Politics in Nicaragua: The Good

In 1990, Nicaragua was shocked to find that the Frente Sandinistas de Liberacion Nacional (FSLN), the Marxist-Leninist party that had been in power since their triumph in the popular revolution of 1979, had lost in the first free and fair Presidential election in that country’s history.  The Sandinistas received 40% of the vote, while the loose conglomeration of opposition forces precariously held together by Doña Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, widow to a famous martyred journalist, got 54%.

In the following two decades, while remaining a powerful force in Nicaraguan politics, the Sandinistas failed to win a single presidential election. Daniel Ortega ran and lost three consecutive times.  Support for the party seemed to hover, and remain stuck, around the 40% mark (in 1996 they got 38% of the vote; in 2001 it was 42%). People began to talk about an entrenched minority of diehard Sandinista supporters:  “the 38%” they were called.  Then in 2006, Ortega ran again, and again he got 38%, only this time he won! (The opposition vote was split in two and the runner-up party ended up with just 28% of the vote.)

At last, after more than 15 years, the Sandinistas were back in power.  And since then (curiously or predictably, depending on how you see it), Sandinista support has appeared to skyrocket.  In 2008, the party easily, and controversially, won a majority of the seats in the municipal elections, and in the 2011 presidential elections, Ortega cruised to victory with over 60% of the popular vote. The election monitors found certain irregularities in that last vote, but they did not question the overall results. A year later, Sandinistas now talk of polls that show 80% support countrywide.

Their public support is probably not at 80%, but there is, without question, a growing support for the current government.  Where is this new support coming from and why?  And what are the views of “the 38%”? Why are they so loyal to the Sandinistas?

Well first, you can’t talk about the Sandinistas without talking about the poor.  The revolution brought the struggles of the lower classes to the forefront of the political discourse for first time in Nicaragua’s history; that was all the FSLN’s doing (kind of a big deal in one of the poorest countries in Latin America). And that legacy continues.  The party’s most popular programs are without a doubt their anti-poverty initiatives.  Many of them represent serious and honest attempts at addressing and alleviating poverty.  One of the most famous is the Zero Hunger Plan, where women from rural communities are given livestock—pigs, cows, or chickens— or seeds, which they then pay-off in installments with the income they generate from the piglets, milk, eggs, or crops.  Eventually, they payback the (partial) cost of the livestock or seed, and are left with a new source of income. (Other Latin American countries, like Brazil under Lula, have also implemented similar initiatives.)

Other programs include the Plan Techo, where sheets of zinc used for roofing are distributed to needy families; subsidies for basic foods like rice and beans; housing projects; property deeds for landless farmers; the reinstitution of free public education (after a period where students had to pay certain fees to attend school); and much more.

And while there may be this anti-poverty crusade at the bottom, at the macro-level the government has pursued a rather sensible, IMF-supervised pro-business model. Inflation is under control and growth, while not spectacular, is at a defensible 3-4% annual rate. Business, seen as the enemy in the eighties, is embraced with open arms by the Sandinistas currently in power. Foreign investment is highly sought after and seems to be on the rise. But for the layman on the street, the biggest change is the end of the severe electrical shortages of the previous administrations, which crippled the economy and caused immense inconvenience and frustration for the average Nicaragua.

Foreigners that support the Sandinistas will also point to the government’s constant promotion of community, solidarity, and volunteerism.  They’ll talk about how refreshing it is to hear people talk about the greater good rather than narrow self-interest.  They’ll point to the young people who are inspired to go out and help their community by joining an environmental brigade, or by helping to hand out sheets of zinc.  It forms part of a greater agenda of progressive policies that include helping the poor, protecting the local environment, and empowering women and youth.

The results of this agenda include a new comprehensive law against the physical and psychological abuse of women; a new law requiring half of all publicly elected positions to be held by women; numerous reforestation campaigns; the constant experimentation with new eco-friendly alternatives to waste management and power technologies; the promotion of eco-tourism.

“Without the Sandinistas this would not exist,” is a constant refrain from a Sandinista friend.  It is true that there is a lot that the Sandinistas have accomplished, a lot to brag about.  But has it come at cost?  In my next post I will write about the views of the opposition.