A Big Fat No from the Salvadoran Business Community

Following Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's June visit to Guatemala, some were optimistic that Central American elites were beginning to see the light (they need to pay more in taxes) with regards to strengthening state institutions in order to fight organized crime and drug trafficking. I wasn't convinced that a consensus was actually emerging and the response of the Guatemalan business community backed me up. 

In El Salvador, President Mauricio Funes and members of his administration also approached the Salvadoran business community in order to convince them of the need to pay a greater share of taxes. Their response was pretty similar to that of Guatemalan businessmen. Funes, the Secretary of Strategic Affairs, and the ministers of Justice and Security, Treasury and Defense said that they wanted to institute a tax at no more than 1.5% on individual and business assets estimated at a value of over $500,000. By doing this, they hoped to raise $380 million over the next three years. Funes argued that the government needed additional tax revenue for military aircraft and frigates to intercept drug trafficking. 

As Fernando de Dios stated in his Contrapunto article

But this proposal, like any other that has to do in this country to make the rich pay more taxes, was rejected outright by private enterprise.

The National Association of Private Enterprise (ANEP), the Salvadoran Association of Industrialists (ASI), and the Chamber of Commerce and Industry responded with a big fat "no." 

• Funes didn't come up with a comprehensive security plan. Each ministry instead asked for additional funds to focus on its piece of the puzzle. 
• Military aircraft and boats would not solve the problem of daily living  in El Salvador. 
• The government presented a solution to a fiscal problem rather than an insecurity problem.
• The government requested money to help pay for existing security policies and not funds to support new initiatives. 
• They won't support a tax increase until they have more confidence in the government's ability to carry out a successful plan.
• They won't support a tax increase until they are convinced that there is effective oversight into how the funds are spent. 

And then there's the if you make us pay more in taxes, we're not actually going to pay any more in taxes because we will pass off any and all tax increases to the Salvadoran people through higher prices and layoffs.

I can't say that I would have expected anything different from the heads of ANEP, ASI, and the Chamber of Commerce. Given their history on taxes and their relationship with the current FMLN government, no one should expect anything different no matter how much the Salvadoran people suffer as a consequence.

Candidates Dropping Likes Flies in Guatemala

From a November 2010 post on Guatemala Gears up for 2011

Another other interesting discussion from the article is that, as of today, several of the most likely 2011 candidates are barred from running under existing rules. Article 186 of the constitution would seem to ban Sandra Torres de Colom and Zury Rios Montt.  Torres should not be able to run because she is related to the current president. Zury Rios Montt, on the other hand, should not be able to run because her father came to power in a military coup.

Former president Álvaro Arzú is a third candidate who will have trouble running. Article 187 bans presidential reelection under any circumstances.

The IPS article does not talk about Harold Caballeros of Visión con Valores (Viva). Caballeros might not be able to run because Article 186 also prohibits the leaders of religious groups and cults. I'm not sure that anyone knows what is going to happen next year, but I wouldn't be surprised if one or two of them find a way to run.

Okay, so this last prediction isn't looking very good. Torres' candidacy has been blocked three different times by the TSE. Zury Rios declined the FRG's invitation to be its presidential candidate because of the party's lack of campaign resources and "unfair competition." Alvaro Arzu decided to run for reelection as mayor of Guatemala City and leave it up to his wife to run for president on the Unionist Party's ticket.

And now on Wednesday, the Citizen's Registry nixed Viva-EG presidential candidate Harold Caballeros from the list of candidates because he is an evangelical pastor. Caballeros has been polling fifth for most of the campaign season. Caballeros rejected the TSE's ruling because he says that he stopped ministering in 2006.

It's no wonder that 80% of all Guatemalans believe that the country is headed in the wrong direction and that 70% believe things are worse under Colom than they were under Berger. 

More Poll Numbers in Guatemala

On Tuesday, El Periodico published the results of its June poll conducted by Borge y Asociados. These latest poll numbers are similar to last week's Vox Latina and Prodatos numbers where General Otto Perez Molina retains a comfortable lead over his main competitor (?) Sandra Torres. If the elections were held today. 40.1% would vote Perez and 15.2% would support Torres. While Perez has increased his lead over Torres, it is still not enough to assure him a first round victory.

