Nicaragua's elections : the importance of not being perfumado

toni solo, August 25th 2011

One fundamental reason underlies the success of Nicaragua's Sandinista government. It can be seen in any comparison of the situation of the Nicaraguan people with that of the peoples of Europe or North America. In those countries no political force exists able to defend the majority against the ruthless assault against them by their countries' ruling elites. By contrast, in Nicaragua the Sandinista Front for National Liberation is a genuine and powerful political expression of the interests of the country's impoverished majority.

Two basic aspects of its historical program have enabled the FSLN to divide and confound the opposition elites and those elites' foreign sponsors. Firstly, the democratization of the country's politics and economy has won support and acceptance among very broad sectors of the population, both among the very poor and, too, among the business classes. Secondly, the diversification of Nicaragua's foreign relations has ensured international political and economic support for the FSLN government unequalled since the first Sandinista revolutionary government of the 1980s.

This reality has developed steadily and inexorably since President Daniel Ortega's inauguration  in January 2007. The unquestionable emergence of this reality explains the huge electoral advantage of the FSLN in these last two months before the national elections in November. It also explains the desperation of the political opposition, their pathetic discord and division and their lack of a credible political programme. In large measure, it has been the news media and the non governmental sector that have represented effective political opposition in the country.

But the negative anti-Sandinista message of those two sectors has not met with general acceptance in Nicaragua. It has had more impact overseas, especially in the Western Bloc member countries of NATO. This fact reflects two very important things. It shows that Nicaragua is the subject of a psychological warfare offensive designed by the dominant elites in NATO member countries who sub-contract propaganda chores to Nicaragua's local news media and NGOs. As a corollary it also shows that Nicaragua is a key target  in the NATO countries' increasing aggression against processes of change taking place in Latin America and the world in general.

In Nicaragua, people are accustomed to the cynicism and hypocrisy of the opposition non-governmental sector made up almost entirely of proxy organizations supported by funds from NATO countries, for example, the Nicaragua Centre for Human Rights, Ethics and Transparency, the Autonomous Womens Movement, the Civil Coordinator group or the Movement for Nicaragua, among many others. Nor are people in Nicaragua surprised by the constant gross untruths appearing in the countries two main national newspapers, La Prensa and El Nuevo Diario. These are two tentacles of the oligarchic Chamorro family's monopolistic media-squid suffocating Nicaragua's intellectual life.

The Chamorro family media-squid also flails at the Sandinista government with a non-governmental political propaganda tentacle called the Centre for Communications Research (CINCO). Like all the other Nicaraguan opposition NGOs, CINCO is funded by foreign organizations controlled by the NATO country elites. This reality reflects the dependence of the Nicaraguan opposition on foreign support, both financial and intellectual. A sinister and persistent characteristic of the opposition propaganda has been the repeated allusion by opposition figures like Antonio Lacayo, Henry Ruiz or Dora Maria Tellez to a possible recourse to armed violence. Those allusions currently call to mind the results of NATO's criminal interventions in Libya and Syria.

A review of the offensive strategy of Nicaragua's political opposition is necessary in order to understand their moral and intellectual bankruptcy. The opinion polls indicate that inside Nicaragua this strategy has failed ignominiously. They show the FSLN and its candidate Daniel Ortega have a huge advantage over their nearest rival. By contrast, NATO country corporate media exaggerate the standing of the opposition and understate the support for the FSLN. They have done the same in Libya and Syria. They do so when reporting on any of the ALBA countries. It is a routine component of NATO's psychological warfare against countries that resist the demands of the Western Bloc elites.

Failed opposition offensives

When Daniel Ortega took office in January 2007, it took the Nicaraguan opposition several months to build a plausible offensive strategy. The attacks developed from the right and centre-right, from social democrats and from the ultra-Left. All the attacks set out to question the competence, honesty and transparency of government Ministers and the judicial system.

As time went on, the attacks were also directed against the electoral authority. Another line of attack from the ultra-Left and the social democrat non governmental sector has been on the issue of therapeutic abortion. All these attack strategies intensified greatly during 2008, which, in November of that year, saw local government elections in Nicaragua.

There was a clear convergence between the extreme-right, the centre right, the social democrats and the ultra-Left. The opposition political parties had a majority in the National Assembly. Opposition deputies thought they would be able to undermine and sabotage the Sandinista government's legislative programme by means of prolonged boycotts of the legislature's work.

