Headlines, Latin America & the Caribbean

POLITICS-NICARAGUA: The Second Ortega Era

José Adán Silva

MANAGUA, Jan 10 2007 (IPS) - Seventeen years after he lost through the ballot boxes the power he had gained by bullets in 1979, Daniel Ortega is returning to office Wednesday as president of Nicaragua, with the staunch support of reelected Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, but the blessing of the United States as well.

In the view of political analyst Aldo Díaz Lacayo, a former diplomat, the Ortega of today is very different from the Ortega of the past, and Nicaragua is very different now from the devastated country that he took over in the 1979 Sandinista revolution and left in even worse condition in 1990, when more than 50 percent of voters backed Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, the candidate of the unified opposition coalition.

Ortega, who won the Nov. 5 presidential elections with 38 percent of the vote, first came to power in 1979 as one of the leaders of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN), a guerrilla group that defeated the brutal Somoza dynasty, which governed the country for 43 years.

He then won the 1984 presidential elections as the FSLN candidate. The 1985-1990 Ortega administration was an ally of Cuba and the Soviet Union, and formed part of the bloc of countries opposed to the United States, whose government financed the “contra” fighters.

The civil war, in which the contras fought the Sandinistas, plunged the country into poverty. Today, 16 years after the armed conflict came to an end, 80 percent of the population lives on two dollars a day or less.

According to Díaz Lacayo, Ortega will not implement socialist policies along the lines of the ones he attempted to follow in the 1980s, but will seek pragmatic relations with countries that can serve Nicaragua’s interests.

Ortega’s biggest ally in his return to power has been President Chávez, who has signed economic cooperation and trade agreements with Ortega that even exceed oil-rich Venezuela’s support for Bolivia and Ecuador, Miguel Gómez, Venezuelan ambassador to Nicaragua, told IPS.

The accords, said the ambassador, will involve deliveries of 10 million barrels of oil a year to Nicaragua at preferential prices, the opening of a “social bank” for the construction of 200,000 low-cost housing units, financing for the installation of power plants, educational projects, support for the health system, and imports of Nicaraguan farm products by Venezuela.

Ortega has also announced the start of trade talks with Mexico, Bolivia and Ecuador, and with Brazil and other members of the Mercosur trade bloc, to explore possibilities of economic benefits for Nicaragua.

The new president has also visited neighbouring countries in Central America to promote integration in the region and strengthen trade ties.

He has received public statements of support from presidents Omar Torrijos of Panama, Antonio Saca of El Salvador, Óscar Arias of Costa Rica, Oscar Berger of Guatemala and Manuel Zelaya of Honduras.

Ortega has also stated that he will maintain and strengthen the free trade agreement with the United States and promote trade between Central America and the European Union.

A free trade deal between Nicaragua and Taiwan was recently approved by Congress, with the support of the Sandinista lawmakers.

Professor Carlos Tünnermann said that at least on the international front, the Ortega administration has shown signs of pragmatism by strengthening trade ties with Venezuela and other Latin American countries governed by the left, without losing sight of relations with the United States.

“The Ortega administration has in fact received Washington’s approval, which counts for a lot in international politics,” said the independent political analyst, referring to President George W. Bush’s phone call to Ortega this week to personally congratulate him and remind him of his commitment to democracy.

The FSLN’s secretary of international relations, Samuel Santos, summed up Ortega’s new foreign policy approach: “You have to work well with everyone, not better with some, and anyway reality will show which countries we’re better off with, but it is a totally commercial, business-based relationship.”

Local analysts and independent economists agree that the new administration should put a priority on poverty alleviation, since nearly 80 percent of the population lives on less than two dollars a day and 45 percent on one dollar a day.

The new vice president, Jaime Morales, told reporters this week that despite the social inequalities, economic conditions in Nicaragua are much more stable today than when Ortega was first elected in 1985.

In 1990, when Ortega stepped down, Nicaragua was in shambles, with a 12 billion dollar foreign debt, just 1.6 million dollars in foreign reserves, a nearly 14,000 percent inflation rate, and per capita gross domestic product of 250 dollars, more than three times lower than today’s 850 dollars.

“In macroeconomic terms and with regard to overall economic health, the situation in Nicaragua is quite positive,” said Morales.

He said the government of outgoing President Enrique Bolaños (2002-2007) made strides in terms of the big economic indicators: large reserves, significant growth of exports, balanced management of the budget, and reasonable control over inflation.

“But the basic problem lies in the fact that these economic improvements did not translate into tangible benefits for the poor and unemployed majority, which will be the new government’s mission,” said Morales.

“We plan to support private enterprise, stimulating national and foreign investment in a climate of absolute freedom; we want to give security to private property and business, and guarantee freedom of the press,” he added.

But while Ortega says “the mistakes of the past will not be repeated,” the FSLN seems to be following the same old controversial strategies.

This week, Deputy Mónica Baltodano of the dissident Sandinista Renewal Movement, complained that the Sandinista legislators in the new Congress renewed the political pact that Ortega reached in 2000 with former Nicaraguan president Arnoldo Alemán, the leader of the Constitutionalist Liberal Party (PLC), for the election of the congressional authorities, and to obtain majority control.

Although the FSLN won only 38 seats in Congress, by reviving the pact with the PLC, which holds 25, it would have a majority of 63 out of a total of 92 legislators, said Tünnermann.

Ortega reached power thanks to an earlier political accord with former president Alemán (1997-2002), which reformed Nicaragua’s election laws, lowering the proportion of votes needed for a first-round victory from 45 to 35 percent.

“We had already warned that Ortega would be pragmatic about financial aspects and diplomatic and commercial relations, but would maintain a tight fist with respect to internal policy against the opposition, as we are already seeing in the National Assembly,” said the analyst.

But many Nicaraguans apparently place their hopes in the new government. A survey published this week by the Diario La Prensa newspaper in Managua found that 67 percent of respondents believe the Ortega administration will bring prosperity to Nicaragua. Only 19 percent thought the contrary was true, while just under 14 percent declined to respond.

According to the poll, carried out in late December, 64.6 percent of those interviewed said the Sandinistas’ return to power after 16 years of free-market “neoliberal” policies brought them a sense of hope.