SALVADORANS GO TO THE BALLOT BOX

...But it does show that the much cited unemployed family man, previously on very low wages, who gets nearly as much on the dole as in work, is only one in 20 of those out of work...

...But there is no dictator...

...The concession of a share of power (territorial, for example, along the lines of Mexico in the last century or, more recently, of Zimbabwe) is not inconceivable...

...Significantly, the biggest losers in the elections have been those who recruit, often by force, the hands to hold the guns: the leadership of the guerrillas and that of the army...

...The comandantes opted to share power, instead of choosing the One...

...D'Aubuisson was released from jail and expelled from the army...

...Below we present what Gabriel Zaid considers a sequel to the earlier article...

...it has yet to be resolved...

...British officials are comforted that the American government has joined in their efforts to delete a whole chapter of next September's issue of The Employment Outlook, published by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD...

...Yet one important change was made in 1946, when the revolutionary caste handed over power peacefully to the university-educated caste, beginning with "the kids of the Revolution"—the military leaders' children, who were far better educated than their fathers...

...Its first issue last September was attacked by monetarist economists for the gloomy picture it painted of the future...

...In this perspective, the plural voice will never speak with the executive clarity of the One, though there are miraculous moments in which it may sound like one...

...He didn't have long to wait for a chance, since by no means all of the army accepted Majano's solution...

...It said that some 20 million jobs would have to be created in the OECD countries by 1990 just to keep unemployment at today's rates...

...The innovation in earlier times of generals doing personal battle in front of their troops, reducing them to public spectators, was noble and human in its terms— as is the innovation of the ballot...

...in the second, 46 percent to Duarte's 54 percent...

...For these guerrilla leaders (and for the military), sharing power will always be a defect to be overcome...

...A few months later it lost control over its left wing and shortly thereafter over its right wing too...

...They are now almost certain to get their way...

...But the voters didn't want this solution...

...Let us hope that the public accountability of the U.S...

...But the number of voters increased from 1,266,276 to 1,404,366 (out of a possible total of some 2 million, in a population of some 4.5 million...

...In 1979 the Sandinist military leaders, after repeated failures on the battlefield, achieved a political feat that led them to victory: they overcame their rivalries, aligned and coordinated themselves internally and with the civilian opposition...

...At present, the cotton growers (who haven't forgiven him for the triple blow to their agrarian, banking, and export interests), like the guerrillas, are preparing a welcoming party for him: they have vowed not to replant their fields unless he authorizes a more attractive price for their cotton...

...Yet, if the guerrillas couldn't win over the majority to their side in 1981, how much less so now...

...The problem lies in expecting the general will to function like the will of a powerful individual who thinks, chooses, and acts rationally— that is, viewing collective sovereignty in the image of an enlightened sovereign...

...An election often is a solution to conflicts at the top—a solution that may also be in the clear interest of those below...

...The distribution of voters' preferences can yield incongruous results...

...In October 1979 the Military Youth Organization, headed by Colonel Adolfo Majano, led a coup aimed at imposing a policy of apertura a sinistra ("an opening to the left...

...Those who mock voters today as no more than mere spectators are mocking the blood tax...

...If a tenth of those with nothing to lose but their chains were to join the guerrilla force, it would number many more fighters than the army...

...He will be constrained by pressures from all classes...

...The army now recognizes the failure of its various efforts to take political control of the society: the "legal" solution through the National Reconciliation party, Majano's left-looking coup, and D'Aubuisson's terror...

...This paradoxical voting, with its reminder of Condorcet, speaks of a conflict below, of a divided society, of the need for the civilian president chosen by popular vote to seek the "national reconciliation" that the military has never found...

...And, in the years 1913-28, the new chiefs (unable to come to terms among themselves) killed each other off...

...In the first round D'Aubuisson received 30 percent to Duarte's 43 percent...

...The army now feels the pressure of the mounting stockpiles of foreign arms (both its own and the rebels...

...They reveal their goals little by little, through inside channels, a deal here and a coalition there, partial seizures of power, accumulations of strength, and faits accomplis...

...The study draws on the work of a British academic, Mr...

...it is discredited by its bungling and heavy-handedness...

