Nicaragua Politics
found this posted, dated June 2005...
Take all the anti-Bush, pro-Sandinistan, and anti-Sandinista BS out and here is what is going on:
First, a primer in all parties of power:
1. The Sandinistas: Even when not in power, they have worked behind the scenes by creating alliances and by using their legacy power in the judiciary to maintain power.
2. The Liberal Constitutionalist Party (PLC): The current "ruling" party that has held a leadership role in the Union of political parties that has trumped the Sandinistas since 1992. Even though the first elected President in decades, Mrs. Violeta Chamorro, was from the Conservative Party, the PLC really has ruled from within that alliance since then.
3. The Liberal Democratic Party (PLD): The other liberal party that is gaining in power in opposition of the happenings with the PLC.
4. The Conservative Party (PCN): The dark horse in Nicaraguan politics, which represented the opposition to Somoza, led the growth of the revolutionary movement with the Sandinistas, and was part of the initial government with the Sandinistas, until they were ousted violently by the Sandinistas.
There are at least 6 other parties, but none wield as much power.
Ortega desperately wants to finally win an election and has managed to split the biggest opposition party, the liberal constitutional party in two (more on that in a second).
What is a disgrace in Nicaraguan politics is that the history of the country is littered with people who received the trust of the people that go on to betray them by becoming corrupt or allowing corruption to happen. The Conservative Party leader, which is the party that my family belonged to historically, betrayed that trust in 1967, when it was wielding the most power, by becoming part of a pact with the Somoza dictatorship. Then in 1992, When Mrs. Violeta Chamorrow won that historic vote, several of her cabinet members and government ministers went on what is now called "the pinata" that resulted in huge corruption. Things got worse when Arnoldo "el gordo" Aleman was elected. Although he was viewed as a hero of the resistance against the Sandinistas, a reformer, and a school builder, it was found that he as well as a great number of his ministers (cabinet level assignees) had stolen great amounts of money or obtained great amounts of money by wielding influence.
Aleman's VP, President Enrique Bolanos, was then elected in a landslide over Ortega on an anti-corruption campaign that many though would be a non-starter. But he came up swinging, and his government convicted, in Sandinista courts, the former President. The former president went to jail, and everyone was happy, that is until Ortega came calling.
Ortega saw an unprecedented opportunity in the jailing of Aleman. He saw that the rest of the corrupt parts of the government in the PLC were running scared, and that he could build a coalition with those folks by finding ways for them to not pay for their sins. But the only way to do that would be thru a pact where the PLC members that were with Aleman would yield power to him, and he would keep them out of jail.
The Sandinistas have used this new found power to strip the constitutional power given to the executive branch, resulting in a bloodless coup (some call it brilliantly executed), where he rules from the national assembly. By the time that all this goes to court and gets struck down, Ortega will be president thanks to him splitting his biggest opposition party in half.
Sorry for the history lesson, but as you can tell, I find very little good in any of the political players (except maybe Bolanos) up to this moment.
Now, enters the wild card that might keep Ortega, yet again, from winning a single election: Popular former Managua Mayor Herty Lewites. Lewites, a fervert Sandinista, also desperately wants to be president and wants to use the established democratic principles of the consitution (like he should) to be elected. His candidacy has been rejected by the establishment Sandinistas, who take their orders from Ortega, and we have a pretty serious Sandinista versus Sandinista fight in our hands. Lewites is infinitely more popular than Ortega, but Ortega runs the country and is not about to give up power.
On the PLC side, the heir to Bolanos is Eduardo Montealegre, who is smack in the middle of a fight with the followers of Aleman (known as Arnoldistas or Gordistas). He seems to be gaining in popularity by his constant campaigning thru the country.
Now, it looks like Lewites, Montealegre, and the Conservative party might create a very temporary alliance to provide support to Bolanos against the destruction of the Nicaraguan democracy taking place in the Assembly by the Sandininsta/Arnoldista union.
So, yes, Ortega might win without much popular support, but he might also be in the fight of his life against a significantly more popular figure in his own party.
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