ELECTIONS IN NICARAGUA UNO: One is Not Enough
Cook, Mark
For years the Moscow-line Nicaraguan Socialist Party was so povertystricken it could not publish a newspaper or even a mimeographed weekly. But in September 1988 it came into enough money...
...UNO has pulled out all the stops to mobilize those who hope for renewed U.S...
...Godoy was minister of labor in the Sandinista government before resigning to make an abortive presidential bid in 1984...
...Eduardo Molina of the Democratic Conservative Party of Nicaragua (PCDN) said in July 1988 that he assumed all the parties would have to run on a common slate because "there are 1500 municipal council seats to fill around the country, and none of the parties has enough members to fill them on its own...
...UNO resolved the matter by pledging to leave the land in current hands, but to pay former landowners for their losses...
...Issues of peace and economic recovery, however, do not necessarily play well for UNO, as U.S...
...But the polls, other than those conducted by agencies tied to the U.S...
...What, he asked, happened to the advertised renunciation of the faith...
...ties, even holding a photo opportunity of George Bush kiss- ing Violeta Chamorro...
...REPORT ON THE AMERICAS Riding toward likely re-election: Daniel Ortega on the campaign trail "office party": a few leaders and almost no members...
...The UNO Melting Pot Nonetheless, the emergence in July of the UNO pastiche of everyone from old feudal landowners and ex-Somocistas on the Right, to members of the Communist and Socialist parties on the Left, was quite a feat...
...money could buy began to unravel...
...Their new strategy of using vast amounts of money to paste together the diverse opposition, as it turned out, risked creating more problems than it could resolve...
...The reason the Embassy coalition has not held together very well, except in the U.S...
...UNO, anxious to win the support of peasants, could hardly demand the return of land distributed under the agrarian reform...
...Chamorro, hampered by an aristocratic style, tends to address them with an air of patronizing fondness usually reserved for loyal household servants...
...Although U.S...
...Luis Sanchez even traveled with Chamorro to Miami where they met with Somocista emigres, including several UNO fundraisers widely accused of involvement in torture and death squads...
...Diaz, too, has what Nicaraguan politicians call "international projection": He is the opposition representative on the National Reconciliation Commission established by the Central American peace accords, and was the only opposition figure invited to the 1988 Democratic Party Convention in Atlanta...
...In December rank-and-tile UNO members began dropping out, complaining that they had seen none of the U.S...
...For years the Embassy had been quietly informing Washington (and telling journalists off the record) that the Sandinistas had most of the best REPORT ON THE AMERICAS Mark Cook is a free-lance journalist who has written on Nicaragua since 1982.minds of the country, and that no real change could be had unless the FSLN split...
...Then there is the problem of a party platform...
...Socialist leaders explained that they had intended to make such an announcement-a mere formality, in any case, for a party that only infrequently had adopted revolutionary positions in Somoza's time-but that "some comrades remained stuck" in old ideas...
...The U.S...
...As a result of this and earlier purges, virtually no one remains in the PLI who won an Assembly seat in the 1984 election, other than Godoy himself...
...The charges are serious...
...In September, RamIrez received the sup- port of Mauricio DIaz, head of the Popular Social Christian Party (PPSC), who made a noisy break with UNO, after the PPSC was excluded from certain key decisions...
...UNO's fortunes then went into a free fall after the U.S...
...army's ransacking of the Nicarguan ambassador's residence in Panama, an incident which astounded Nicaraguan and world opinion, hurt it badly...
...UNO resolved the matter by pledging to leave the land in current hands, but to pay former landowners for their losses...
...press immediately after the election suggesting a coalition government A la Poland...
...In a move clearly aimed at pulling in the right-wing religious vote, they denounced UNO for including "atheistic communists" in its coalition...
...The UNO Melting Pot Nonetheless, the emergence in July of the UNO pastiche of everyone from old feudal landowners and ex-Somocistas on the Right, to members of the Communist and Socialist parties on the Left, was quite a feat...
...Issues of peace and economic recovery, however, do not necessarily play well for UNO, as U.S...
...That in turn provoked the wrath of the Miami community...
...Their new strategy of using vast amounts of money to paste together the diverse opposition, as it turned out, risked creating more problems than it could resolve...
