A victory without shine

Daniel Ortega and the Sandinistas lose the elections in Nicaragua, which were influenced to a great extent by U.S. money and propaganda.

THE defeat of the Sandinistas in the elections held in Nicaragua in the second week of November has surprised many observers of the Latin American scene. Until recently Daniel Ortega, the candidate of the opposition, was well ahead in opinion polls. Ortega and the Sandinistas seemed all set for a political resurrection after being in the political wilderness for more than a decade. Ortega, a hero of the liberation struggle that ousted the corrupt Somoza dictatorship, is however still a bete noire of the Americans, though the former guerilla leader has gone out of his way to moderate his radical rhetoric and prove to the domestic audience and the international community that he has become a social democrat who is ready to accept the inevitability of market reforms.

On his third attempt to win back the Presidency, Ortega stood on the ticket of an alliance, the National Convergence, consisting of the Sandinistas and some centrist parties. The right-wing Liberal Constitutional Party that had been in power since 1990 had seemingly lost its credibility with the voters. Its candidate and eventual winner is a rich businessman and landowner, Enrique Bolanos. The Bush administration, despite being preoccupied with the war in Afghanistan, still found time and money to expend on tiny Nicaragua in order to ensure that its former ideological enemy is not returned to power.

Nicaragua's economic infrastructure is a shambles. Corruption is rampant. The outgoing President, Arnoldo Aleman, is known to have filled his own coffers while leaving the country bankrupt. The Florida-based Cuban American National Foundation (CANF), notorious for its sponsorship of terrorist activities against Cuba, generously funded Aleman's election campaign five years ago. Now the CANF alleges that Aleman pocketed the $2.5 million it gave for the campaign in order to keep the Sandinistas out.

Aleman's wealth has officially increased ninefold since 1990. He has steadfastly refused to reveal the source of his income, claiming constitutional immunity. He built a 16 km highway connecting his home in Managua with three of his farms in the countryside.

Since 1990, Nicaragua has been receiving higher per capita international aid than any other country - $5 billion in the last 10 years. Yet, real average wages for Nicaraguans are about $1,200 a year. In the rural areas, agricultural workers are said to get around $420 a year. The GNP of the country is $2.5 billion, which is less than half that of other Central American countries. The collapse in the international price of coffee this year has added to the woes of the common people. Many coffee plantations have retrenched workers at a time of record levels of unemployment. In 1998, Hurricane Mitch caused unprecedented devastation to the country's infrastructure. International aid donors pitched in an additional $1.5 billion, but most of the money seems to have ended up in bank accounts in Miami and elsewhere.

The Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) had effected radical reforms while in power from 1979 to 1989. During that period the proportion of land held by large landowners fell from 41 per cent to 7 per cent as land and property were distributed to poor peasants. Important reforms were carried out in the industrial sector. But the American hostility towards the Sandinistas led to a dirty war that was orchestrated from Washington. The Reagan administration employed terrorism on an unprecedented scale. The Americans trained 40,000 counter-revolutionaries in neighbouring Honduras. The "Contras", as they were called, created mayhem in Nicaragua and also in the region.

The U.S. administration generated illicit funds to finance the terrorists. The "Contragate" scandal that engulfed the Reagan administration is testimony to that. The Americans went to the extent of mining Nicaragua's ports. The International Court in The Hague pronounced the U.S. guilty of infringing on Nicaragua's sovereignty. As many as 50,000 people were killed in the U.S.-sponsored terrorist campaign.

Some of the key players in the Reagan administration involved in the terrorist campaign against Nicaragua now hold key posts in the Bush administration, which is today busy waging its "war against terrorism" in Afghanistan. The most prominent among them is John Negroponte, who is now America's Permanent Representative in the United Nations. Negroponte is known to have masterminded the counter-revolutionary war from his base in the Honduras, where he served as U.S. Ambassador in the 1980s. At the same time he also backed the right-wing death squads responsible for countless atrocities in neighbouring El Salvador.

Another Reagan era official involved in the "dirty war" in Nicaragua and El Salvador, who has a prominent place in the Bush administration, is Elliot Abrams. Abrams, now the head of "the office for democracy and human rights", pleaded guilty before the U.S. Congress for lying over the conduct of the "war" in Central America.

IN the run-up to the elections, the Bush administration made it clear to the Nicaraguan people that a victory for Ortega could lead to serious consequences for their country. The Left has been doing well in recent elections all over Latin America. A victory for the Sandinistas would have bolstered the trend. Jeb Bush, who allegedly rigged the elections for his brother in the State of Florida, of which he was the governor during the U.S. presidential election, wrote a signed article criticising Ortega because he "neither understands nor embraces the basic concepts of freedom, democracy and free enterprise". He added that Ortega was close to "states and individuals who shelter and condone international terrorism".

The events of September 11 gave terrorism a dangerous connotation, even in the context of Central American politics. A senior U.S. State Department official attacked Ortega's friendship with Fidel Castro and Muammar Qadhafi. The ruling party showed commercials on television in which the World Trade Centre explosions were juxtaposed with pictures of Ortega, Qadhafi and Castro. All this was part of the Bush administration's efforts to link the Sandinistas with terrorism. Senior U.S. officials came visiting as the election date neared and threatened dire consequences for the country in case the Sandinistas came back to power.

The U.S. Ambassador to Nicaragua was seen on the same platform with the ruling party candidate. Donated American food was handed out to voters during the campaign. The Americans had earlier persuaded a conservative third-party candidate to withdraw, so that right-wing votes would be consolidated. In the week preceding the elections, three U.S. politicians, led by the arch-conservative Jesse Helms, introduced a resolution in Congress calling on the President to re-evaluate his policy towards Nicaragua in case of a Sandinista victory. Former President Jimmy Carter, who was in Nicaragua as an election observer, went to the extent of stating that he disapproved of "statements and actions by other countries that might tend to influence the votes of people of another sovereign nation".

The Bush administration managed to keep Ortega out of the Presidency, but the Sandinistas did not do too badly in the polls. Ortega won 42 per cent of the vote. The Sandinistas also have a strong presence in the new Parliament. A pact between the Liberals and the Sandinistas last year had given them joint control over the judiciary.

Most observers now predict the political demise of Ortega. A younger generation is ready to take over from him. Many in the party accuse him of him of being power-hungry and willing to compromise on basic principles. Sergio Ramirez, his former Vice-President, has said that Ortega "always separated tactics from strategy and principle and did what he had to, to gain power". Ramirez conceded that Ortega had a huge support base among the poor but said that he would never be able to build it into majority support. He said that the U.S. attacks on Ortega scared off the voters, especially after the September 11 terrorist attacks. "The bin Laden effect was catastrophic," said Ramirez.