Carrying out survey research in Guatemala is obviously not the easiest enterprise and it's possible that the surveys do not accurately reflect the true level of support for the candidates. However in the eleven polls conducted since December, Perez Molina has averaged 40% of the likely vote and Torres has averaged 15%. While Torres' numbers have fluctuated a bit, there hasn't been much variation in Perez Molina's level of support.

It's hard to envision a late surge in support for Torres if she somehow manages to get herself on the ballot. Surprisingly, even with Torres' troubles, no other candidate has surpassed ten percent of the voters' intentions. For now, the only question that remains is whether Perez Molina can save the country several million dollars and win a first round victory.

Arrest in San Jose Pinula Murders

El Periodico

Last month two mayoral candidates for the municipality of San José Pinula were murdered. Augusto Enrique Ovalle Barrera of the Unionist Party was shot and killed in his car on June 11 and Enrique Dardon of the Commitment, Renewal and Order party (CREO) was shot and killed in a barbershop on the 16th. A few days later mayoral candidate Luis Marroquin of the Renewed Democratic Freedom party (LIDER) was shot and injured. He survived because he was wearing a bulletproof vest.

Today, Guatemalan authorities arrested Luis Marroquin. He is accused of having orchestrated his two competitors' murders and then faking the attack against him. Marroquin, Juan Carlos Gabriel Medina, and Manuel Enrique García Rodas are charged with murder, attempted murder, conspiracy and simulating a crime (Prensa Libre) According to investigators, Marroquín and the two other candidates had conflicts over the removal of campaign propaganda (El Periodico). 

Attorney General, Claudia Paz y Paz and Interior Minister Carlos Menocal say that there is ballistic evidence linking Marroquin and his workers to the shootings. The International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG) and National Institute of Forensic Science (INACIF) participated in the investigation.

Even with his arrest, Marroquin proclaimed that he remains a candidate for mayor. However, LIDER's presidential candidate Manuel Baldizón publicly stated said that Marroquin had ceased to be the party's mayoral candidate for San José Pinula as of two weeks ago.

Some would say that this is just an incredible story. A mayoral candidate had his two competitors killed and then simulated an attack against himself. However, just like the murder of Bishop Juan Gerardi (The Art of Political Murder) and the murder/suicide of Rodrigo Rosenberg (A Murder Foretold), nothing is as it ever appears in Guatemala. It's hard to be surprised anymore.

Giammattei for President

Three days after leaving prison, Alejandro Giammattei is now the presidential candidate for the Center for Social Action Party (CASA). Giammattei is the former director of the Penitentiary System from the Berger administration. 

The International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG) had accused Giammattei and sixteen others of belonging to a criminal organization that carried out executions both inside and outside the country's prisons, including the execution of seven inmates during the storming of the Pavón Rehabilitation Farm in September 2006. A judge from the high risk court ordered Giammattei released in May during a real low point in CICIG's history in Guatemala.  

Giammattei finished in third place (behind Colom and Perez Molina) with 17% of the vote in the 2007 presidential contest at the head of the Grand National Alliance (GANA) ticket. Giammattei should place somewhere in the second tier of candidates along with Suger, Baldizon, and Caballeros and Guatemalans probably don't have to fear what will happen to CICIG under President Giammattei.

Reducing the Guatemalan Army

Adam Isaacson argues that Oscar Berger's decision to reduce the Guatemalan military from 50,000 to 17,000 in 2004 is not the main reason that the country is ill-prepared to fight drug trafficking and organized crime. He then makes four very good points.

• Cutting back the Army wasn’t a mistake. The big mistake was not increasing the police to fill the gap...
• Fighting organized crime is not what an army does...
• It’s wrong to assume that Guatemala’s army would be less susceptible to corruption...
• Guatemala’s army has never been held to account for human rights crimes...

I agree with every point that he makes, but would just want to add two more things. First, I am not sure that we know what happened to the 33,000 members of the Army that were let go. How many found their way into the ranks of the cartels or other shadowy groups? Would a force of around 30,000 have provided a career opportunity for young men and women and had any substantive impact on the number of unemployed, cartel footmen, or migrants heading north to the US?

Second, if Guatemala has one police officer for every 700 residents that means that it has a force of about 20,000. That’s the ratio that the WSJ uses. However, from what I read in November 2009, Guatemala had 23,287 police officers. That would work out to 1 officer for every 600 Guatemalans. That still does not meet the standard suggested by the UN, but it is a little better.