...funding for their war against the Sandinista government, returned to the country shortly after the UNO slate was announced...
...Since his return to the country in December, Pastora has charged UNO with reverting to "Somocista-fascism," while he regards the Sandinistas as moving from "totalitarianism" to "social democracy...
...ties, even holding a photo opportunity of George Bush kissing Violeta Chamorro...
...Half the party split off to form the Central American Integrationist Party and join UNO...
...Ex-Somocistas, however, would receive nothing, since a pledge to pay them would be political suicide...
...But the coalition also had to satisfy wealthy landowners who had been dispossessed...
...One member charged that UNO offered him $5,000 to join the ranks...
...The choice of Virgilio Godoy as UNO's vice-presidential candidate sowed further dissension...
...On the eve of the Panama invasion, a new ECO poll put the Sandinistas ahead 3.2 to I ,and found that UNO's support had dropped by a third...
...UNO, anxious to win the support of peasants, could hardly demand the return of land distributed under the agrarian reform...
...A year after the press conference, which he boycotted, Sinchez was running for a parliamentary seat on the Sandinista slate...
...COSEP members, who had pushed hard for their own leader, Enrique Bolafios, were incensed...
...Sinchez's son, Luis, and some other party members have been highly visible in the UNO campaign, which is running Violeta Barrios viuda de Chamorro, titular head of La Prensa, for president and Virgilio Godoy, of the Independent Liberal Party (PLI), for vice president...
...The Central American University's ECO polling agency, widely re- spected in the region, initially had the Sandinistas leading UNO by two-toone...
...Moderate opposition leaders, including the Socialists, long locked out of an Embassy that preferred to exhibit the far Right to visiting Congressional delegations and journalists, had some reason for hope...
...The party has the support of the Christian Democratic International and an independent source of money, mainly from Christian Democratic underwriters in West Germany and Venezuela...
...Dozens of reporters and scores of right-wing politicians showed up, lured by the news announced beforehand in the opposition newspaper La Prensa that the Socialists would abandon "Marxism-Leninism" in favor of "social democracy...
...Despite his embrace of the Right, the business federation COSEP and the Miami exile community regard Godoy's long-stand- ing liberal credentials and academic background with suspicion...
...COSEP members, who had pushed hard for their own leader, Enrique Bolaiios, were incensed...
...In May, the Social Christian Party (PSC) bolted from the UNO-precursor coalition to run Erick RamIrez for president...
...Even so, Aguero, perhaps the last Conservative with a popular stump style, will probably be able to pull in some votes from the old Right...
...and the Revolutionary Unity Movement (MUR), a recent formation of dissident members of leftist parties including the FSLN, is running former Managua mayor Mois6s Hassdn...
...Despite his embrace of the Right, the business federation COSEP and the Miami exile community regard Godoy's long-standing liberal credentials and academic background with suspicion...
...As a result of this and earlier purges, virtually no one remains in the PLI who won an Assembly seat in the 1984 election, other than Godoy himself...
...Former contra leader Eden Pastora is also supporting RamIrez...
...The Other Opposition The U.S...
...UNO might have survived its half-hearted applause for the invasion, but it's reluctance to condemn the U.S...
...The U.S...
...But when the Honduran press published a November 7 letter written by UNO campaign head Alfredo Cesar of the Social Democratic Party to contra military leader Enrique Bermüdez, plead- ing with him not to disband before the elections, the direct tie between UNO and the contras was cast in stone...
...Only a year earlier the opposition had been immersed in daily charges and countercharges of CIA involvement, Sandinista sympathies, stealing funds from abroad, and rigging internal party elections...
...The reason the Embassy coalition has not held together very well, except in the U.S...
...The Socialist Party, for its part, did abandon its old image for a new one and joined the National Opposition Union (UNO), the Embassy-promoted coalition made up mostly of right-wing parties...
...UNO has pulled out all the stops to mobilize those who hope for renewed U.S...
...The difficulty in agreeing on a plausible platform left UNO with only one major position: the promise of economic recovery through its ties to the United States...
...Ex-Somocistas, however, would receive nothing, since a pledge to pay them would be political suicide...
...The purged left wing of the Independent Liberal Party has become the National Unity Liberal Party (PLIUN) and is running Rodolfo Robelo...
