of a national civilian police force, although it has yet to become fully professional and effective in fighting crime.

The Challenges for Democracy

One of the foremost challenges to continuing democratic progress in El Salvador is simply social and economic development. El Salvador faces enormous social problems that would test the resiliency of any democratic institutions. The other challenge is the weakness, and perhaps incapacity, of the existing political institutions to provide the effective governance needed to cope with these problems.

One sees the development challenge firsthand on arriving in the capital city of San Salvador. Along the highways, clusters of small, densely packed houses cling to hillsides. Other houses in a town near San Salvador still stand unoccupied, severely damaged in the earthquakes of January and February 2001. Yet wealth may be at least as concentrated now as before the war.

Concern for public safety is visible and tangible. A private security guard, often armed with a rifle, stands near the door to most neighborhood pharmacies or photo shops. Wealthier homeowners have razor wire on the top of the walls that surround their houses. Gang graffiti mark the walls of buildings in poorer sections of the city. Shootings and domestic violence are regular items in the news. The murder rate in the country is about 50 deaths per 100,000 people. (By comparison, the 2000 murder rate in the US was 5.5 deaths per 100,000.)

Street scene in the center of San Salvador.

In the countryside, agriculture is struggling as the world market price of coffee has collapsed. Economic diversification away from a coffee-based economy has proceeded slowly over several
decades. Free trade areas have been created to attract foreign investment for light industrial and manufacturing activities, such as apparel and assembly work. During my visit, however, newspapers reported layoffs by some foreign-owned light manufacturing enterprises, citing falling global demand.

Migration remains El Salvador’s single greatest “safety valve.” Salvadorans continue to look abroad, especially to the US, where they imagine a better future for themselves and their families. Migration does provide some benefits. It relieves the already high economic and social pressures at home. In addition, the remittances from Salvadorans living abroad provide a source of national income. But this is a problematic economic model. If nothing else, emigrants are always vulnerable to negative shifts in social and political attitudes in their “host” country. As the US tightens controls on foreign nationals, Salvadorans could be more vulnerable to legal action and deportation.

Most important, in my view, are the weaknesses of the Salvadoran political institutions charged with responding to these problems. The crisis of Salvadoran politics today is the incapacity of the political institutions to respond to people’s desires for change. Salvadoran political parties represent the voters poorly, a situation preserved by the national electoral system. In El Salvador, national legislators are elected on the basis of proportional representation. Under this system, a party gains the number of seats in the legislature based on its proportion of the vote in the electoral area. On election day, voters select a party “flag,” not individual candidates.

A hillside in Santa Tecla, near San Salvador, which collapsed in the 2001 earthquakes.

Because proportional representation systems permit numerous parties to gain access to the legislature, diverse ideological views can be represented. By contrast, consider the US electoral system, where two parties dominate and minor parties have trouble even getting on the ballot. Nevertheless, the Salvadoran system diminishes the effective voice of the people. The national leadership of each party creates a list of potential deputies for each electorate. Only candidates at the top of the list have a real chance of becoming a deputy. Deputies therefore owe their allegiance far more to the party leadership than they do to the voters they “represent.” Voters may have little or no contact with “their” deputies between elections. And the deputies have little or no incentive to respond to “their” constituents.

The result is a kind of disenfranchisement of the electorate—and the evidence is clear in both popular opinion and voting behavior. For example, Salvadorans recently expressed the least confidence in the National Assembly of all national institutions. They have higher opinions of their municipal governments—which are more directly connected to their lives. But local government is very weak and underfunded. Similarly, voting rates have declined steadily, so they are now below 50 percent. Ominously, the Economist magazine reported in August 2002 a survey that shows a 14 percent decline since 1996 among Salvadorans agreeing that “democracy is preferable to any other kind of government.”

El Salvador’s political system has made enormous strides in the past decade. In the face of very serious social and economic challenges, democratic institutions and processes have continued to function. Potential threats to these processes from traditional sources—the military and the landed elite—have greatly diminished. Democracy has become, generally, the “only game in town.” Effectiveness and efficiency, however, are the keys by which people tend to judge how well a government is working. Large problems in a poor country like El Salvador challenge any government.

As I continue to explore these issues with others—in my research, with students in classes, and in conversations—we are struck by the complexity of choices that people face. “Responsible government” must also be “responsive.” Individual citizens in very difficult circumstances must make choices about what is best for them, and for their community. Politicians and political institutions are not always focused on the common good. We see that there are no simple answers. But we hope there are important insights for ourselves and others.