...Its political arm, the National Reconciliation party, dropped out after the first round of elections with a showing of 19 percent, despite the assistance they received from the CIA (like Duarte—but unlike D'Aubuisson, who got support from the U.S...

...The Treasury is puzzled by recent British unemployment figures, which show the trend still rising, in conflict with forecasts in its model of the economy...

...Their major concession has been to allow a young civilian university graduate to become mayor of San Salvador—Jose Napoleon Duarte— who, during his term in office (1963-1970), gained wide popularity because of the integrity and accomplishments of his administration...

...It 456 must submit to the inscrutable judgment of those voters who, 12 years later, once again have elected Duarte...

...Surely, Castro and the Sandinistas must be getting quite sick of their Salvadoran clients, of their trumpeted "final offensives" that end in fiascos, their greater talent for assassinating each other than for inspiring popular enthusiasm...

...He had taken no part in the initial stages of its government, having been in exile in Venezuela since 1972, when, robbed of his election, he had suffered a second blow after supporting the head of the National Guard in an abortive coup attempt...

...It might be attractive to the suppliers of rebel arms...

...454 El Salvador's military leaders, unlike those in Mexico, are university graduates...

...And things did not return to the old state of affairs, to the regime of military presidents sponsored by the National Reconciliation party that usually had "won" the elections from the civilian candidates...

...Such mandates are not always present nor can they always be fulfilled, as theoreticians from Condorcet to Arrow have shown...

...Roberto D'Aubuisson took advantage of Majano's decree that had dissolved the agencies of repression (ORDEN, ANSESAL) to move the terror underground and make it massive, widespread, and almost impossible to control...

...Despite the fact that the party, honoring its name, had offered a third solution—somewhere between Duarte and D'Aubuisson...

...The guerrillas can press on for many years without getting anywhere...

...Since the guerrillas have also committed atrocities 457 and shown themselves incapable of winning— and since there now is a nonmilitary, civilian alternative for the democratic left that didn't exist before—one can only hope that the guerrilla movement will continue to lose popular support, that it will come to lose its backing in the Socialist International and, finally, that of its arms suppliers...

...An unexpected twist: it was said that in the runoff elections the voter turnout would diminish, because the people would grow weary (that being the third election since 1982) and because they now could document their prior participation in voting, they would have less reason to fear repression...

...And though stronger than ever in military terms, their forces are adequate only for harassment, not victory...

...Once it became clear that Duarte would be the likely winner in the runoff, the greater number of those who hadn't voted the first time around, or who had voted for one of the other six candidates, cast their ballots for D'Aubuisson...

...invasion is a more realistic objective...

...35 million to get back to the levels of 1979...

...This disregard for political pluralism ignores a more basic problem: armed pluralism...

...In short: concerning the conflict at the top, Duarte's election means above all that the army has had to relinquish its exclusive internal voting and decision-making in favor of the civilian ballot box...

...From The Economist (London), June 16, 1984...

...To provoke a U.S...

...Duarte's election is not the solution to the Salvadoran conflict, but it is a decisive first step...

...It means that neither the Majanos nor the D'Aubuissons can count any longer on a majority of their colleagues...

...But seldom—if ever—has a whole chapter of a broad economic study been chopped because of governmental opposition...

...Critics said its doubts that this could be done ignored the job creation that could follow, for example, a fall in real wages or a shift in the economy toward lower-paid jobs (in service industries) for workers losing jobs in manufacturing...

...The Revolution of 1910 destroyed this system...

...Ever since Condorcet formulated his paradox, it has been impossible to believe that every (free and clean) election clearly expresses the general will...

...At this point, they have more to hope for from U.S...

...They were replaced by a system for sharing power by turns, which prevails to this day...

...Mexico's armed pluralism, in the 19th century, was resolved by a military caudillo (Porfirio Diaz) who knew how to get rid of his cronies or to subordinate them and, at the same time, to establish a system of strong power centers: a number of strong men ruling over territorial zones...

...Nor to the army, for whom it would mean accepting military defeat from the rebels, and political defeat from the civilians...

...What they would really like to see is a good dictator: the One who can assume the sovereignty over all and impose order on the plural will—the One who can make it one will...