...media, is not hard to see...
...An invasion, once considered impossible, seems much more plausible in light ofevents in Panama...
...The charges are serious...
...Among the "stuck" comrades, it turns out, was Domingo Sinchez, the only party leader with any national stature and the party's presidential candidate in the 1984 elections...
...army's ransacking of the Nicarguan ambassadors residence in Panama, an incident which astounded Nicaraguan and world opinion, hurt it badly...
...That in turn provoked the wrath of the Miami community...
...money donated to the campaign...
...Luis SAnchez even traveled with Chamorro to Miami where they met with Somocista 6migr6s, including several UNO fundraisers widely accused of involvement in torture and death squads...
...not only is the foundation reportedly investigating them, only one member of the National Assembly voted against a motion to lift Godoy's immunity so that he can stand trial...
...Sanchez's son, Luis, and some other party members have been highly visible in the UNO campaign, which is running Violeta Barrios viuda de Chamorro, titular head of La Prensa, for president and Virgilio Godoy, of the Independent Liberal Party (PLI), for vice president...
...government, have been disastrous for UNO...
...Poll Wars The election campaign has become a battle of publicopinion polls, a tactic which has been highly successful for Washington elsewhere in the world...
...funding may have enhanced popular expectations of UNO, so far it has not convinced a single party to quit the field...
...Erstwhile UNO supporters also complain that Mrs...
...But when the Honduran press published a November 7 letter written by UNO campaign head Alfredo C6sar of the Social Democratic Party to contra military leader Enrique Bermtidez, pleading with him not to disband before the elections, the direct tie between UNO and the contras was cast in stone...
...With the 1990 elections approaching, Washington was making it clear it would spare no money or effort to build a single anti-Sandinista front, and would even include some elements of the Left to give it more international credibility...
...The party has the support of the Christian Democratic International and an independent source of money, mainly from Christian Democratic underwriters in West Germany and Venezuela...
...Instead, they endorsed Ramfrez...
...It seems we have been drawn here under false pretenses," huffed one British journalist when Socialist leaders confined themselves to reading most of a 27-page document charging Sandinista mismanagement of the economy...
...government, have been disastrous for UNO...
...The other right-wing presidential candidates include Fernando Agüero, of the Social Conservatism Party (PSOC), who has a unique notoriety in Nicaragua as the key participant in the Embassy-brokered deal with the Somoza dictatorship by which prominent Conservatives received choice diplomatic postings in exchange for their support...
...In a move clearly aimed at pulling in the right-wing religious vote, they de- nounced UNO for including "atheistic communists" in its coalition...
...agency Greenberg-Lake came up with similar findings in their poll released in mid-December...
...Unless the Embassy opts for a pull-out before election day, one possible scenario, Nicaraguan of- ficials suggest, is a flood of opinion pieces in the U.S...
...On the far Left, the Marxist-Leninist Popular Action Movement (MAP) is running its 1984 candidate Isidro T61lez...
...Eduardo Molina of the Democratic Conservative Party of Nicaragua (PCDN) said in July 1988 that he assumed all the parties would have to run on a common slate because "there are 1500 municipal council seats to fill around the country, and none of the parties has enough members to fill them on its own...
...Those attending the Socialists' press conference, however, were to be disappointed...
...The other right-wing presidential candidates include Fernando Agiiero, of the Social Conservatism Party (PSOC), who has a unique notoriety in Nicaragua as the key participant in the Embassy-brokered deal with the Somoza dictatorship by which prominent Conservatives received choice diplomatic postings in exchange for their support...
...5 (FEBRUARY 1990) 5"office party": a few leaders and almost no members...
...money donated to the campaign...
...In December rank-and-file UNO members began dropping out, complaining that they had seen none of the U.S...
...money could buy began to unravel...
...UNO's fortunes then went into a free fall after the U.S...
...media, is not hard to see...
...In that context, Alfredo Cesar's costly letter to the contras is less surprising...
...In early December a number of local opposition candidates resigned from the UNO campaign claiming their names had been placed on the slate without their knowledge or consent...
...UNO might have survived its half-hearted applause for the invasion, but it's reluctance to condemn the U.S...
...Charges of election fraud would serve as a pretext for continuing both the economic embargo and some form of support for the contras...
