Political Unrest in Nicaragua

Given our success in the recent presidential election (yes, for those of you who don't know my political affiliation, I voted for Obama), I thought this an appropriate time to comment on the political situation in Nicaragua. First, let me say how excited we were to see Obama win. Despite being so far away, we followed the election very closely - watching all of the debates and the majority of speeches and media banter. It was quite the experience being in another country. We so wanted to be a part of all of the excitement and the campaigning that we actually considered coming home early to help for just a week. Honestly, I have never been so excited about a presidential candidate in my life. This really was quite possibly the most important election we will ever participate in, for my generation at least. Despite the excitement, we decided our time would be better spent finalizing and passing on the programs we have started with the kids of Nicaragua and Empowerment International (for more on this organization, see the link to the left).

However, we were just as excited as I am sure everyone in the States was the night of the election. We left work a bit early and headed to a local hotel to watch the election coverage with all the other extranjero Obama supporters. There were about 30-40 people there, and it was a great night with many tears and cheers. It is something we won't ever forget. The best part was that it seemed like the whole world was cheering with us. The Nicaraguans shared in our joy. In the days leading up to the election, I spoke with many locals about their thoughts on the election, and they all said they hoped Obama would win. They believe that he is not only good for the U.S., but that his policies will help the situation in Nicaragua as well. The morning after the election, Obama's face was plastered across the front page of every newspaper in Nicaragua, and the locals were walking around selling the newspaper and yelling out that Obama had won! This was an election celebrated across the world.

In stark contrast to this, just five days after a truly historic election, showing how far we have come as a country and a world, Nicaragua held its mayoral elections. Currently, their are two major political parties in Nicaragua - FSLN (the Sandinista Party) and PLC (The Liberal Constitutional Party). The current president of Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega, is a member of the Sandinista party.

To truly understand Nicaragua's current political situation, you must know a little about Ortega's history. Ortega's story starts in 1967, just four years after he graduated from college. That year, he was imprisoned for taking part in robbing a branch of the Bank of America with a machine gun. But, about seven years later, he was released, along with other Sandinista prisoners, in exchange for Somocista hostages (The Somoza family was a political dynasty, which held the presidency in Nicaragua for 43 years). After Ortega's release from jail, he was exiled to Cuba, where he received several months of guerrilla training. He later returned to Nicaragua, secretly.

Then, in 1979, he and the other leaders of the Sandinista movement overthrew the corrupt Somoza dictatorship. At that time, many of the leaders of the party resigned, leaving Ortega the ruler of the country. Ortega continued his rule for four years before calling for a formal election in 1984, which he won. During his rule, through a series of legislative acts known as "The Piñata", estates that had been seized by the Sandinista government (some valued at millions and even billions of dollars) became the private property of various FSLN officials, including Ortega. Needless to say, the country lost their faith in Ortega, and so when in 1990 the Sandinistas agreed to hold free elections, Ortega lost, but that was not the end of him.

He continued to serve in the parliament, awaiting his opportunity to run for the presidency again. But before he had the chance to run for office again, in 1998, his stepdaughter released a 48-page report describing her allegations that Ortega had systematically sexually abused her for 9 years beginning when she was 11. The case could not proceed in Nicaraguan courts because Ortega had immunity from prosecution as a member of parliament, and the five-year statute of limitations for sexual abuse and rape charges was judged to have been exceeded.

Then, in the early 2000s, Ortega was instrumental in creating the controversial strategic pact between the FSLN and the PLC. The pact was an alliance of Nicaragua's two major parties, aimed at distributing the powers between the PLC and FSLN and preventing other parties from rising. One of the key accords of the pact was to lower the percentage of votes necessary to win a presidential election from 45% to 35%, which turned out to be in Ortega's favor when he won the presidential election in 2006 with 37.99% of the votes cast.

Today, Ortega's approval rating is down to 20%. Much of the public feels he has failed at fulfilling his campaign promise to help the poor. Food prices and gas prices have skyrocketed under him, which led to major strikes when we first arrived in Nicaragua in May.

Now we flash forward to the election on November 9. For the first time since 1990, independent observers, foreign and local, were refused accreditation to monitor the election, making some question whether or not the election would be fair. The results of the election came out a few days after the election and showed that the Sandinistas had won 94 of the 146 mayorships at stake. By far the most important of these elections was Managua's mayoral election. Managua is the capital of Nicaragua and is home to a third of the population (about 6 million people). It has been governed by the Sandinistas for the past eight years. But in the days leading up to the vote, Eduardo Montealegre, a member of the PLC party, who contested Ortega for the presidency in 2006, was ahead of the Sandinista candidate, Alexis Argüello, a former world-champion boxer. The official count in Managua was suspiciously slow, but with 70% of the votes tallied, the electoral council claimed that Argüello had won 51.3% of the votes and Montealegre 46.5%.

Montealegre says that he won the election, and that the PLC is being robbed of victory by fraud, both in Managua and in León, the second-largest city. The PLC party claims that the electoral council handed out voter identity cards to those likely to support the Sandinistas while withholding them from opposition supporters. They also say that the council witheld credentials from opposition representatives to try to stop them witnessing the count. On election day, many of them were barred from polling stations, some of which closed early. Nevertheless the PLC party managed to get hold of copies of the official tally at many polling stations, and after summing up the votes, the PLC party contested the decision, saying that the votes showed that Montealegre had won the election.

This lead to rioting. U.S. citizens and other foreigners were given the recommendation to stay out of Managua and to avoid rallies. At least four people are confirmed dead from the fighting that ensued between the political parties in the week following the election. It was looking like this all might stop shortly before we left Nicaragua (Saturday morning), as Montealegre had called for a recount, supervised by international observers. And, it seemed that he would get his wish. But, shortly thereafter, we learned that many of the ballots cast by PLC supporters in both Managua and Leon were found in the local dumps. Additionally, a non-partisan ethics committee reported that unethical practices could be confirmed at at least 1/3 of voting locations. So, the rioting continues. All this in a country where the people have never had the pleasure of a decent and non-corrupt government, yet they continue to have hope. It was difficult to find a local who did not have a black thumb the day after the election, proof that he/she had cast her vote the day before.

I write this to give some perspective to our elections. I hope that even those of you who supported McCain can appreciate what so many of us tend to take for granted, that we are a part of a country where at least we know that, other than the occasional technical malfunction, our election results will be based on the vote of the people. Also, no matter what candidate wins, it is pretty much guarenteed that he/she will not be a former armed-robber and sex offender.

It is the small things really . . .

Melissa