The return of the Sandinistas: a complicated affair

The victory of Daniel Ortega and the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) against Eduardo Montealegre - a former banker and the wealthiest of five candidates - in the recent presidential elections in Nicaragua, presents some interesting questions for Latin America serious progressive policies and of course, Washington.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, Bolivia’s Evo Morales and Cuba’s Raúl Castro, will certainly claim to have a new political ally despite the fact Nicaragua - an agrarian export economy of over five million people and the second poorest country in Central America - is of small strategic value, in contrast to Peru or Mexico where the centre-left candidate López Obrador recently lost due to electoral fraud.

While serious progressive policies which benefit poor people may indeed be implemented by a new Sandinista government, throughout the region its victory will be seen as a propaganda coup for the political Left - which is why some are losing sleep in Washington. Having attempted to reclaim the presidency twice since his electoral defeat 16 years ago, Ortega’s third attempt has seen his party triumph despite huge obstacles.

Like 2001, where the US used its leverage to prevent an FSLN victory (the US ambassador virtually campaigned with then-president Arnoldo Aleman), the 2006 elections witnessed similar practices by Washington.

According to Ben Beachy - an educator with Witness for Peace based in Managua - on October 28 Nicaragua’s La Prensa newspaper published an advertisement paid by the Nicaraguan Liberal Alliance (ALN) party in which Florida governor Jeb Bush warned Nicaraguans they had a choice of returning to the totalitarianism of the Sandinistas or choosing “a vision towards the future”.

On November 2, Michael Shifter - vice president for policy at the Inter-American Dialogue and lecturer on Latin American politics at Georgetown University - wrote in the Washington Post that:

Both Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez and the American Ambassador in Managua, Paul Trivelli, have said that an Ortega presidency would scare off foreign investors and jeopardise Nicaragua's participation in the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) with the United States. Nicaraguans have been given notice that US aid would be cut under an Ortega administration. Most egregious, Reps. Dana Rohrabacher, Ed Royce and Pete Hoekstra sent letters to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff requesting that they block remittances sent by Nicaraguans living in the United States back to their families - an important part of the Nicaraguan economy - in the event of an Ortega win.

With approximately half a million Nicaraguans living in the US sending over $US500 million to their families each year, Rohrabacher’s request, if followed through, would immediately impact the small nation’s economy.

Another belligerent editorial in La Prensa on October 29, this time by Otto Reich - former Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs - in which he accused the FSLN of maintaining ties with terrorist groups and among other acts, a visit to Managua by Mr Iran-Contra Affair himself, Colonel Oliver North, who also warned against a Sandinista win, the Bush administration did little to conceal its actions during the elections.

Democracy in Nicaragua today is of course in better shape than the days when Washington organised elections with US marines on the streets and “only one candidate being allowed to run”, as General Smedley Butler wrote to his wife in 1912. One of the reasons why the FSLN is still hugely popular is quite simple: they overthrew the brutal dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza Debayle in 1979 and implemented wide social reforms which benefited poor people.

Tachito, as he was commonly known, inherited the presidency from his father Anastasio Somoza García who ruled Nicaragua from 1936 until his assassination by poet Rigoberto López Pérez in 1956. With a hobby of taking strolls with his family around his private zoo as they observed the various animals and tortured political prisoners next to them, Somoza’s son was well coached by his father to being another US-backed thug.

When the Sandinistas took power in 1979, hope and devastation soon followed. An Oxfam Report in 1985 stated that “from Oxfam’s experience of working in 76 developing countries, Nicaragua was to prove exceptional in the strength” based on the dedication of the leadership “to improving the condition of the people and encourage their active participation in the development process”.

Although far from perfect and certainly with corrupt elements among their ranks, the FSLN until the mid-1980s managed significant reforms before Nicaragua’s economy began to crumble due to the effects of war.