Former Sandinistas among the social democrats and the ultra-Left used sinister slogans like “Ortega and Somoza are the same thing” or “Rigoberto's coming...” referring to the assassination of the dictator Anastasio Somoza. The right wing and centre-right political parties started calling themselves the “democratic opposition”. Despite all this propaganda, already in 2008 the government's poverty reduction programmes were beginning to have an impact. Exports increased dramatically. Ordinary people began to recognize improvements to the public health and education systems and in broader availability of affordable credit for small and medium sized businesses

Opposition failure internationally

The growing acceptance and approval of government policies among the Nicaraguan population  forced the opposition to dig in and deepen an ever more negative campaign based on fear. The opposition's insistence on an alleged “dictatorship” being imposed by the Sandinista government came to sound more and more hysterical. At the end of 2008 the international crisis seemed to have come to the aid of the floundering opposition.

That international economic crisis imposed very difficult conditions for the implementation of the government's programmes. In an effort to take advantage of that situation anti-patriotic politicians like Eduardo Montealegre and his social democrat allies chose to collaborate with the United States government and the European Union. They urged those foreign authorities  - against the interests of their own Nicaraguan people – to cut development cooperation aid to Nicaragua so as to put pressure on the Sandinista government.

The US government and the European Union quickly cut a total of more than US$100 million in development cooperation funds. Almost equally rapidly that funding was replaced with funds from ALBA's development cooperation structures. For that reason, during this period the Nicaraguan opposition intensified their attacks on the use of Venezuela's development funding within the ALBA trade and development cooperation framework.

These attacks have served as an index of the Nicaraguan opposition's frustration. They could see the programme of the Sandinista government progressing despite the international economic crisis and the cuts in foreign development cooperation funding by the imperialist powers. ALBA not only helped the government of President Daniel Ortega to survive the regional impact of the international economic crisis, but to overcome it.

The Sandinista government continued its extensive programme of infrastructure improvements. It managed to sustain a continuous increase in exports. Likewise, it deepened the reduction in levels of extreme poverty in the country. Similarly, during a period which saw the fascist coup in Honduras, the diversification of Nicaragua's foreign relations under Daniel Ortega's leadership was also decisive for the country's stability.

Through 2010,the credibility of the main components of the Nicaragua political opposition's campaign against the Sandinista government suffered irreversible damage. One setback was the firm response of the government to the Costa Rican government's unwonted aggression towards the end of 2010. Costa Rican President Laura Chinchilla and her ministers claimed Nicaraguan territory at the delta of the Rio San Juan to be part of Costa Rica.

The steadfast defence of the government against that claim received total support nationally. At an international level, the FSLN government undercut the Costa Rican government's offensive in the Organization of American States by taking the case directly to the International Court of Justice. At the same time, Nicaragua's exceptional economic growth of 4.5% during 2010 won the approval of international financial institutions, most importantly the International Monetary Fund.

Internal failure, foreign irrelevance

One by one the opposition attacks inside Nicaragua have failed. Their persistent boycotts of the legislative work of the National Assembly failed. The FSLN reached agreement with a sufficient number of deputies to maintain a working quorum in the legislature.

At the end of 2009 the opposition also tried in vain to sabotage the proceedings of the Constitutional Division of the Supreme Court of Justice. The magistrates of the Constitutional division had to decide on the right to re-election of President Daniel Ortega and over 100 municipal mayors. In the end, the ruling – admitting the constitutional right of all Nicaraguan citizens to re-election- was made with the deputy magistrates of absent opposition magistrates. The ruling was subsequently fully - and quietly -  ratified by the opposition aligned magistrates themselves.

Later, at the start of 2010, the opposition deputies refused to comply with their constitutional obligation to elect  new authorities for the different powers of State. To avoid institutional chaos, President Ortega issued a decree prolonging the periods of office of the relevant officials. Following standard practice in many European and Latin American countries, the decree remains valid until the National Assembly does in fact elect new authorities to the respective posts of the different powers of State.

Outside Nicaragua, the whole NATO non-governmental, media and government apparatus has mobilized around these failed propaganda themes of the Nicaraguan opposition – re-election and the extension of the periods of office of official in the various powers of State. Internally this strategy has failed hopelessly. Opinion polls on voting intentions show that as the number of don't knows diminishes voting intentions in favour of the FSLN rise proportionately.

