Nicaraguan Election Bulletin Number 3

Nicaraguan Election Bulletin Number 3
What Happened!!
By Nick Hoskyns
November 10th 2001


Well it has been a few days and there has been time for the emotions to calm. As ever Nicaragua has provided those of us who are here an incredible experience, mixing up feelings of frustration, anger, admiration, despair and hope.

The elections have been clearly won by the liberals with an enormous turnout, there was no violence or disorder on the day and it really was impressive to see such a divided nation deciding its differences through the ballot box. However, once more the results have gone the way of the right wing and the sad conclusion is that the negative, terror campaign waged against the Sandinistas was much more sinister and cleverly planned than was at first apparent. The overriding opinion in the country is that fear won over hope and that, by voting day, the majority of Nicaraguans were seriously concerned about a return of Daniel Ortega and the Sandinista party. Sadly one can now see how clever and effective the negative campaigning was. One also wonders just what else the anti-Sandinistas backed by the U.S., the catholic church and Nicaraguan big business would have been prepared to do if the Sandinista led alliance “La Convergencia” had looked like winning. Final results are not yet declared and the supreme electoral council has been supreme only in giving confused signals and promoting doubt and suspicion of the whole process.

The FSLN can take comfort from the fact that they lost running a clean campaign throughout. They have consolidated an alliance with other key forces in the country that seems to have stayed together since the defeat.

“La Convergencia” has given the progressive forces in Nicaragua a way of coming together under an attractive discourse, and with emphasis on the positive principles of love, tolerance, respect and working together for the good on the nation.

The country that is in such a terrible economic and social crisis was no great prize for the winner and is not going to be easy to govern especially with the extensive electoral commitments made during the campaign by all sides. Enrique Bolanos, the future president, has already entered into conflict with Arnoldo Aleman, current president, who never hid his desire to maintain power and influence from the position of president of the National assembly. Daniel Ortega should now be convinced, as the FSLN party seems to be, that he should not be the presidential candidate at the next elections in five years time.


The following description shows the lengths gone to; to stop the FSLN led “Convergencia” winning.

Fear won over hope
The initial impression one had, apart from disbelief, was that fear had won through over hope and that the terror campaign had inclined the undecided voter against the FSLN.

The negative dirty campaign worked
The negative campaign was incredibly strong during the official campaign and went on into the period of silence where, it must be said, became a dirty campaign also.

Here is a taste of what went on:

For three months solid there were television spots highlighting all the negative aspects of the 1980’s (when the Sandinistas were in power)
· Scenes of the war where so many people died usually including shots of Daniel Ortega in his military uniform of the time.
· A mother, who’s son had died serving military service, pleading for it never to return
· A house wife explaining what the rationing and queues were like in the 1980’s
· Daniel Ortega announcing curbs on freedom of the press during the war in the 1980’s.
All of the above were also used extensively in the municipal elections one year ago.

US contribution:
· US. Ambassador and other state department officials making public statements clearly warning the population that a return of an FSLN government was not the preferred option of the US.
· US donated food aid for the recent drought to be distributed by the government. This was done with un-precedented speed and well before any other donor country had reacted or been able to establish the effects of the drought.
· Conservative party candidate Noel Vidaurre resigned on the afternoon that the president of his party had breakfast with the US. Ambassador.
· The US. Embassy apparently carried out the most extensive opinion polls of the campaign and never published the results.
· The U.S. is thought to have spent $45 million on the Nicaraguan electoral process.

Then came the September 11th terrorist attack on the twin towers of New York! Before the dust had settled, links were being made between the Sandinistas and terrorism.
In campaign terms:
· Daniel was shown with Saddam Houssain, Colonel Ghadaffi and Fidel Castro.
· Shots of the Sep 11th attack followed immediately by Bush’s speech where he stated, “you are either with us or you are with them!”


Despite all of the above the campaign finished with the general feeling that the FSLN led alliance may well win.
The negative campaigning was generally thought to be too negative and to have bored the electorate. While the “Convergencia” had finished on a high with multi coloured closing rallies all over the country and all its leaders giving a short speech, at the Ruben Dario Theatre, of why they believed in the government of national unity proposed. Daniel Ortega even wore a suit!

Then came the famous three days of rest/silence. These are three days before the election where campaigning is prohibited.

The Catholic Church steps in.
Cardinal Miguel Obando y Bravo had already announced his service for the day after campaigning finished. Many major political figures were present including the two major candidates Enrique Bolanos and Daniel Ortega. The thrust of his sermon was.
· Both parties are offering roughly the same so one must look at the individuals to be elected.
· People should evaluate the candidates past.
· Voters should judge which candidate has the best professional preparation for the job.
· Voters should look at the way the candidates have behaved with their family.
· Most importantly it is an obligation for all to exercise their vote.


On the face of it, it seemed quite moderate compared to his offering in 1996. But all the points made subtly pointed clearly away from Daniel Ortega. All seemed even more positive when Daniel stole the show, and the headlines, by rising and offering peace to both Arnoldo Aleman and Bolanos at the appropriate time in the service.

It was then that things started to get out of hand!
State television shows archives of Zoila America interviews accusing Daniel.
State television spent the whole next day showing archives of Zoila America interviews (Zoila America is Daniels step daughter and she has accused him publicly of abusing her for many years)

People terrorized, seeing the army on the streets in full combat gear.
Just two days before the elections Nicaragua awoke to the army on every corner in full combat gear. It is now believed by many that it was at this point that the memories of the war really came back to haunt the population. Even staunch Sandinistas have expressed to me that they felt stressed and terrorized. It has now become clear that Arnoldo Aleman had insisted that there might be need for a state of emergency during the elections. An opinion nobody else held. However it is now known that it was with this pretext that the government insisted on the army doing a practice run of a state of emergency.