Before that, in mid-1979, Ortega met with then-President Jimmy Carter and asked for aid which in the FSLN’s view, was seen as only fair considering Washington’s strong support for the Somoza dictatorship. When Carter rejected the Sandinistas’ offer, they then knocked on Europe’s door which was also closed off.

Eventually, after Washington successfully pressured others not to sell weapons to Managua so as to fight the Contras (Somoza’s ex-national guard and kept almost completely operational due to US support), Moscow stepped into the arena, although nowhere near the scale it was involved with Cuba.

The fact that the Sandinistas only nationalised properties owned by Somocistas, adopted a mixed economy, held open elections in 1984 that were recognised by the United Nations, had many practising Catholics in government and with rare exceptions, allowed an open press to operate during conditions of war did little to persuade the Reagan administration that the FSLN might be a distinct political animal.

When the World Court in 1986 ordered the US to pay Nicaragua $US17 billion for its “unlawful use of force” - acts which ranged from covertly mining harbours in Managua to supplying mines in lunchboxes with Mickey Mouse stickers so as to attract children - the US, as expected, ignored the decision. After more tampering in the 1990 elections, Washington and the Contras were triumphant over a country of impoverished peasants - roughly 30,000 which were left dead due to the war.

Countless efforts by activists and church groups inside the US and throughout the world undoubtedly contributed to avoiding an even greater calamity - for example a full-scale US invasion of Nicaragua.

Over the past 16 years, an end to the FSLN’s rule saw a conclusion to the brutal war and small economic growth, yet it also meant a huge roll back for the policies aimed at reducing poverty established during the 1980s. When Ortega lost in 1990 to Violeta Chamorro, most Nicaraguans still supported them although the continuation of war was simply seen as unfeasible, in particular after the US invaded Panama in 1989 under the guise of capturing a former-friend turned foe drug dealer named General Manuel Noriega.

Today the grinding poverty of Nicaragua is seen as unacceptable by the population as per capita income is less than what it was in 1960. Over 800,000 children do not belong to any educational institution and 1.5 million people suffer from hunger every day in a country which has approximately 87 doctors for every 100,000 people. Figures on unemployment, which are often poorly established, are at 11 per cent with a further 36 per cent underemployed.

Unfortunately, Ortega’s victory brings with it other problems as his record outside of office has been rather questionable. Repeatedly accused of corruption, Ortega in 1996 made a pact with the then-President Arnoldo Alemán - a hard-right conservative - in which they divided up control of the country’s basic institutions, legislated immunity for themselves from prosecution for any criminal charges and granted themselves seats in the National Assembly for life.

In 1998 Ortega used his parliamentary immunity after sexual assault charges were brought forward by his stepdaughter. By 2003 Alemán’s immunity was revoked as he was sentenced to 20 years' prison for embezzling over US$100 million in public funds - later to be served from his private ranch due to “health problems”.

Working backroom deals with men such as Alemán and holding on to the party’s leadership at the expense of younger blood, Ortega’s reputation has been tarnished. Many leading Sandinistas such as Sergio Ramirez and Herty Lewites have withdrawn from the FSLN and set up the Sandinista Renewal Movement (MRS).

Despite the situation with Ortega, most Nicaraguans have opted for a return of the FSLN. Even advertisements with footage of corpses from the Contra war in the 1980s, warning people what might happen if they voted the “wrong” way, were not enough to obtain a victory for Montealegre highlighting that Nicaraguans have not taken a light decision.

In future, even with strong support for the FSLN from Venezuela, Cuba, Bolivia and perhaps Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay, the lessons of history teach us that Washington will certainly be looking to impose its dictates over Managua. This time, however, the Sandinistas will not be alone in the Americas and hence why they would be wise not to squander their new opportunities on rhetoric in contrast to actions.

Likewise, intelligent business leaders will be aware that they can negotiate with the FSLN as they do with Chávez. As for the Washington consensus, if the FSLN are serious about addressing Nicaragua’s severe poverty, at some point they will have to break away from it. If this occurs, one should expect the international press to paint the FSLN in black and white terms despite their diversity of colours.