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Nicaragua's political kaleidoscope
By Karla Jacobs, 9th October 2009
By Karla Jacobs, 9th October 2009
The FSLN has no qualms about maintaining their objective of reforming the Constitution so that President Daniel Ortega can stand again for president in 2011. Nor does the governing party appear to doubt its ability to bring about such reforms despite not having an overall majority in the National Assembly.
Vice President of the Supreme Court of Justice and one of the most influential members of the FSLN, Rafael Solís, spoke openly about the governing party's plans to create the possibility for Ortega's reelection in 2011 in an extensive interview with online weekly www.confidencial.com.ni.
As Solís explains the constitutional reforms the FSLN is proposing are based on the idea that the law should not stand in the way of the population's right to elect, reelect and dismiss public officials as they choose. Originally the FSLN was talking about promoting a much more radical change from a presidential system to a parliamentary system with an Executive branch of government responsible only for foreign policy, defence and certain economic matters.
Due to the apparent difficulty of rounding up enough support among the political opposition for this project, however, the FSLN is now proposing a set of reforms which eliminate current leglislative norms that limit the population's ability to elect or dismiss public officials as they choose.
FSLN wants option for a recall referendum
As well as overturning the constitution's prohibition of reelection, the proposed reforms would introduce the figure of a recall referendum whereby, should the population demand it, such a referendum could be held to remove any public official from a post at any time during their term.
Like all constitutional reforms, the reforms would require a greater majority (56 of the 91 deputies) than the 47 simple majority required for other legislation. According to Solís, the FSLN is actively looking for opportunities to negotiate support for the reforms from opposition benches in the National Assembly in order to make up the extra 18 votes it needs to pass the legislative proposal.
Interestingly, Solís did not discard the possibility of some sort of agreement with Eduardo Montealegre's Democratic Bench should Arnoldo Aleman's PLC continue to defy the FSLN attempts to negotiate. He appears confident, however, that at some point during 2010 the FSLN will be able to pass its constitutional reform proposal with support from the PLC deputies as part of a wider negotiated agreement including the naming of 27 top positions in the Supreme Court, Supreme Electoral Council and other public institutions.
Over the last few years the FSLN has demonstrated time and again that, despite not having an overall majority in the National Assembly, it does have the upper hand when it comes to this kind of horsetrading (a systematic and inevitable mechanism in most representative democracies).
While the right wing opposition has managed to obstruct legislative activity to the detriment of the governing party on a couple of occasions during Ortega's presidency, the FSLN has always ended up wiggling its way out of seemingly impossible situations by playing different factions of the opposition against each other and conceding benefits to opponents when there is no other alternative.
Imminent legislative boycott in attempt to pressurize FSLN?
Events over the last few weeks could be taken to suggest that the political opposition are planning to resort to paralyzing legislative activity again at some point before the end of the year.
The opposition knows the FSLN needs to get a number of important pieces of legislation through parliament over the next month or so (including its proposed tax reform, important judicial reforms, a reform to the 2009 budget and the 2010 national budget proposal) and is unlikely not to take advantage of this opportunity to frustrate the government and improve their own personal and party stances vís-a-vís future negotiations with the FSLN.
Catholic Bishop and notorious right wing reactionary, Abelardo Mata, has been making a strong effort to facilitate talks between Aleman and Montealegre with the expressed objective being the creation of a united liberal alliance going into the 2011 elections.
Last week a verbal agreement was reached that the PLC and the Democratic Bench would implement a common agenda in the National Assembly including the rejection of the FSLN's constitutional reforms and the ratification of a law to nullify the 2008 municipal elections. Mata admits, however, that the meeting took place in an environment of mutual mistrust.
Since the meeting several representatives of the opposition parties have spoken of the resurection of what the opposition refer to as the "Block Against the Dictatorship." This is the phrase they used to describe the tactic of legislative boycott employed by opposition deputies both at the end of the 2007 and at the end of 2008.
It is important to note that this tactic was ultimately unsuccessful both times, however, due to the governing party's ability to manipulate the deeply rooted mistrust and bad feeling between the different right wing factions in its favour, so bringing an end to the legislative logjam.
Montealegre's vulnerability
Despite the corporate media's efforts to have us believe otherwise, Democratic Bench leader Eduardo Montealegre's negotiating power has experienced a steady decline since the 2008 municipal elections. Both Montealegre's credibility and the perception of his leadership potential took serious blows after his false claims of fraud were followed by an inability to demonstrate widespread popular support.
Now faced not only with the possibility of being stripped of his parliamentary immunity to face prosecution for his involvement in the CENIs scandal, but also the developing case against him for allegedly failing to pay millions of cordobas in income tax over the last seven years, Montealegre appears to be in a more vulnerable position than ever.
The leaders of both the FSLN and the PLC have their reasons to celebrate and promote Montealegre's ongoing political decline. It is in the interests of the FSLN that the representative of a vaguely defined but relatively appealing type of third way option for voters be shown up for what he is - a corrupt white-collar bureaucrat. Likewise, the weaker one's oponents are, the more amenable they become to future negotiations.
If, as their recent activities based on refounding the image of the PLC would suggest, Aleman and his inner circle are serious about competing with the FSLN for political power via the ballot box in 2011, they need Montealegre out of the way in order for Aleman to emerge as the sole leader of the only viable right wing political alliance.
Little chance of reconciliation between right wing factions
With these factors thrown into the equation it would appear that Montealegre has little room for maneouvre if an opposition legislative boycott gives way to the resurrection of the so-called FSLN-PLC "pacto" or the creation of a FSLN-Democratic Bench "mini-pacto."
Whatever the details of the course of events in the National Assembly over the next few months, the creation of a steadfast political agreement between the different right wing factions seems improbable, especially taking into account the fact that Montealegre's faction is competing against the PLC as part of an electoral alliance with the ALN in the upcoming regional elections on the Caribbean Coast.
As long as the opposition and their international supporters do not decide to break with conventional electoral politics there seems little reason to suggest that the FSLN's internal political strategy is likely to fail them now.