In fact, four main propaganda themes have been used by the opposition who allege:

President Daniel Ortega's re-election is unconstitutional
the judiciary and the electoral authorities are de facto and corrupt
ALBA development cooperation funds are corruptly abused
the Sandinista government violates the rights of women

The categorical and dramatic increase in support for the FSLN demonstrates that these arguments only convince a diminishing minority of Nicaraguans. Even overseas, the unquestionable domestic popular support for President Daniel Ortega's government makes it harder and harder for the NATO countries' psychological warfare operatives to maintain the credibility of their blatant falsehoods.

In his essay “Homage to Catalonia”, George Orwell wrote, “The truth goes on existing, as it were, behind one's back.” This is the reality against which the cynical and hypocritical political opposition in Nicaragua have crashed. The arguments around the issue of therapeutic abortion offer a very clear example.

The issue is one that worries a great many people outside Nicaragua but it is not a priority for the great majority of people inside Nicaragua. As in other countries, there are strong differences of opinion about whether the law on abortion in Nicaragua is appropriate or right. What cannot be denied is that, for better or worse, the great majority of the population is not concerned enough to change it.

One can speculate about why that should be. In part, it is because the government has made a great effort to reduce maternal mortality. This indicates that while women may have no explicit right to  abortion, nonetheless doctors can act to protect the life of a mother at serious risk from her pregnancy.

This is the reason why the exaggerated predictions of the Nicaraguan pro-choice women's movement have turned out to be wrong. There has been been a fall in maternal mortality since the law was changed back in 2006. It is in that context that the non governmental sector in Nicaragua has campaigned overseas to get support from foreign organizations.

Of these, the most recent to address the matter has been Amnesty International. But neither Amnesty International nor any of the various foreign organizations addressing the matter have dealt with it as a regional issue. That would have meant attacking the relevant legislation in El Salvador and Chile and extremely restrictive legislation in other countries too.

The attacks on the issue have been specifically aimed at the Sandinista government in Nicaragua.  By dealing with the issue in that way, relying on foreign support, the Nicaraguan women's organizations campaigning for abortion rights have distanced themselves from national domestic opinion. Theat dependence on foreign resources and ideas by the anti-Sandinista Nicaraguan women's movement has shown its leaders' cynicism, hypocrisy and ineptitude.

For example, the Autonomous Women's Movement (MAM) have publicly validated the presidential candidacy of Fabio Gadea. But Fabio Gadea is a candidate who has vigorously declared himself Pro-Life – the loaded codeword for anti-abortion – diametrically opposed to MAM's demands.  This cynicism and hypocrisy makes impossible any move towards a common understanding with Sandinista women who are also opposed to the abortion law in Nicaragua as it currently stands.

The political opposition deepen their estrangement from the feelings and experience of the majority in Nicaragua when they refuse to acknowledge the great advances made for women's rights under the Sandinista government. Political representation for women within the FSLN is 50-50, far greater than in the opposition political parties. Women occupy around 40% of senior government posts.

Government programmes have persistently prioritized women in terms of access to credit. Women have been prioritized in the areas of land titling and the formation of cooperatives and small and medium sized businesses. For these and many more reasons, opposition arguments around the theme of women's rights in Nicaragua convince no significant body of national opinion on the issue.

The final throw : cry fraud, create chaos

With their arguments and self-dramatization rejected by the great majority of people in Nicaragua, the opposition political parties, along with their media and NGO allies, have decided to rely on vociferous accusations of electoral fraud. In fact, opposition leaders have nurtured this option since their failed campaign to discredit the municipal elections of 2008. They were never able to demonstrate their accusations then, nor are they able now in 2011 to justify their ridiculous claims of pre-arranged systematic fraud in the run up to the national elections in November.

Among their arguments claiming fraud, they allege that the issuing of national ID cards – cédulas – has been deliberately manipulated to favour Sandinista voters. They suggest that somehow the issuing officials can sixth-sense who is likely to vote Sandinista or not. In fact, the validity of even expired cédulas was extended earlier this year, by a vote in the National Assembly, to December 2012. Even citizens who for one or other reason have no cédula at all will be able to vote by getting what the authorities call a supplementary voting document. The only eligible voters not to cast their vote in November will be people who have no intention of voting anyway.

