José Adán Silva

By José Adán Silva
MANAGUA, Nov 3 2006 (IPS) — Nicaraguans will cast their votes on Sunday under the scrutiny of a multitude of observers, and amid intense interest in the elections that has extended far beyond the country’s borders to Caracas, Washington and even Moscow.

The possibility of a victory for former president Daniel Ortega (1985-1990), the candidate of the left-wing Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN), led to intervention in the campaign by the U.S. State Department, Congress and White House officials, who threatened political and economic sanctions against Nicaragua if Ortega, 61, is elected.

Members of Congress, governors, officials, former diplomats, retired military personnel and even influential economic policy-makers in the United States have lobbied for or against candidates, and some have threatened to promote an embargo of the remittances that Nicaraguan immigrants in the U.S. send home should Ortega, who heads the polls, win.

The State Department said on Thursday that the United States is not “trying to shade opinion or to try to take a position” in the elections, but said that political changes in its allies “are taken into account” when allocating foreign aid.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice “is aware” of the situation and “believes that whoever is elected should be decided by the Nicaraguan people in a free, fair and transparent election,” said spokesman Sean McCormack.

His comments were made at a press conference with U.S. reporters in the wake of statements by other officials, among them Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutiérrez, about cuts in aid from Washington.

McCormack said that there would be international observers at the elections, including those sent by the Organisation of American States (OAS), who would validate “the legality of the electoral process”.

“That is the Secretary (Rice)’s position,” he added. “This is a democratic election. If you look around the globe, we do not take positions, we do not try to influence these elections,” the spokesman said.

Ortega, who governed Nicaragua between 1979 and 1990, first as a member of the revolutionary council after the overthrow of the Somoza dictatorship, and later as its elected president, is running for president for the third time since 1990, when he was defeated by Violeta Chamorro. He lost in 1996 to Arnoldo Alemán, now serving a 20-year prison term for corruption, and in 2001 to the incumbent, Enrique Bolaños.

During Ortega’s term, Washington imposed a trade embargo on Nicaragua and financed counter-revolutionary guerrillas, known as “contras”, who tried to overthrow the Sandinista regime by force. Ten years of civil war left more than 50,000 people dead and billions of dollars in economic losses.

Sandinistas and members of the right-wing governing Liberal Constitutional Party (PLC), who supported Alemán, pushed through reforms of the Electoral Law in 2002 and 2004 so that a presidential candidate can win in the first ballot with 40 percent of the valid votes, or 35 percent and a five-point lead over the candidate in second place. These new rules may now benefit Ortega.

The possibility of a victory for Ortega has awakened intense international interest and the reappearance of dark phantoms from the past, like retired U.S. Colonel Oliver North, who secretly traded arms to Iran for the Ronald Reagan administration (1981-1989) to finance the Nicaraguan “contras”.

North visited the country and said that a Sandinista victory would be “the worst thing” for Nicaragua.

The White House designated Ambassador Paul Trivelli and 48 other officials as electoral observers, including former senator John Bennett Johnston and former congressman Bill Paxon.

According to the latest surveys, Ortega is favoured by an average 33 percent of voters, followed by Eduardo Montealegre of the right-wing Nicaraguan Liberal Alliance with 22 percent.

In third place is José Rizo of the PLC, with 17 percent, then Edmundo Jarquín of the dissident Sandinista Renewal Movement with 14.8 percent, and finally former guerrilla leader Edén Pastora, with less than one percent.

The United States’ interference in the electoral process drew complaints from the OAS observers’ mission, who issued a call to “respect the decision of Nicaraguans”.

Ortega’s opponents Montealegre and Jarquín have complained that not only Washington, but also Caracas has intervened in the elections, and accused Ortega of accepting money from Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez for his campaign.

Both candidates said that Chávez sent two shipments of fuel to Nicaragua for Sandinista municipalities to sell and use the proceeds to promote Ortega’s candidacy. Chávez expressed his preference for Ortega in April.

Moscow, too, a former political ally and trading partner of Ortega’s in the 1980s, when it was the capital of the now-dissolved Soviet Union, has joined the chorus. On Thursday, the Russian government condemned the “undisguised interference” of the United States in Nicaragua’s electoral process.

“Such interference causes not only surprise but disquiet. We consider it categorically unacceptable to create obstacles to the free expression of the will of the Nicaraguan people,” said Mikhail Kaminin, spokesman for the Russian foreign ministry.

Kaminin pointed out that official and unofficial U.S. sources have threatened to cut off aid and cooperation with Nicaragua if the FSLN wins.

The presidential and legislative elections this Sunday will be the most closely scrutinised since the elections which saw the defeat of the Sandinistas in 1990. The president of the Supreme Electoral Court (CSE), Roberto Rivas, said that accreditation had been extended to more than 17,000 observers, 16,000 of whom were nationals and 1,000 foreigners.

The army will mobilise 8,356 troops to provide security, whilst the police will deploy more than 9,000 officers to guard the voting boards, which receive ballots.

Observers from the European Union, the OAS, the non-governmental Carter Centre and the right-wing International Republican Institute, from the United States, and the Council of Latin American Electoral Experts, will participate.

According to CSE spokesman Félix Navarrete, 422 foreign journalists have been accredited. The world’s major television networks have sent special envoys to Managua, and most news agencies have assigned additional staff to their offices here.

Newspapers such as The New York Times and The Washington Post, from the U.S., Le Monde of France and El País from Spain have also sent reporters to file firsthand stories. And 625 national radio, television and press journalists have also been accredited.

The campaign, which began on Aug. 19, has entered its final phase with five days of “electoral silence” as of last Wednesday.

There are 3,652,335 citizens over 16 who are eligible to vote. A president and vice-president of the republic will be elected, as well as 92 deputies to the unicameral Legislative Assembly, and 20 members of the Central American Parliament.

The CSE estimates that the turnout will be some 2.8 million people, allowing for a probable abstention rate of 10 percent, and emigrants and deceased persons who have not been eliminated from the register.