Then came Election Day.
All was extremely calm throughout the whole day. The Polling stations opened late and then stayed open until the last in the queue has voted. In some cases this meant midnight.

At 8pm Bolanos was declaring himself the winner. And it later became clear that the Liberals had won with an enormous turnout (92%) and an impressive majority. The U.S. ambassador caused much concern by visiting the count in the middle of the night and having heated discussions with staff of the supreme electoral council (CSE). The CSE had failed to give any firm results and only at 7am, 6 hours later than promised, gave 5% of the count.

FSLN Aliance “La Convergencia” Loses
Daniel conceded defeat at 11:30am just before the results of just 20% were announced. Many feel he conceded to soon and without due explanations to his supporters. Confusion with the count has continued with now over 99% of votes registered on the website but no new announcements.

The Results
No final results have been given but here is what we know so far.

Daniel has accepted defeat and the presidential vote seems to have gone the Liberals way by 56.31%-42.28% with the Conservative party with just 1.41%

In the parliamentary elections held as well the current results are PLC 53.2% FSLN 42.14 and the Conservatives 4.66%

I emphasize these are not confirmed results yet!! I include Achuapa (personal bias)

The confirmed results I have for Leon are
Presidential elections
Municipality Leon Leon region II Achuapa
PLC 44.60% 47.49% 50.68%
FSLN 53.86% 51.38% 49.00%
PC 1.54% 01.13% 00.32%

National Assembly Elections
Municipality Leon Leon region II Achuapa
PLC 41% 45.00% 49.73%
FSLN 54% 51.40% 48.76%
PC 5% 03.60% 01.51%

One thing that can be noted is that The FSLN vote stayed roughly the same for the different elections but there were some people who voted PLC for President and Conservative for the parliamentary elections.

There were actually 4 ballot papers. Presidential, Assembly members on a national level, Assembly members on a departmental level and for the Central American assembly. The last three had roughly the same totals with only the Presidential election differing slightly towards a two horse race.

Battle for National Assembly.
At the moment the battle is all around the number of national assembly members each party will have. The Liberals and Arnoldo Aleman are predicting 53-54 to the FSLN’s 35-36 with the Conservatives on 1-2. This would be very worrying as with 55 members they would have the 60% of the votes required to govern almost without having to take the opposition into consideration.

The FSLN are predicting they will have 41-42 to the PLC’s 47-48 with the conservatives on 1-2. This would give a more balanced national assembly where agreements would have to be made between the two major forces for any big changes.

Interesting facts

Total number of votes cast is 2,261,666 this means that the abstention was less than 8%. Daniel Ortega, in his first analytical speech after the elections, expressed surprise at the incredibly high turnout and clearly insinuated that there had been cases of double voting taking advantage of the late closure of the polling stations and the rule, that was emitted late by the electoral supreme council, allowing people to vote where they are not on the electoral role as long as they provided two witnesses to state they lived in the area.

Daniel also explained that the FSLN vote had reached over 900,000. Up from 579,866 in the 1990 elections. 664,909 in the 1996 elections and 618,821 in the YR 2000 local elections.

The FSLN actually reached their target number of votes they expected to need to win the elections, however, nobody expected the incredible turnout.

What does the future hold?

The president elect has already entered into the fray by making declarations distancing himself from Arnoldo Aleman. This may be a tough battle as Aleman certainly has power within the national assembly and is vying to be its president. As long as the FSLN has over 40 members in the assembly they are a force to be reckoned with and can claim to have consolidated their power within the democracy.

The country is in such a terrible crisis that many Sandinistas may be relieved at not having to take on the “hot potato”. The grass routes Sandinistas, however, will be bitterly disappointed at the result and will have lost a great deal of faith in the possibility of winning an election. This may not be wholly correct:
· Daniel Ortega is almost certainly not going to run next time.
· The FSLN has gained many brownie points for the squeaky clean campaign, peaceful voting day and accepting the results without protest
· “La Convergencia” has held together and has sworn to contest future elections.
· There are promising future presidential candidates such as “Herty Lewites” current Sandinista mayor of Managua.
· It is probable that the countries problems will sadly not be resolved by the elected government especially those of the poor.


I would like to share the overriding conclusions I have come to:

The powerful countries of the world must allow the poor nations to decide their own fate without intervention and interference. The Nicaraguan people are courageously attempting to make their fledgling democracy work. However the U.S. seems to be promoting democracy while also knowing which political party it thinks should win. Worst of all, by hook or by crook, their will seems to be done. Many now in Nicaragua feel that it is impossible for the Sandinistas to win elections despite the vast support they have among the people and the Neutral/favorable police force and army. I do not share that view but do wonder what realistic hope left political parties (proposing an alternative system to the current failing one) have of winning elections in the rest of Central America where they are at a much greater disadvantage.

The rightwing Liberal party clearly won these elections and the Sandinistas were clearly not the preferred choice of the majority of Nicaraguans this time. I truly believe that it was fear and not hope that insured the incredibly high turnout and the FSLN defeat. The key moments of these elections for me were:
· The resignation of the conservative candidate “Noel Vidaurre” who would most probably have split the anti-Sandinista vote.
· The period of silence where the Catholic Church stepped in and the army was forced onto the streets bringing back the memories of the war.
· It is now also clear that Daniel Ortega was an easy target as candidate for the Sandinistas.

We can now all go back to our work with the grass routes trying to empower while continuing to learn from the wonderful Nicaraguan people. Tolerance, respect, solidarity and love are our strengths. Organization is our tool. The “Convergencia has taught us something and has certainly stimulated debate.

To finish I must say that these elections have clearly illustrated many reasons why the US. Government is so unpopular worldwide.