...Some parties reached the conclusion that UNO could not win, and that they would do better maintaining themselves as a party than dissolving themselves in a losing campaign...
...The Left critics argue that the Sandinislas have caved in to the bourgeoisie and adopted an IMF-type economic pro- gram which is destroying workers' living standards, a view that is widely held, even among many Sandinistas...
...The purged left wing of the Independent Liberal Party has become the National Unity Liberal Party (PLIUN) and is running Rodolfo Robelo...
...Godoy responded to his PLI detractors, led by founding member and one of Godoy's closest collaborators, Juan Manuel Guti6rrez, by purging them from the party...
...But the polls, other than those conducted by agencies tied to the U.S...
...The issue has been posed starkly: Will the Nicaraguan people, beaten down by years of war and hardship, surrender its sovereignty in hopes of economic deliverance...
...Charges of election fraud would serve as a pretext for continuing both the economic embargo and some form of support for the contras...
...Chamorro, hampered by an aristocratic style, tends to address them with an air of patronizing fondness usually reserved for loyal household servants...
...UNO leaders have denied any ongoing connection to the contras...
...But in September 1988 it came into enough money to hire the posh Ruben DarIo Salon of Managua's Intercontinental Hotel for a lavishly catered press conference...
...Both were expected to support UNO...
...Cdsar reluctantly resigned his post, although he continues as behind-the-scenes adviser to Violeta Chamorro...
...Socialist leaders explained that they had intended to make such an announcement a mere formality, in any case, for a party that only infrequently had adopted revolutionary positions in Somoza's time out that "some comrades remained stuck" in old ideas...
...On the eve of the Panama invasion, a new ECO poll put the Sandinistas ahead 3.2 to 1, and found that UNO's support had dropped by a third...
...This planned apostasy was more than a ploy to broaden the party's appeal...
...Among the "stuck" comrades, it turns out, was Domingo Sanchez, the only party leader with any national stature and the party's presidential ored coalition has fallen apart candidate in the 1984 elections...
...The only favorable results for Washington came early in the campaign from the CID organization of Costa Rica, which has conducted polls for the U.S...
...In early December a number of local opposition candidates resigned from the UNO campaign claiming their names had been placed on the slate without their knowledge or consent...
...Information Agency...
...On the far Left, the Marxist-Leninist Popular Action Movement (MAP) is running its 1984 candidate Isidro Tellez...
...government and press have gone to considerable lengths to avoid mentioning Ramirez, Molina and the six other opposition candidates besides Violeta Chamorro...
...In May, the Social Christian Party (PSC) bolted from the UNO-precursor coalition to run Erick Ramirez for president...
...In September, Ramirez received the support of Mauricio Diaz, head of the Popular Social Christian Party (PPSC), who made a noisy break with UNO, after the PPSC was excluded from certain key decisions...
...If UNO wins, Pastora informed a national television audience, he will be the first to return to the mountains and fight...
...One member charged that UNO offered him $5,000 to join the ranks...
...The Other Opposition The U.S...
...Embassy gravy train...
...Hers is the classic Nicaraguan VOLUME XXIII, NO.5 (FEBRUARY 1990) 5 minds of the country, and that no real change could be had unless the FSLN split...
...Although U.S...
...In that context, Alfredo C6sar's costly letter to the contras is less surprising...
...invasion of PanRiding toward likely re-election: Daniel Ortega on th e campaign trail Sq1...
...it was the beginning of a barefaced campaign to climb onto the U.S...
...Dozens of reporters and scores of right-wing politicians showed up, lured by the news-announced beforehand in the opposition newspaper La Prensa-that the Socialists would abandon "Marxism-Leninism" in favor of "social democracy...
...They denounced party leader Godoy's shift to the right, his ever-closer collaboration with the Embassy, and what they see as his "dictatorial" style...
...government and press have gone to considerable lengths to avoid mentioning RamIrez, Molina and the six other opposition candidates besides Violeta Chamorro...
...Information Agency...
...Hers is the classic Nicaraguan VOLUME XXIII, NO...
...The Left critics argue that the Sandinistas have caved in to the bourgeoisie and adopted an IMF-type economic program which is destroying workers' living standards, a view that is widely held, even among many Sandinistas...
