The 12th National Meeting of Private Enterprises

The National Association of Private Enterprises (ANEP) met with government officials today at the 12^th annual National Meeting of Private Enterprises. ANEP presented to the presidents of the three branches of government a series of proposals that will improve the human and economic development of the country.

At this National Meeting of Private Enterprises (ENADE) the focus will be on the current deficiencies found in El Salvador’s democracy. Jorge Daboub, the president of ANEP, states that there are serious deficiencies in the electoral system and various institutions, and if they are not addressed and corrected will hinder the development of El Salvador.

The document presented at this years ENADE is entitled “El Salvador does have a future commitment to democracy” and includes seven proposals of electoral and institutional reform that is geared to improve human and economic development.

Those that were expected to be in attendance included Julio Maria Sanguinetti, former president of Uruguay, President Mauricio Funez, Sigfrido Reyes, the president of the Legislative Assembly, the president of the Supreme Court, Jaime Bellarmine, and other government officials and members of the private sector and related organizations.

La Prensa Grafica reports on four of the seven reforms. The first reform “proposes to maintain the goal of deputies to be chosen through open lists, ie that citizens choose candidates of their choice, even if they belong to different parties. Currently you can only vote for candidates of the same party.”

Another reform proposes that proportional representation of parties be established in local councils and that their term is limited to five year, which will require amendments to the Electoral and Municipal Codes.

The third reform proposal is “to adopt a law on transparency in financing political parties and candidates supporters transparent revenue and expenditure of political parties to finance their activities, including election campaigns, and "maintain medium-term goal that the country has a law on financing political parties and nonpartisan candidates, and as long-term goal of a political party law.”

A fourth reform that La Prensa Grafica includes in their article is in regards to the creation of an entity like that of the United States Electoral College. This separate entity will “administer the functions and processes of electoral events and electoral justice teaching: creating an Electoral Institute which is the highest authority in electoral matters, administration and verification of the electoral process.”

These proposals are admirable, however we must now wait to see if they are approved and if so, how they will be implemented.