|
El Salvador The Constitution of 1983
The Political Setting
The sixty-member Constituent Assembly elected in March 1982
was charged with producing a new constitution. This new document
was expected to institutionalize, although perhaps in modified
form, the reform measures taken by the various junta governments
after 1979; it was also to serve as the master plan for a system
of representative democratic government. In addition to crafting
the structure of that government, the Constituent Assembly was
responsible for issuing a schedule for presidential elections.
A majority of the members, known as deputies, of the
Constituent Assembly represented conservative political parties.
All told, conservative parties had drawn approximately 52 percent
of the total popular vote. The moderate Christian Democratic
Party (Partido Democrata Cristiano--PDC) had garnered 35.5
percent. These results equated to twenty-four seats for the PDC
and thirty-six seats for a loose right-wing coalition made up of
the Nationalist Republican Alliance (Alianza Republicana
Nacionalista--Arena), the National Conciliation Party (Partido de
Conciliacion Nacional--PCN), Democratic Action (Accion
Democratica--AD), the Salvadoran Popular Party (Partido Popular
Salvadoreno--PPS), and the Popular Orientation Party (Partido de
Orientacion Popular--POP). Representatives of these five parties
issued a manifesto in March 1982 decrying both communism and
Christian democratic communitarianism and declaring that both
ideologies had been rejected by the people by way of the ballot
box. The coalition leaders suggested that they were preparing to
limit Christian democratic influence on the drafting of the
constitution and to exclude the PDC from participation in the
interim government that was to be named by the Constituent
Assembly.
The original exclusionary aims of the rightist coalition,
however, were never completely fulfilled. During its existence,
from April 1982 through December 1983, the Constituent Assembly
came under pressure from a number of sources, most significantly
from the United States government and the Salvadoran military.
United States envoys from both the White House and Congress
pressed Salvadoran political leaders to incorporate the PDC into
the interim government and to preserve the reform measures,
particularly agrarian reform. At stake was the continuation of
United States aid, both economic and military, without which El
Salvador would have been hard pressed to sustain its democratic
transition in the face of growing military and political pressure
from the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front--Revolutionary
Democratic Front (Frente Farabundo Marti de Liberacion Nacional-
Frente Democratico Revolucionario--FMLN-FDR), the leftist
guerrilla (the FMLN) and political (FDR) opposition groups that
unified in 1981 in an effort to seize power by revolutionary
means
(see The Civil Conflict Begins
, ch. 1). El Salvador's
military High Command (Alto Mardo) recognized this reality and
lent its considerable influence to the cause of continued PDC
participation in government. The Christian Democrats had been
brought into the junta governments at the urging of reformist
officers; by 1982 the PDC and the military had come to a
practical understanding based on their shared interest in
maintaining good relations with the United States, expanding
political participation, improving economic conditions for the
average Salvadoran, and fending off the challenge from the
Marxist left. Realistically, the last objective was preeminent
and encompassed the other three. Lesser influence was exerted on
the deputies by popular opinion and demonstrations of support for
specific reforms. For example, campesino groups staged rallies
outside the Constituent Assembly's chambers to press their demand
for continuation of the agrarian reform decrees.
The actual drafting of the constitution was delegated by the
Constituent Assembly to a special commission composed of
representatives of all the major political parties. The assembly
agreed to reinstate the 1962 constitution with only a few
exclusions until a constitution was produced and approved. At the
same time, the deputies voted to affirm the validity of the
decrees issued by the junta governments, including those that
enacted agrarian, banking, and foreign commerce reforms. Having
reestablished a working legal framework, the assembly voted
itself the power to act as a legislature through the passage of
constituent decrees.
Since it could not serve as both the legislative and the
executive branch, the Constituent Assembly was required to
approve the appointment of a provisional president. Many
observers believed that Arena leader Roberto D'Aubuisson Arrieta,
who was elected president of the assembly on April 22, 1982, was
the most likely candidate. D'Aubuisson's reputed ties with the
violent right wing, however, militated against him. It was
reported that the United States and the Salvadoran High Command
lobbied persuasively against D'Aubuisson's appointment, mainly on
the grounds that his negative image outside El Salvador would
complicate, if not preclude, the provision of substantial aid
from Washington. Apparently swayed by this argument, the members
of the Constituent Assembly appointed Alvaro Magana Borja, a
political moderate with ties to the military, to the post on
April 26. In an effort to maintain a political equilibrium,
Magana's cabinet included members of all three major parties--
Arena, the PDC, and the PCN.