...The Socialist Party, for its part, did abandon its old image for a new one and joined the National Opposition Union (UNO), the Embassy-promoted coalition made up mostly of right-wing parties...
...The only favorable results for Washington came early in the campaign from the CID organization of Costa Rica, which has conducted polls for the U.S...
...An invasion, once considered impossible, seems much more plausible in light of events in Panama...
...Former contra leader Eden Pastora is also supporting Ramirez...
...Since his return to the country in December, Pastora has charged UNO with reverting to "Somocista-fascism,"' while he regards the Sandinistas as moving from "totalitarianism" to "social democracy...
...Nonetheless, the PCDN broke with UNO and is running on its own, with Molina as presidential candidate...
...Erstwhile UNO supporters also complain that Mrs...
...Violeta Chamorro raises the UNO high-one at a Managua rally: The U.S.-sponsored coalition has tallen apart For years the Moscow-line Nicaraguan Socialist Party was so povertystricken it could not publish a newspaper or even a mimeographed weekly...
...Some parties reached the conclusion that UNO could not win, and that they would do better maintaining themselves as a party than dissolving themselves in a losing campaign...
...For years the Embassy had been quietly informing Washington (and telling journalists off the record) that the Sandinistas had most of the best REPORT ON THE AMERICAS Mark Cook is a free-lance journalist who has written on Nicaragua since 1982...
...Embassy gravy train...
...The difficulty in agreeing on a plausible platform left UNO with only one major position: the promise of eco- nomic recovery through its ties to the United States...
...funding may have enhanced popular expectations of UNO, so far it has not convinced a single party to quit the field...
...This planned apostasy was more than a ploy to broaden the party's appeal...
...Instead, they endorsed RamIrez...
...All of these scenarios involve maintaining the contras in the field as a fighting force...
...Then there is the problem of a party platform...
...not only is the foundation reportedly investigating them, only one member of the National Assembly voted against a motion to lift Godoy's immunity so that he can stand trial...
...The New York Times has referred to Chamorro as "the opposition candidate," and UNO as "the only genuinely democratic ticket in the running...
...Moderate opposition leaders, including the Socialists, long locked out of an Embassy that preferred to exhibit the far Right to visiting Congressional delegations and journalists, had some reason for hope...
...Godoy responded to his PLI detractors, led by founding member and one of Godoy's closest collaborators, Juan Manuel Gutierrez, by purging them from the party...
...funding for their war against the Sandinista government, returned to the country shortly after the UNO slate was announced...
...The issue has been posed starkly: Will the Nicaraguan people, beaten down by years of war and hardship, surrender its sovereignty in hopes of economic deliverance...
...the Revolutionary Workers Party (PRT), a Trotskyist group, has put up Bonifa- cio Miranda...
...Those attending the Socialists' press conference, however, were to be disappointed...
...the Revolutionary Workers Party (PRT), a Trotskyist group, has put up Bonifacio Miranda...
...Both the United States and the opposition were navigating unknown waters...
...client states in the region are suffering similar economic disasters...
...The expectation of a slick, U.S.style campaign, well-oiled with massive infusions of funding and expertise from the United States, managed to conceal the infighting for a time...
...Blanca Rojas, the only other woman presidential candidate, is running on the Central American Unionist Party ticket...
...ama...
...Brooklyn Rivera and Steadman Fagoth, Miskito Indian leaders who received considerable U.S...
...invasion of Panama...
...It seems we have been drawn here under false pretenses," huffed one British journalist when Socialist leaders confined themselves to reading most of a 27-page document charging Sandinista mismanagement of the economy...
...Godoy's mixed rating took a turn for the worse in October, when the right wing of his own party accused him of "misappropriating" large sums of money donated to a PU front organization by the Nauman Foundation of West Germany...
...Or will they reassert Nicaraguan nationalism despite the bleak economic outlook and accumulated grievances toward a government in power for over ten years...
...UNO leaders have denied any ongoing connection to the contras...
...Given Washington's failure to put together a cohesive electoral challenge to the Revolution, the ultimate question is how it will deal with a probable Sandinista victory...
...Even so, Agiiero, perhaps the last Conservative with a popular stump style, will probably be able to pull in some votes from the old Right...
