Actually, if Ortega had won it would mean the people hated Alemán more ... such is the nature of local politics, they tend to vote out incumbents ... and remember Ortega's principal claim to fame - he led the movement that finally rid his people of the US-supported swine Somoza ... undoubtedly he will make all political capital possible from available raw material, he is a politician after all, but there appears little question that the US continues to interfere in Nicaragua, it's a matter of record going back over a hundred years ... here's a pre-election 25 Oct piece from The Economist -
Daniel Ortega may become Nicaragua's president again. And
the United States is, once more, out to stop him
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IT IS like the sequel to a 20-year-old movie, with many of the
same actors but an extra dash of surrealism. The star (or villain):
Daniel Ortega, ex-president of Nicaragua, now sporting a paunch
and a bright pink shirt instead of the combat fatigues and
black-and-red banners with which he and his left-wing Sandinist
revolutionaries took power in 1979. Arrayed against him are
officials of America's State and Defence Departments. Some of
them had jobs in the administration of Ronald Reagan, which tried
to unseat the Sandinists by sponsoring the contras, a group of
terrorists (or freedom fighters). Albeit this time without violence,
they wish to prevent Mr Ortega from returning to power, a decade
after he was voted out, in a presidential election due on November
4th.
Hence the pink shirt. It is the campaign colour of Mr Ortega's
Convergence alliance, dominated by the Sandinists but augmented
by a large bunch of improbable hangers-on. They include the
Christian Democrats, whose leader, Agustin Jarquin, was jailed six
times by the Sandinist regime for political agitation, and is now Mr
Ortega's running-mate. Also present are many former contras. “We
fought each other for so long, now the only thing we can do is be
allies,” explains Justo Pastor, a battle-scarred senior ex-contra,
before revealing that he has been promised a vice-minister's job if
Mr Ortega wins.
But Mr Ortega's broad coalition does not impress the American
government. Nor does his talk of reconciliation with the United
States, nor his promise not to repeat the socialist economic
mismanagement of the 1980s and to resolve the thousands of
outstanding claims by people whose property was seized and then,
at the end of Mr Ortega's rule, sold for token sums to Sandinist
sympathisers. With increasing frequency in recent weeks, officials
from Colin Powell, the secretary of state, down have worried aloud
about the Sandinists' former and maybe present links with
terrorists, and their unreformed politics. “Ortega still sees [Fidel]
Castro as the shining light, as the example to be emulated in the
hemisphere,” says Lino Gutierrez, the acting assistant-secretary
for the Americas.
A campaigning ambassador
American intervention goes beyond words, too. The American
ambassador in Nicaragua, Oliver Garza, has been pointedly turning
up to campaign events with Enrique Bolaños, Mr Ortega's opponent
from the ruling Liberals. After a drought this year, the United
States has given over four times as much aid to Nicaragua as to
Honduras, which was more affected by the disaster. “Maybe they
think that hungry people will vote for Ortega,” says an American
aid worker.
In May, two American congressmen met Noel Vidaurre, the
presidential candidate for the Conservatives, the third force in the
election, and urged him to pull out so as not to split the
anti-Sandinist vote. Some weeks later Mr Vidaurre quit. He says
the Americans did not put pressure on him, but that his party
leaders had lost interest in winning. Whatever the truth, the
candidate who replaced him has since lost most of his voters to
the Liberals. Most polls still put Mr Ortega in the lead, but only
narrowly. A tight race and a disorganised electoral authority mean
that the voting is more likely to be followed by ill-feeling than by a
clear, quick result.
Most Nicaraguans, except the Liberals who benefit, say the
Americans are unduly nervous. “There is not much chance that
Sandinism can revive the history of the 1980s,” says Mr Vidaurre.
“They know Nicaragua needs international financial organisations
to survive. They know the United States' influence on these
institutions is decisive.” Others think that America's heavy-handed
tactics could backfire. “This policy is the Sandinists' best friend,”
says a European diplomat in the capital, Managua. “It will probably
mean they get more votes than otherwise.”
Either way, the choice facing Nicaraguans is a poor one. Mr Ortega
has kept a tight grip over the Sandinists, blocking new ideas and
new leaders, causing many moderates to leave the party. As for
the ruling Liberals, the outgoing government of President Arnoldo
Aleman has faced many allegations of corruption. Moreover, the
two parties colluded last year in a pact to give them joint control
of the supreme court, electoral council and auditor's office (as a
result, Mr Jarquin ended up in jail again). The electoral council has
subsequently rigged the rules to prevent several smaller parties
from taking part in the election. In choosing their candidates, both
of the big parties used procedures that were biased against
reformist challengers.
Whoever wins will face some big obstacles. Mr Ortega will have a
hard job persuading investors, and the United States, that he has
reformed. Mr Bolaños, despite being vice-president in the current
government, is widely considered to be honest, and has promised
to crack down on corruption. But he will struggle to loosen the grip
of Mr Aleman, who will have a guaranteed seat in the National
Assembly until 2006. “If Ortega wins, there will be economic
chaos. If Bolaños wins, political chaos,” says Carlos Chamorro, the
editor of Confidencial magazine.
Nicaragua cannot afford chaos. If it is to fulfil the conditions of
proposed debt relief from rich countries, which could wipe out over
half of its $6.2 billion foreign debt (about three times as large as
its GDP), the new government will have to exercise economic
discipline, as well as cutting public spending to rein in a galloping
internal debt. Mr Ortega has promised more social spending. But
Silvio Conrado, his chief economic strategist, plays that down:
“Whoever is in government will have practically zero room for
manoeuvre.” Trapped by its past, Nicaragua looks a long way from
a happy ending.
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