Another argument of the Nicaraguan opposition is that electoral observation will be restricted and manipulated. But the electoral observation rules, issued on August 16th, establish clear and simple norms for both national and international observers. Observers who satisfy the accreditation prerequisites are required to respect the authority of country's electoral body and other institutions, like the police and the army, ensured with guaranteeing a successful electoral process. Even so, the opposition insistently repeating their irrational allegations of pre-arranged fraud. Individuals like former Sandinista Henry Ruiz have even threatened to forcibly occupy municipal electoral offices.

Ever since 2007, opposition representatives have alluded to the threat of violence as their last recourse in order to remove Daniel Ortega from office. Extreme right-wing politicians like Enrique Quiñonez, on various occasions, have provoked very serious incidents of armed violence. In the latest, a Quiñonez bodyguard shot and wounded an innocent bystander, possibly leaving the young victim paralysed for life. After the 2008 municipal elections, perennial failed candidate, Eduardo Montealegre, deliberately urged his supporters to stage widespread vicious street violence, which he then blamed on the Sandinistas.

So it is an open question what may happen in the last few weeks prior to the national elections in November. The venomous personal hatred of Edmundo Jarquin's circle for Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo is notorious. Corrupt individuals like Eduardo Montealegre and violent thugs like Enrique Quiñonez – both of whom hide behind the immunity from prosecution they enjoy as legislators – are desperate to slake their thirst for power and to satisfy their corporate and international backers.

They incarnate the very same negative characteristics they themselves falsely project onto the person of Daniel Ortega. In fact, the principal characteristic of President Ortega is his contact and empathy with the country's impoverished majority. It is a characteristic none of the opposition leaders understand or possess – with the possible exception of disgraced former president Arnoldo Aleman.

On not being “perfumado”

The term “perfumado” probably gained widest notoriety during the presidencies of Carlos Salinas and Ernesto Zedillo in Mexico. They and their circles preened themselves on their supposed intellectual and managerial superiority. They made up an elite completely out of touch with the needs of Mexico's impoverished majority. For them, ordinary people were no more than an electoral mass to be moulded and exploited whenever an election came around. The political opposition in Nicaragua have the same mentality.

As a term of ridicule “perfumado” has spread to mean any closed circle of people who think themselves superior to everyone else. A typical expression of that mentality occurs in Honduras. There, the ruling elite deprecate what they call the “chusma”, the impoverished majority whom they regard as little more than a regrettable necessity to satisfy their need for cheap labour. When the “chusma” rise up  to demand fundamental rights, they are repressed and murdered as has happened horrifically in the Bajo Aguan area in northern Honduras since the 2009 coup.

In Nicaragua, varieties of “perfumado” abound. Individuals like Eduardo Montealegre and Edmundo Jarquín, irredeemably identified with Nicaragua's oligarchy, seem to think they have a divine right to govern thanks simply to who they are. On the other hand, individuals like Dora Maria Tellez, Sofia Montenegro and Vilma Nuñez de Escorcia pride themselves on their putative, notional moral superiority to their Sandinista opponents.

What all the different varieties of “perfumados” have in common is that they lack credibility among the great majority of ordinary people. Few people have any faith in them because their arguments contradict what most people experience on a daily basis. The Nicaraguan opposition project a totally unconvincing here-comes-the-bogeyman reality of fantasy and blatant deceit. By contrast, President Ortega has convinced the great majority of people in Nicaragua that his leadership is practical, modest and sincere.

Despite many difficulties, the FSLN government has delivered on its 2006 electoral campaign promises. Its participatory model of Citizens' Power, patchy and imperfect but without sectarian political distinctions, has enabled the FSLN to take the pulse of what ordinary people want and need. Despite the inevitable contradictions along the way, President Ortega and Rosario Murillo and their colleagues have strengthened the relation of the FSLN to their popular base throughout Nicaragua and extended support among sectors previously hostile to Sandinista ideas.

Few doubt that Daniel Ortega, Rosario Murillo, their Sandinista colleagues and their coalition allies will win a well deserved electoral victory on November 6th. For their part, the Nicaraguan opposition run the risk of suffering a historic political and electoral defeat that may see them lose control of the National Assembly for the first time since 1990. Right now, it is impossible to see how they can reverse the trend among Nicaraguan voters in favour of the FSLN, a trend that will almost certainly increase in the remaining weeks before the election.