...Blanca Rojas, the only other woman presidential candidate, is running on the Central American Unionist Party ticket...
...A year after the press conference, which he boycotted, Sanchez was running for a parliamentary seat on the Sandinista slate...
...Both were expected to support UNO...
...The Central American University's ECO polling agency, widely respected in the region, initially had the Sandinistas leading UNO by two-toone...
...Cesar reluctantly resigned his post, although he continues as behind-the-scenes adviser to Violeta Chamorro...
...But the coalition also had to satisfy wealthy landowners who had been dispossessed...
...With the 1990 elections approaching, Washington was making it clear it would spare no money or effort to build a single anti-Sandinista front, and would even include some elements of the Left to give it more international credibility...
...agency Greenberg-Lake came up with similar findings in their poll released in mid-December...
...Godoy was minister of labor in the Sandinista government before resigning to make an abortive presidential bid in 1984...
...Both the United States and the opposition were navigating unknown waters...
...The expectation of a slick, U.S.style campaign, well-oiled with massive infusions of funding and expertise from the United States, managed to conceal the infighting for a time...
...Godoy's mixed rating took a turn for the worse in October, when the right wing of his own party accused him of "misappropriating" large sums of money donated to a PLI front organization by the Nauman Foundation of West Germany...
...client states in the region are suffering similar economic disasters...
...But even before UNO was formally announced, the best coalition U.S...
...Univisi6n, a Spanish-language television syndicate in the United States which has received funding from the National Endowment for Democracy to help produce UNO's campaign commercials, had the FSLN barely ahead in early December...
...But in September 1988 it came into enough money to hire the posh Rub6n Darfo Salon of Managua's Intercontinental Hotel for a lavishly catered press conference...
...But even before UNO was formally announced, the best coalition U.S...
...DIaz, too, has what Nicaraguan politicians call "international projection": He is the opposition representative on the National Reconciliation Commission established by the Central American peace accords, and was the only opposition figure invited to the 1988 Democratic Party Convention in Atlanta...
...If UNO wins, Pastora informed a national television audience, he will be the first to return to the mountains and fight...
...Brooklyn Rivera and Steadman Fagoth, Miskito Indian leaders who received considerable U.S...
...Several candidates backed out to protest the large number of Somocistas running on UNO's slate, including a plethora of former National Guard members...
...Unless the Embassy opts for a pull-out before election day, one possible scenario, Nicaraguan officials suggest, is a flood of opinion pieces in the U.S...
...Several candidates backed out to protest the large number of Somocistas running on UNO's slate, including a plethora of former National Guard members...
...Only a year earlier the opposition had been immersed in daily charges and countercharges of CIA involvement, Sandinista sympathies, stealing funds from abroad, and rigging internal party elections...
...What, he asked, happened to the advertised renunciation of the faith...
...and the Revolutionary Unity Movement (MUR), a recent formation of dissident members of leftist parties including the FSLN, is running former Managua mayor Moises Hassán...
...Given Washington's failure to put together a cohesive electoral challenge to the Revolution, the ultimate question is how it will deal with a probable Sandinista victory...
...The choice of Virgilio Godoy as UNO's vice-presidential candidate sowed further dissension...
...Poll Wars The election campaign has become a battle of public.opinion polls, a tactic which has been highly successful for Washington elsewhere in the world...
...Nonetheless, the PCDN broke with UNO and is running on its own, with Molina as presidential candidate...
...All of these scenarios involve maintaining the contras in the field as a fighting force...
...Half the party split off to form the Central American Integrationist Party and join UNO...
...They denounced party leader Godoy's shift to the right, his ever-closer collaboration with the Embassy, and what they see as his "dictatorial" style...
...press immediately after the election suggesting a coalition government a Ia Poland...
...The New York Times has referred to Chamorro as "the opposition candidate," and UNO as "the only genuinely democratic ticket in the running...
...Univision, a Spanish-language television syndicate in the United States which has received funding from the National Endowment for Democracy to help produce UNO's campaign commercials, had the FSLN barely ahead in early December...
...it was the beginning of a barefaced campaign to climb onto the U.S...
...Or will they reassert Nicaraguan nationalism despite the bleak economic outlook and accumulated grievances toward a government in power for over ten years...
Vol. 23 • February 1990 • No. 5