...If we add to all this the problems of who is to vote and how, systems of runoffs and tallying, formulations of choices (not to mention that the elections might not be so free and so clean), one can see why so many—especially among poorer populations—don't think much of elections...

...More than military triumph they now seek a political one: to negotiate surrender in exchange for a share of power—or, failing that, to provoke a U.S...

...or they can debate openly and submit the decision to public judgment, though this might prove as inscrutable as the Judgment of God or as random as the flip of a coin...

...The guerrillas have demonstrated (since January 1981, when they called for a "general insurrection" as part of "the final offensive") time and again that they do not command a majority...

...Nor would such a concession be attractive to the civilian population, since it would be a negation of the elections...

...We are speaking here of a minimal submission to the will of the people at the bottom in order to resolve a conflict at the top, with decisive effects both above and below...

...This renunciation, by civilians, of a civilian solution was a great boon to those who favored violence— those members of the army and of the guerrilla movement who saw no solution other than one achieved by force of arms...

...But this was a negative consensus, directed against Somoza...

...They rejected Guerrero, perhaps because he represented the army and the very party that had stolen the 1972 and 1977 elections...

...The subject is a sensitive one...

...These supporters must be sick of being compromised and paying heavy bills for nothing...

...The progressive ferment of those days was dashed by this and other electoral frauds, and by the usual repressive measures (though not massive repression as that of 1932, which was to return by the end of 1979...

...It would be a political triumph similar to the one Joaquin Villalobos so proudly celebrated upon triggering the massive repression at the end of the year 1979...

...The army, too, has been a big loser...

...government, the pressure from other countries, and Duarte's adroitness will combine to avert such a tragic blunder...

...It had been widely thought that Francisco Jose Guerrero, the National Reconciliation party's candidate, might score an upset—considering the support he enjoyed and the precedent of 1982, when the Constituent Assembly, confronted with the dilemma of choosing between Duarte and D'Aubuisson, had discarded them both in favor of a third, Alvaro Magafia...

...But opposition will not come from the oligarchy alone...

...In modern terms, the sum of "rational" wills can be "irrational...

...in Nicaragua, unhappy over the drift toward a Cubanstyle militarized society...

...they can strike a private bargain to name (or not to name) the One and then try to gain advantages (or even to alter the 453 bargain) by pressuring or fighting one another in other than armed or public ways...

...But this minimal submission to the electoral process is progress, when weighed against the condition of those at the bottom— those who provide the cannon fodder for settling the conflicts at the top...

...Other important gains, too, are possible within the scope of Duarte's reformist platform, though he cannot act as an absolute sovereign...

...David Piachaud, of the London School of Economics...

...The three elections were boycotted by the guerrillas and viewed with contempt by a good part of the international press, but not by the voters—those who supply the victims while no agreement is in sight at the top...

...In El Salvador as in Nicaragua, the leftist officers (coup leaders, revolutionaries) invited the civilian left to govern alongside them, in committees that were, however, incapable of controlling the sectarian and factional elements...

...The others are better off postponing definitions until they can be formulated in the most advantageous terms to themselves...

...Its leadership was anxious to restore "national reconciliation" (that is, reconciliation within the army itself, then split in two directions, left and right...

...Yet actions that will affect the members' personal interests tend to be conservative rather than bold...

...At that point, accepting the solution proposed by the Contadora group (until now underestimated, like the elections) would consecrate the civilian approach on an international scale...

...But not to those who believe in protracted warfare—a difference in strategy that lies behind the assassination of comandante Ana Maria Martinez by her own comrades, behind the "suicide" of Marcial, and behind the appearance of the Clara Elizabeth Ramirez Metropolitan Front, which is a splinter from the Popular Liberation Front and dedicated to assassination and other desperate acts aimed at wrecking any possible negotiated solution...

...Thus, in 1979, in this irregular fashion, a military officer conceded to the civilian coalition of 1972 and 1977 the power of which the other officers, also in irregular fashion, had deprived it...

...And they did not submit to elections—perhaps because they feared that the spectacular seizure of the National Palace by Eden Pastora would give him an electoral advantage...

