El Salvador The incipient democracy that emerged from the peace agreements was domi­nated(both in the presidency and in congress) by the neoliberal ARENA party, whose first president created a reform commission that, with WB financing, recommended the substitutive model(after a parametric reform made in the two public programs). This proposal was neither published nor discussed with the unions and the opposition; the Guillermo Manuel Ungo Foundation (FUNDAUNGO) with the support of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation prepared a documented study that recommended a mixed model with lower transition costs than the substitutive model. The government agreed that an actuary from the U.S. Social Security Administration studied the two bills and render a ver­dict, but the government staff—whose managers were in Santiago de Chile at the time—did not meet with the actuary and thus he was unable to do his job. The government then hired, with WB financing, a Chilean firm(not an actuary) which concluded that the government’s substitutive reform draft had lower costs than the mixed system draft. This study was not published either, despite the FUNDAUNGO and opposition leaders’ requests. The privatization bill was quickly approved in 1996 by the large parliamentary majority of the ruling party. 2. Democratic Regimes with some Manipulation and Varying Degrees of Social Dialogue In the remaining five countries there were democratic regimes and lengthy and tortuous discussion was common, as well as manipulation in a couple of countries and social dialogue, although to varying degrees. 7 The reform 7 The structural reforms in Argentina and Bolivia(which later made re-reforms) were passed in democratic regimes by neoliberal governments. The Argentine pension system experienced a severe financial-actuarial disequilibrium. In 1989, Carlos Ménem—the Peronist leader of the conservative wing of such party—became president. In 1991, Ménem appointed a neoliberal politician as Minister of Economy, who in turn appointed a well-known expert as Secretary of Social Welfare. With UNDP financing, he conducted 40 studies on the system and its reform. In 1992, a dialogue was initiated with the political parties and social organizations such as unions, mutuals, cooperatives, and pensioners’ associations, which mostly distrusted the Chilean model, resulting in a mixed-model proposal which was submitted to a debate that lasted 15 months, after which it was approved by Congress in 1993(Bertranou et al, 2018). Bolivia also experienced a severe disequilibrium in its pensions and 28