Education Center

By Jeremy Harrison-Smith

On October 29 I met a group of 18 North Americans in Managua, Nicaragua as part of the Witness for Peace elections observation delegation.

The main focus of the delegation was to monitor United States intervention in Nicaragua’s election. To learn more about this we set out to meet with the major political parties and various other groups.

First a little background on Nicaraguan politics. In 1979 the Nicaraguan people overthrew the violent Somoza dictatorship, and the National Sandinista Liberation Front (FSLN) governed the country until 1990.

After fighting a long and costly war (against the contras, who were funded by the U.S. government) the Sandinistas were voted out of power.

The people had a guarantee from the U.S. government that the war would end if the U.S.-backed candidate Violeta Chamorro beat FSLN candidate Daniel Ortega. As a result a majority of Nicaraguans voted for Chamorro who was running with the backing of a united right-wing.

On November 5, 2006 Daniel Ortega was voted back into power after a sixteen year absence. Ortega lost the past two elections in 1996 and 2001.

But this year with a divided right-wing and a new election law Ortega won with 38% of the vote and will become president in January. The remaining 62% of the vote was split between two right-wing liberal parties and a Sandinista break-off party.

In 1999 Ortega and Arnoldo Aleman (ex-president, and convicted felon) signed “el pacto”, an agreement between the FSLN and the Constitutional Liberal Party (PLC) which has since given the two parties political control in Nicaragua. In 2002 a new law was passed that lowered the percentage of votes a presidential candidate needs to win from 45% to 35%. This wouldn’t have passed if it weren’t for the pact, which was a prominent topic throughout the election, and provided the base for many of the anti-Sandinista parties.

Our delegation met with the four main political parties; PLC, FSLN, Nicaraguan Liberal Alliance (ALN) and the Sandinista Renovation Movement (MRS). We also met with the Supreme Electoral Council (CSE), Movimiento por Nicaragua (a group that receives U.S. financing to register voters), and the U.S. Embassy/USAID. We also received electoral observation training with Nicaraguan organization Etica y Transparencia (Ethics and Transparency).

All of the political parties that we met with said the U.S. government has been interfering in Nicaragua’s elections, and that they would prefer that the U.S. not meddle in their internal affairs.

Our meeting with the ALN was the most eye opening. At first they denied that the U.S. was intervening, and asked us why we weren’t talking about Venezuela’s intervention, referring to the controversial agreement between the Sandinistas and the Venezuelan government to ship cheap oil to Nicaragua.

The representatives from the ALN went on to defend the U.S. government’s actions. They said that given the history between the two countries and the U.S.’s current “war on terror” they have the right to be concerned about who wins in Nicaragua. One of the ALN representatives that we met with is a former Contra Commander, and at one point during our meeting he thanked God that Reagan helped free them from a Marxist dictator during the 80’s.

One of the most notable things during our meeting was the language the ALN used, which at times was exactly the same as the Bush administration uses. Interestingly, the ALN candidate was the one preferred and supported by the U.S. government.

In the months leading up to the election U.S. ambassador to Nicaragua Paul Trivelli made numerous comments about how the U.S. would have to reconsider its relations with Nicaragua if Ortega won.

Public appearances by other U.S. government officials included Representative Dan Burton’s (R-Indiana) visit to Nicaragua. He told Nicaraguans that if Ortega was elected, U.S. aid to Nicaragua might end. Comments were also made by U.S . Trade Representative Carlos Gutierrez and U.S. Congressman Dana Rohrabacher.

Rohrabacher wrote a letter to the Secretary of Homeland Security just days before the election asking to develop a contingency plan to stop allowing Nicaraguan immigrants in the United States to send remittances if Daniel Ortega were elected, a grave threat given that Nicaragua currently earns more in remittances than it does in exports.

These public threats definitely had an affect on how some Nicaraguans voted. I talked to several people who said they weren’t going to vote for Ortega because they were afraid of how the U.S. would react and they didn’t want another war.

We met with a sociology professor from UCA (Universidad Centroamericana) who gave us his insight before the election on why he didn’t think the U.S. threats were going to change the mind of a great deal of Nicaraguans. His three main reasons were: some of the threats are impossible to carry out, some people think the threats are stupid, and there are more young people who haven’t experienced U.S. aggression like the older generations have.

Before the election there were talks about the possibility of fraud and much of the attention was on the FSLN. The MRS explained to us the situation that gave them concern. The campaign chief of staff compared the FSLN’s advantage during the election to a sports team, he said, “the FSLN has the players, they have some of the other team, they have the referee and they own the league.”

The MRS lost a lot of its support when their Presidential candidate Herty Lewites died of a heart attack four months before the election. Many voters told me that they would have voted for the MRS, but now that Herty is gone they are going to vote for Ortega.

Nicaraguans expressed a range of different points of views as I talked to them before the election. For example there are people that despise Ortega because of the Contra war during the 80`s and the military draft that was in place at that time. Many blame him for the deaths of their sons and brothers. At the same time there are those who are hardcore Sandinistas who were probably helped by the Sandinistas, and always vote Sandinista no matter what.

The campaigns very much represented how Nicaragua is split between Sandinistas and anti-Sandinistas. For an example: the PLC’s platform was simply, “don’t do what Ortega did.” The election was pretty much Ortega vs. everyone else.

There were a lot of first time voters (the voting age in Nicaragua is 16). Several people told me that this was an important factor in the election because the fastest growing sector of the population is the lower class which has traditionally supported the FSLN.

On election day we participated in electoral observation in eight municipalities, covering twenty-three polling places in the departments of Managua, Masaya and Granada. We observed a very slow but efficient process. We noted that despite minor anomalies in the voting process, overall, voters were not impeded from casting their ballots. These anomalies did not affect the final results of the elections, and there was no evidence they were a result of intentional fraud.

As the results were being announced in the days following the elections, there were celebrations in the capital, Managua, and throughout the country. We witnessed huge caravans in Managua driving around roundabouts with Sandinista flags, music and fireworks.

At the same time there were many people that were very upset and couldn’t believe that Ortega won. What I saw on the streets was a great expression of victory and hope. After sixteen years of right-wing presidents these people feel like there is going to be change for the better.

I learned about the U.S. threats and the funding of various political groups and watched the harsh TV ads before the election about what they claimed another Ortega presidency would be like.

Because of all this, I am very proud of the Nicaraguan people, because they didn’t vote with fear. They voted for whom they thought would bring the best change for them and their country.

I feel privileged to have been in Nicaragua during such an historic time. I hope the situation for all Nicaraguans improves, and I believe that it will, because I not only observed an election I observed a people that have a great deal of hope and the will to make that hope become reality.

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