...The first priority is to bolster the society's confidence in itself, in order to gain some civil ground in the face of the violence, and to do so before winning the civil war, whose very nature resists a definitive triumph...

...private sector...

...Because the guerrilla movement was effectively sidelined, one of its comandantes (Joaquin Villalobos) set out to provoke a massive repression...

...that another third prefers B, then C, then A; and that the last third chooses C first, then A, and last B. One majority of two-thirds thereby chooses A over B, another B over C, while yet another of the same proportion prefers C over A. This is to say: "the" majority prefers A over B and B over C (which is not incongruous)— but also C over A (instead of A over C, as would be expected...

...D'Aubuisson was not all that far from winning, and so confident was he of victory that he accused Duarte beforehand of preparing a coup...

...Nobody now, really, was sure of what was going to happen in the election...

...At the moment, in response to the Salvadoran elections and taking advantage (as they did four years ago) of the diversion of the U.S...

...they ended up siding with the guerrillas...

...It would reduce their expenses and give them some tangible return on their investments, instead of increasing them indefinitely in hopes of winning big at some point down the road, who knows how far...

...His analysis leads to the conclusion that unempmloyment causes real poverty, especially if it lasts over six months...

...Thus many among the intelligentsia, tired of the role of loyal opposition, went over to the Communist party, which they found only mildly radical...

...invasion...

...The army's officers, on the other hand, have reached an understanding among themselves and with the landowners to the effect that, by means of their National Reconciliation party (a telling name), power is to be shared by turns, yet will always remain in military hands...

...It would also be attractive to those guerrillas who, since the fall of Somoza, have fought five frustrating years in expectation of a swift collapse of the Salvadoran regime...

...I n El Salvador as in Nicaragua, there is no lack of candidates for a good dictator...

...Like "Enemy Colleagues," this article will stir strong responses, and we will be pleased to print brief, succinct comments of those who disagree with Mr...

...Translated from the Spanish by DAVID PRITCHARD 0 Print No Evil Whitehall is using its muscle to suppress an international report on the poverty created by long-term unemployment in Britain and other industrialized countries...

...That dirty trick of tampering so arrogantly with an election merely goaded on the rebels, the coup-makers, the death squads: it unleashed armed pluralism...

...The clearest vote against them has come from the 600,000 to 700,000 peasants who, voting with their feet, have left the country...

...And the only thing that makes sense (morally, politically, pragmatically) is to begin by eliminating the death squads...

...This consensus—abetted by Somoza's talent for alienating even his closest associates (at home and abroad) and by his blind conviction that repression would suffice— brought the dictator down...

...The risk of opting to win the game is attractive only to those who think they're the top players...

...Yet the problem of specifics and of the character of the leadership presented itself at the moment of victory...

...And so it now prefers to follow the example of other Latin American armies: leave the problem to the civilians...

...Of course, neither the rebels nor the death squads have disappeared...

...presidential election campaign, they are preparing another "final offensive" that will in no way be final...

...This is not the sort of truth that goes down well in saloon bars in the home counties...

...Assuming this will be so, it is likely that many guerrillas—and above all their arms suppliers—will be unwilling to continue indefinitely on the path of civil war...

...For example, let's suppose that a third of the voters prefers A first, B second, and C last...

...He called on the parties of the left to share power, and they accepted...

...More audaciously still (in terms of "national reconciliation"), the voters narrowed the margin between Duarte and D'Aubuisson in the runoff elections...

...and surely not for his handling of the assassinations, which he was unable to control— but because he insisted, somewhat foolhardily under the circumstances, on sticking with the Junta that had called him to power...

...Nor will this solution fit Reagan's Manichean policies...

...They don't feel insecure in the presence of their sons, their civilian colleagues, or the bourgeois kids who have attended the university and decided that they aren't willing to wait for the day when the army will yield its power peacefully, but want to seize it by force of arms...

...Zaid.—Ens...

...blunders than from guerrilla successes...

...and it is nervous over the rupture of its internal unity...

...OECD reports on member countries' economies often tone down criticisms because the government concerned objects to something in the draft report...