In 2006, the country counted on 19,600 police, or 150 per 100,000 Guatemalans. With a force of 23,287 in late 2009, that worked out to about 166 police per 100,000 (based on a population of 14 million).  This ratio is considerably less than that of El Salvador, a country confronting similar problems of insecurity, where the ratio was about 229 per 100,000 in 2006. With the 2009 increase in El Salvador’s force, it possesses about 242 agents per 100,000 (17,000 based on a population of 7 million) (Guatemala’s Drug Crime Challenge: How We Can Help It Cope).

The difference in police forces is magnified if one takes into consideration that El Salvador’s population is less than half that of Guatemala, it is geographically smaller at almost one-fifth the size (42,043 sq mi for Guatemala versus 8,124 sq mi for El Salvador), has only one coast, and does not share a 600-mile long boundary with Mexico.

An additional problem with the police is that President Colom stated (as of 2009) that he had added 6,000 new police since taking office. (I don't have more up to date numbers.) At a minimum, then, at least one quarter of the force has less than four years’ experience. The large percentage of new recruits among the Guatemalan police feeds into the lack of training and experience criticism.

None of this undermines Adam's argument. Reducing the military isn't the main reason that Guatemala has been unable to deal with drug trafficking and organized crime. A more important failure is that the country has failed to produce enough properly trained police officers.

Another Road Block for Torres

After four hours of deliberation, the magistrates of the Guatemalan Supreme Electoral Tribunal rejected Sandra Torres, UNE and GANA's petition to overturn the decision of the Registro de Ciudadanos (RC). The RC had denied Torres' inscription as presidential candidate earlier in the week because she had committed fraud in getting divorced so that she could get around Article 186 of the constitution. The vote was three to two against. 

Orlando Blanco, UNE's campaign manager, said that there are  "evil intentions" and "a very strong conspiracy" behind the efforts to register the UNE-GANA presidential candidate. Torres herself said

"Those who do not want me to register are the dark powers behind the million [dollar] campaigns that are now financing presidential candidates. This dark power of money, funding campaigns, where they have billboards everywhere. I will register by faith and will of God."

Torres has another three days to appeal to the TSE before moving upon to the Supreme Court of Justice (CSJ). If the CSJ upholds the ban on Torres, she can then appeal to the Constitutional Court which is the last hurrah. All this has to be done by July 11th, the last day to inscribe candidates.

On the one hand, who really cares? According to every poll out there, Torres is likely to be crushed at the ballot box. Torres is not thinking about what is in the bast interests of her party and the people of Guatemala. Torres is only thinking about Torres. 

On the other hand, she (and many others) probably believe that she is the country's last best hope to prevent the ascendancy of General Otto Perez Molina to the presidency. While she is twenty-to-thirty points behind Perez, she is probably the only candidate with a sliver of a chance to defeat him and she must do everything possible to stop the general. Here's why.   

Perez was a military officer in Quiche, one of the department's that suffered the most under the government's 1980s scorched-earth program. Perez and the Patriotic Party's promise this weekend to bring peace to the Ixcan probably sent shivers down the spines of many of the people there. 

In his 2007 and 2011 campaigns, Perez promised to take a harder line against organized crime and drug trafficking should he be elected. For many, the Colom administration hasn't cared all that much about human rights during the states of siege in Alta Verapaz or Peten and doesn't seem too concerned with investigating human rights violations against civil society. While no one expects a similar scorched-earth program to root out crime should Perez be elected, human rights are likely to be even less of a concern.

There has also been movement towards holding military officials accountable for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide in recent years. It's quite likely that ongoing investigations into military officials involved in state repression and their prosecution will come to a halt under a Perez government. For those looking to indict and prosecute Perez, that hope will be dashed with his election as president.

Finally, the Colom's record of support for CICIG hasn't been all that great but there have been advances in rooting out corrupt officials and convicting arresting former high-level government officials. It's not clear that a Perez victory will make CICIG's work any easier. As a result, the country will return to the corruption and lawlessness of the Portillo administration.

There are important reasons to reject Torres' attempt to dance around the constitution and become president. However, for those interested in a more comprehensive approach to organized crime and drug trafficking (increased spending on social programs in addition to mano dura policies), holding former military officers accountable for crimes committed during the country's conflict (including Perez himself), and supporting the work of CICIG, Torres might be your only choice in September. Perhaps that is why Torres is willing to go to such great lengths to be president.