In El Salvador, addressing corruption and other issues has taken a back seat to gang violence.

The World Politics Review recently conducted an interview with Geoff Thale of the Washington Office on Latin America:

WPR: What steps is El Salvador taking to fight corruption, and how do they compare to the efforts of Guatemala and Honduras in this area?

Thale: El Salvador has taken some positive steps toward transparency. Legislation on open records, passed five years ago, created an Institute for Access to Public Information, and there is a Transparency Secretariat in the president’s office. Both institutions’ records have been mixed, as compliance varies across ministries.

The National Civilian Police have made fitful efforts to pursue criminal groups with links to the state and to politicians, but coordinating and pursuing these kinds of complex cases is fundamentally the attorney general’s responsibility. Attorneys general in El Salvador have traditionally shown little interest in pursuing politically sensitive matters and have often lacked the political independence and technical capacity to do so. 

Consistent with this trend, El Salvador’s current attorney general, whose term expires on Dec. 4, has done little to combat corruption. He has not aggressively pursued corruption charges against two former presidents and has not brought major cases against affiliated criminal groups or politicians. The National Assembly is considering candidates to succeed him, including some with a better track record of respecting the rule of law and judicial independence. That choice will be a major test of National Assembly members’ commitment to fighting corruption.  

The government and private sector, with support from the U.N. Development Program, agreed to the National Plan for Citizen Security, which proposes a special inter-institutional commission to investigate corruption and criminal infiltration. A committed attorney general could help establish such a commission and use it in a serious campaign against corruption. 

Neither the FMLN nor the ARENA look interested in rooting out corruption. Investigations are too tied up in politics and simply making the other party look bad. Understandably, politics is part of the game.

Congress needs to select a strong, independent fiscalia to turn the country upside down. I'm not that optimistic.