...And it will surely not appeal to anyone realistic enough to see that the guerrillas, in a shared government, would be unable to control those of their colleagues who are committed to protracted warfare...

...Thatcher is being heavily briefed on it, fearing that the issue, which seemed to cost her nothing in the 1983 election, could cost her heavily next time...

...Those at the top who aspire to be the One have three alternatives in deciding who that One will be...

...Far more than elections, and hence than the plural will, they value the single-minded will that stands, in their eyes, for order and progress...

...As for the conflict between top and bottom, the fundamental gain for those at the bottom would essentially lie in the reduction of the blood tax—which the people of El Salvador have been paying for so long—and in the possibility of calling their government to public account...

...It neither favored a Nicaraguan Castro, who never emerged, nor a specific, new regime...

...Majano threw him in jail, thus ending both their careers as crusaders within the army...

...It is a triumph of civilian society in the face of the army and the guerrilla movement...

...Nor does it particularly single out Britain...

...And, as the OECD study shows, these are the jobless who can suffer real hardship...

...The Salvadoran army preserved its unity until the triumph of the Sandinistas in Nicaragua...

...Thus the groundwork was laid, first for the elections to the Constituent Assembly in 1982, and then for the two rounds of presidential elections in 1984, with legislative elections currently under preparation for 1985...

...But they didn't allow Duarte to become president in 1972—although he had won the elections legitimately, with a civilian coalition that included the Social Democrats and even the Communist party and was headed by the Christian Democratic party (to which he belonged...

...In both countries, the civilians soon began to withdraw: in El Salvador, horrified at belonging to a murderous regime...

...and that most unemployed get poorer very quickly...

...There now are signs that students and intellectuals are becoming disillusioned with their own messianism, weary of getting nowhere, fed up with internal squabbling and with the dependence on Cuba...

...Nor, evidently, in Whitehall...

...After the terrible cost in blood and destruction, the army must now own up to its error—"the lesser evil," as it was thought of at the time—of having defrauded the elections...

...People who live in societies that no longer face this problem can afford the luxury of forgetting that some free and clean elections are not primarily an instrument to facilitate democratic government from the bottom, nor a means of self-legitimization for those on top...

...Further, in practice, many possible mandates—clear, broad-based, and realistic— can come out of a ballot box...

...They supposed, with good reason, that he would be less adept at committee politics than at capturing public attention...

...The number of people out of work in Britain for over a year has been rising alarmingly to over 1 million, that is, 37 percerit of the jobless total...

...Majano was replaced in the Junta and left the country...

...it is safer to agree to let matters ride than to attempt changes that will be to everyone's liking...

...Not so much because of his agrarian reforms or the nationalization of the banking and agro-export sectors (a more radical reformism than anyone had expected from the Junta in the midst of a civil 455 war...

...The study is admittedly incomplete, partly because of the difficulties of comparing welfare benefits in different countries...

...The submission is real, the legitimacy authentic, and the mandate compelling though usually not very precise...

...The decisions of a ruling committee tend toward adventurous or conservative extremes...

...It can seem trivial compared to the grand fantasy that sees the general will as if it were One voice, governing with full executive power, conveying precise orders from below...

...The Employment Outlook has already aroused criticism...

...In both countries, there is an armed pluralism, which as yet has led neither to dictatorship nor to political pluralism...

...And as a change might precipitate popular elections to determine the One, thus leading to the abdication of our ruling committee, it is easy to understand the reluctance to act...

...Despite the fact that the party's victory would have been a good thing for the army, the oligarchy, and the United States...

...But it proved a lucky break for the Salvadorans that, from 1980 to 1982, the army and Duarte tolerated each other, under pressure from the United States...

...There is a dark side to this bloodless coup...

...It will be relatively easy for the more active members to launch adventures that don't affect their colleagues (or might even benefit them)—especially if they present their schemes in ways that place rejection in a bad light (such as weakness in the face of treason, of subversion, of "enemies of society...

...Almost half the population voted for a man widely reputed to be a murderer and who accuses Duarte of being "a Communist...

...It is Jose Napoleon Duarte's dubious merit to have had the stomach to join the Junta at a time when others were beginning to withdraw...

...They can kill each other off until only the One is left...