Despite its defeat on the issue of the provisional
presidency, Arena continued to hold the balance of power in El
Salvador through its leadership of the conservative majority in
the Constituent Assembly. The areneros (members or
adherents of Arena) vented their frustration with the political
process primarily in the area of agrarian reform. In May 1982,
Magana proposed a partial suspension of Phase III of the reform,
the Land to the Tiller program, for the 1982-83 harvest season in
order to avoid agricultural losses occasioned by the transfer of
land titles
(see Agrarian Reform
, ch. 2). The Arena-led coalition
in the assembly seized on this proposal and expanded it to
include some 95 percent of Phase III landholdings. This action
was interpreted by interested parties both in El Salvador and
abroad as a bid by the right to eliminate agrarian reform and to
encourage the eviction of land recipients, a process that was
ongoing at the time, although its extent was difficult to
quantify; it led directly to a limitation by the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee of the United States Congress on military and
Economic Support Funds (ESF) aid to El Salvador. Although Arena's
most important domestic constituency--the economic elite--
continued to advocate the limitation if not the elimination of
agrarian reform, it was clear that such efforts in the
Constituent Assembly would have negative repercussions. The
failure of Arena's leadership to take this fact into account and
its seeming inability--or unwillingness--to seek compromise and
accommodation on this and other issues contributed to its
eventual loss of influence among center-right assembly delegates
and the military leadership.
In August 1982, in an effort to bring the areneros
under control and to prevent them from sabotaging not only the
reforms but perhaps the entire fledgling democratic system,
Magana, apparently at the strong urging of the military chiefs
and the United States, brought together representatives of Arena,
the PDC, and the PCN to negotiate a "basic platform of
government." In what became known as the Pact of Apaneca, the
parties agreed on certain broad principles in the areas of
democratization, the protection of human rights, the promotion of
economic development, the preservation of economic and social
reforms, and the protection of the country's security in the face
of the violent conflict with leftist insurgent forces.
Organizationally, the pact established three commissions: the
Political Commission to work out a timetable and guidelines for
future elections, the Human Rights Commission to oversee and
promote improvements in that area, and the Peace Commission to
explore possible resolutions of the civil conflict. The
guidelines established by the pact eased the chaotic governmental
situation to some degree; they were also significant in that they
brought Arena into a formal governmental association with more
moderate actors, such as the PDC, and committed the
areneros, at least in principle, to the preservation of
some degree of reform.
The pact did not put an end to infighting among the political
parties, however. Magana, lacking a political power base or
constituency beyond the good will of the military, found it
frustrating to try to exert authority over his cabinet ministers,
particularly those drawn from the ranks of Arena. This conflict
came to a head in December 1982, when Magana dismissed his health
minister, an arenero, for refusing to comply with the
president's directives. Arena party leadership advised the
minister to reject the president's action and to retain his post.
This proved to be a miscalculation on the part of Arena, as
Magana went on to have the dismissal approved by a majority of
the Constituent Assembly. Again in this instance, the behind-the-
scenes support of the military worked in favor of the provisional
president and against Arena.
The damage done to Arena's prestige by the dismissal of the
health minister was compounded by the party's efforts to
influence the appointment of his successor. Magana proposed a
member of the small, moderate AD for the post. The
areneros, particularly Constituent Assembly president
D'Aubuisson, saw this (not without justification) as an effort to
diminish their influence in the government and sought to defeat
the appointment through parliamentary maneuvering. They succeeded
only in delaying approval, however. Furthermore, after the vote
the assembly amended its procedures to limit the power of the
assembly president.
Arena was not the only party to see its standing diminish
after the signing of the Pact of Apaneca. The PCN delegation in
the Constituent Assembly suffered a rupture immediately after the
signing of the pact, as nine conservative deputies split from the
party to establish a bloc they dubbed the Salvadoran Authentic
Institutional Party (Partido Autentico Institucional Salvadoreno-
-PAISA). This move left the assembly more or less evenly split
between conservative and centrist deputies.
The special commission charged with drafting the constitution
finished its work in June 1983. At that time, it reported that it
had reached agreement in almost all respects. Two major
exceptions, however, were agrarian reform and the schedule and
procedure for presidential elections. These issues were left to
the Constituent Assembly to resolve.
Of all the constitutional provisions debated in the
Constituent Assembly, those dealing with agrarian reform were the
most contentious. In light of the decline in the Arena
coalition's standing and influence and the corresponding gains of
the PDC and its moderate allies, eliminating the reforms
altogether was ruled out. The conservatives retained enough
clout, however, to limit the provisions of the original decrees.
Their major victory in this regard was the raising of the maximum
allowable landholding under Phase II of the reform from 100 to
245 hectares, an action that addressed the concerns of some well-
to-do landowners but that put a crimp in redistribution efforts
by reducing the amount of land subject to expropriation. After
the 1982-83 suspension, the Constituent Assembly twice extended
Phase III of the reform; the government accepted applications for
title under this phase until July 1984.
Aside from the sections dealing with agrarian reform, the
draft constitution was approved by the Constituent Assembly
without an excess of debate. One exception was the article
dealing with the death penalty. The version finally approved by
the assembly endorsed capital punishment only in cases covered by
military law when the country was in a state of declared war.
These restrictions effectively eliminated the death penalty from
the Salvadoran criminal justice system. Consideration of the
draft document by the full Constituent Assembly began in August
1983; the final version was approved by that body in December.
The effective date of the Constitution was December 20, 1983. The
Constituent Assembly, having completed its mandate, was dismissed
at that point, only to be reconvened on December 22 as the
Legislative Assembly. The membership of the body remained the
same.
Data as of November 1988
|
