Marifeli Perez-Stable

Published in The Miami Herald

April 28, 2005

Nicaraguan President Enrique Bolaños may be on his way out. In recent days, protests — by students, bus drivers and slum dwellers — have shaken Managua and may be spreading to other cities. The price of oil has forced increases in the cost of urban transport and basic goods. An annual income of $750 per capita keeps up to 75 percent of Nicaraguans mired in poverty.

Downtrodden citizens are not, however, driving the mounting crisis. Politics is. On Monday, nearly two-thirds of all mayors urged the president to resign. Last year, the Sandinistas and the Liberals modified the constitution to restrict Bolaños’ powers and enhance the legislature’s.

Former presidents Daniel Ortega (Sandinista) and Arnoldo Alemán (Liberal) used to be entrenched antagonists. Still, the two caudillos forged a pact in 2000 to rein in all major institutions, the judiciary, the comptroller’s office and the electoral councils among them. Since challenging their actions in a national court would have been futile, the president took his case to the Central American Court of Justice. Three weeks ago it issued a ruling in his favor, and the stage was set for an executive-legislative showdown.

Sandinistas ahead

Initially, the Sandinistas were junior partners in el pacto. After Alemán was arrested in December 2002 for embezzling $100 million in public monies, Ortega’s relentless power grabs thrust the Sandinistas to the forefront. Last November, Sandinista candidates swept municipal elections nationwide. A March 2005 poll has the party besting the Liberals by eight points. Ortega seems well placed to regain the presidency in the November 2006 elections.

Though down, Alemán is not out as he maneuvers to do a better job of finding his man to top the Liberal ticket in 2006 than he did in 2001. Bolaños — his vice president (1997-2002), who now counts only on a rump amalgam of Liberals and has miserably failed to rally public opinion — turned around and launched an anticorruption campaign that confined Alemán to house arrest. Next year’s contest may well reinforce the mafiosi collusion between Ortega and Alemán at the expense of democracy and the Nicaraguan people.

But, perhaps not. Two mavericks — former mayor of Managua, Sandinista Herty Lewites; and Bolaños’ chief of staff, Liberal Eduardo Montealegre — may yet break the vicious syndrome. Sandinistas overwhelmingly prefer Lewites over Ortega; Montealegre is similarly the runaway choice among Liberals. Earlier this year, Ortega had Lewites expelled from the party. Alemán has always looked askance at Montealegre who, nonetheless, has eschewed an independent candidacy in the past for fear of splitting the anti-Sandinista vote. Lewites and Montealegre are Nicaragua’s two most popular politicians.

Lewites is, perhaps, the most interesting story. Though banished, he still claims the Sandinista mantle and is garnering the support of legendary grandees, including four former members of the party’s national directorate. More important, Lewites has been traveling the country with his reform message and commanding crowds. Until the recent protests, Ortega was on the defensive where he had reigned supreme — on the streets. Though he lost the 1990 presidential election, Ortega has since wielded extraordinary power from below, first, against Violeta Chamorro, then Alemán before their notorious pact and, finally, the hapless Bolaños. The most recent round could be a ploy to reassert the Sandinista-Liberal stranglehold.

Moved by ideas

The United States still sees Nicaragua through a Cold War veil. Not all Sandinistas are alike: Lewites and those like him may be the best conduits for breaking caudillo politics. Unlike the Liberals who are more about clientelism, reformist Sandinistas are also moved by ideas. Their lodestars are Lula’s Brazil and Lagos’ Chile while Ortega’s are Castro and Chávez. Is Washington ready to think and act outside the box?

Ultimately, the Nicaraguan people are the key. While strongly supportive of democracy, they evince a lower-than-usual sense of political efficacy. Sixty-nine percent view their country as worse off than it was in their childhood. Should modernizers such as Lewites and Montealegre connect with them in ways that Bolaños has never found, there might be hope. If not, Ortega and Alemán — the Somozas’ true heirs — will continue to deal, push and shove Nicaragua further into the ground.