Candidates from six political forces will face off on Sunday, November 6 in the presidential elections in Nicaragua. In the same elections the 90 members of the National Assembly will be chosen together with 20 representatives to the Central American parliament.

Of the political forces involved, three are liberal, one conservative, another -- the Alliance for the Republic -- unites various factions of the old counter-revolution, while the Alianza Unida Nicaragua Triunfa (Nicaragua United will Triumph Alliance), led by the ruling party Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional (FSLN), is composed of some fifteen parties and organizations of the most diverse political colours.

The results of the vote, in which 3’400,000 electors are called to participate, will have national and international repercussions. At the national level, as a thermometer of the support for the Sandinistas, whose candidate, the current President Daniel Ortega, is seeking a third mandate, accompanied by his wife Rosario Murillo as vice President. A strong vote in opposition or a massive abstention could be interpreted as a condemnation of current government policy.

In the geopolitical framework of a continent in which the neoliberal right has gained leadership over the past year -- especially with Mauricio Macri in Argentina  and Michel Temer in Brazil -- the victory of the FSLN would constitute an important support for governments that advocate for strong social States and defend a vision autonomous from Washington.

Opposition... in spite of surveys and the street

Various opinion polls over the past several months indicate that the FSLN will be the clear victor. The political sympathy with their candidates is over 70 %, according to the survey of the System of Monitoring Public Opinion (SISMO) presented at the end of October by M&R Consultants. This forecast complements the 6^th National Electoral Survey, in which Ortega and Murillo achieved 64% of voting intentions, while the governing party reached 58% of acceptance. The 37th anniversary of the Sandinista revolution on July 19th was a measure of the drawing power of the FSLN as some 350 thousand people mobilized in Managua and in other towns and villages across the country.

The indicators of an almost certain Sandinista victory could explain why the Central American country has not seen an impassioned and active electoral campaign as happened in previous elections. The FSLN today faces two kinds of opposition. One "light", led by the forces that will take part in the elections on November 6. The other, more virulent that calls for abstention as a political sanction.

"We will not recognize the results of the electoral farce under way. We ask for new elections with full guarantees", emphasized the Broad Front for Democracy (FAD) in a recent press release. This position was published as a reaction to the agreement between the Nicaraguan Government and the Organization of American States (OAS), in the third week of October, to establish "a table for conversation and constructive interchange". A process that will include the confirmed visit of the General Secretary of the organization to Managua next December 1st and which does not question the legitimacy of the November elections.

A group of opposition intellectuals who edit the journal Envío, of the Central American University of Managua points out in their October issue that "...Ortega was the most active de-legitimizer of the November 6 elections". And they number among their arguments: "looking for his third re-election in a contest without observers, excluding the only believable opposition from the competition, only allowing those parties to take part that have his permission, with total control of the electoral structures, bringing his wife as successor to office, and with the results already known".

Two months earlier, at the end of July, 28 parliamentary members – 16 full members and 12 alternates – from the Partido Liberal Independiente (PLI) lost their seats in Parliament through a decision of the Supreme Electoral Council. The opposition and the major international press then denounced "the end of democracy" and the "coup d'état against the legislative power".  According to Sandinista spokespersons, the decision of the Electoral Power was the result of a crisis with an internal division of this opposition party. The Supreme Court of Justice interpreted that these seats pertained to the party for which they were elected. The sector of the PLI recognized as "official", led by Pedro Reyes, was then able to name their own members to replace those displaced.

The October issue of Envío also underlines what they consider a serious warning from the United States against the Government of Nicaragua.  On September 21, 435 Democratic and Republican legislators of the U.S. House of Representatives approved the Nicaragua Investment Conditionality Act, known as NICA, that conditions loans of financial institutions to holding free elections. This has still not been approved by the US Senate but is a real threat hanging over Managua.

Broad alliances, infrastructure, growth and social programmmes

Far from being surprised by the position of US congressmen, "who express the attempt to recuperate hegemony in Central America, what impacted me positively was the critical response of the great majority of national sectors, whether political, religious or business, in the face of this US attitude", explained sociologist Orlando Núñez Soto, director of CIPRES (Centre for Promotion and Research of Rural and Social Development), based in Managua and analyst for the magazine Correo.

An essential pragmatic axis of Sandinismo in this new stage of government is "the internal policy of alliances with everyone, conscious of the fact that the FSLN grassroots represent 35% of the electorate". Alliances with various political sectors, with social movements -- that have considerable strength in the Central American country --; with Evangelical and Roman Catholic Churches. "Perhaps the most outstanding one is with the private sector, that is to say with the principal business chambers of the country, including foreign capital...", Núñez emphasized.

The argument and the need for an agreement of this kind?  "The obvious lack of capital that affects small and medium business sectors as well as the Government itself to manage the budget", he replied.

A peasant woman who has benefitted from the Production Grant in Matagalpa.  Photo: Sergio Ferrari.

Taking stock retrospectively of the period following the return of the FSLN to Government, Núñez underlines the productive and social progess. "The Sandinista Government in 2007 inherited the second poorest country of Latin America, after 17 years of neoliberal governments". In the past decade, thanks to cooperation from Cuba, Venezuela and international bodies, as well as with public policies, Sandinismo was able to increase the GDP by 40%, maintaining an average growth rate of 4.5% annually, more than double that registered in all of Latin America -- with the exception of Panama". And that has a particularity, he adds: 45% of the GDP is produced by the popular economy. Nicaragua, he insisted, has already achieved food sovereignty given its diversified food production, including an excess production of meat and milk destined for exportation.

These macro data are translated into daily life: "advances in highways and electrification which are highly valued by the people. Education and healthcare are public and free. High impact social pacts, such as Zero Hunger, Zero Usury, Productive Grants, etc. And the high degree of citizen security that marks the difference with respect to countries such as Honduras, El Salvador or Guatemala, in a region that is among the most violent in the world", he underlined.

Could Sandinismo, in the elections and in an eventual continuity of their administration, escape the neoliberal counter-offensive that is gathering strength in Latin America? we asked as a final summing-up. Without doubt, this is a Nicaraguan exception -- and a singular revolution -- he answered. And he ratified the elements that differentiate Sandinismo from other Latin American processes on the decline. "The size of the alliances to dispute hegemony and public institutions, a divided opposition, our particular way of understanding and integrating the market, the macro advances in growth that translate into better living conditions for the whole population”, Núñez enumerated.

What are the failures or pending tasks? "Being able to better transmit the conquests, advances and peculiarities of Sandinismo on the international plane. And to clarify the question -- some call it "the secret" or the “formula" -- of the Nicaraguan case, where Sandinismo, instead of losing popularity continues to gain it, as distinct from what is happening in other Latin American countries" where there is a decline of popular projects, he concludes

(Translated for ALAI by Jordan Bishop)

- Sergio Ferrari, in collaboration with the solidarity cooperation NGO E-CHANGER and the Swiss daily Le Courrier.