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El Salvador Interest Groups
Private Enterprise
Members of the private business sector relied on a number of
organizations to articulate their positions on economic and
political issues. These organizations served as pressure groups,
injecting themselves regularly into the political arena through
criticism of government policies, the actual or threatened
shutdown of business and industry, and behind-the-scenes lobbying
with politicians. The leading private enterprise organizations
were the National Association of Private Enterprise (Asociacion
Nacional de la Empresa Privada--ANEP), the Association of
Salvadoran Industrialists (Asociacion Salvadorena de
Industriales--ASI), the Salvadoran Chamber of Commerce and
Industry (Camara de Comercio e Industria de El Salvador), the
Salvadoran Coffee Growers Association (Asociacion Cafetalera de
El Salvador--ACES), and the Association of Coffee Processors and
Exporters (Asociacion de Beneficiadores y Exportadores de Cafe--
Abecafe). Their membership was drawn from the economic elite, and
their leadership consistently advocated a reduction in government
involvement in industry, the reprivatization of coffee exports
and foreign trade in general, no increase in taxes on business
(usually referred to as "the productive sector"), no extension of
the agrarian reform, and reductions in government spending
(see Role of Government
, ch. 3).
Most economic issues usually found the private enterprise
organizations aligned on one side and labor and peasant
organizations on the other, with the Duarte government somewhere
in between, attempting to mediate between the two blocs. This was
especially true with regard to agrarian reform. The private
enterprise organizations, particularly the coffee growers'
associations, opposed agrarian reform from its inception in 1980.
They were unable to prevent implementation, however, because of a
shift in the political climate that brought too many other
actors, including the PDC, the reformist military, and the United
States, down on the side of some measure of reform. Denied their
first preference in the matter, the private sector groups went on
to advocate limitations on the terms of the reforms. These were
enacted by the Constituent Assembly and incorporated into the
1983 Constitution. By the late 1980s, the line taken by the
private sector reflected that espoused by Arena, namely, that the
reforms should not be rescinded but should be made more
efficient.
Private-enterprise organizations provided the most
significant opposition to the Duarte government's 1986 economic
austerity package. From the businessmen's point of view, the most
offensive aspect of the package was the so-called "war tax" on
all income above US$20,000 with revenues derived from the tax to
be applied directly to the war effort against the leftist
guerrillas. In this as in other matters, the private sector
groups worked in concert with Arena. While arenero
legislators boycotted sessions of the Legislative Assembly in an
effort to deny the PDC a quorum, the private-enterprise
organizations called for a shutdown of business and industry on
January 22, 1987. The business strike was quite effective,
closing a reported 80 percent of Salvadoran stores, factories,
and professional and nonprofessional services. Although
impressive, this demonstration of economic power by the private
sector had no immediate effect on government policy. The issue
eventually was rendered moot, however, in February 1987 when the
war tax was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.
The January 1987 strike was but another chapter in a long
history of confrontation between the private sector and the PDC.
Bitterly opposed to Duarte's election in 1984, the ASI publicly
denounced Duarte and his party as adherents to the same ideology
as that of the FMLN. The PDC, according to the industrialists,
differed only in its "method and strategies" for achieving
socialism. Although he responded to the attacks in kind during
the campaign, Duarte attempted after his election to reassure
business leaders that he was not antagonistic to private
enterprise. The agendas of the PDC and the private sector were
too divergent, however, and attitudes generally were hardened
between the two as economic conditions failed to improve and the
insurgency ground on interminably.
Data as of November 1988
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