Nicaragua: Chaos As A
Strategy
By Alfredo G. Pierrat (*)
MANAGUA, (PL) - Political forces opposed to
the Sandinista government have not been able
to achieve so far the unity they want to the
2011 elections, but they seem to be working
in perfect coordination for making the
country chaotic and ungovernable.
Debates on who could be the single candidate
representing the opposition in the
forthcoming general elections to be held in
November next year, in an attempt to defeat
the incumbent Sandinista National Liberation
Front (FSLN, by its abbreviation in
Spanish), are daily topics on the mass
media, but without any result for the time
being, in spite of the unifying moves by the
church and other political forces.
Meanwhile, those parties a heterogeneous
bunch of organizations making up the
so-called civil society, work in harmony and
cahoots for bringing up chaos and
unruliness.
The National Assembly, for instance, where
no grouping represented there is holding a
majority, has been virtually in a standstill
for several months and from January until
today, deputies have just passed a bill and
a decree.
The phenomenon is not new, since
parliamentary boycott for hindering
governmental work has been a strategy used
by the opposition since shortly after the
Sandinista government was inaugurated in
January 2007.
Since late 2009, the opposition's aim has
been centered around the composition of the
Electoral Supreme Council (ESC), which has
been accused of organizing supposed frauds
paving the way for the FSLN's victory in the
general and municipal elections, held in
2006 and 2008 respectively.
But the ESC, Mostly consisting of the
magistrates themselves, had never been
questioned before, when it organized
electoral processes in which Sandinistas
were vanquished.
Nicaraguan opposition, which does not seem
to be willing to accept political
alternation, a principle inherent to the
democracy it claims to defend, makes use of
all the weapons, while in so doing
forgetting ethics over and over, for
obstructing the efforts of the government
headed by President Daniel Ortega.
However, not only the ESC is the sole
objective, but also all the Powers of the
State, including, moreover, the Supreme
Court of Justice (SCJ), the Republic's
General Controllership (RGC), the Bank
Superintendence and the Proctorship of Human
Rights, which the opposition regards to be
managed by the FSLN.
The members of those bodies, who practically
stem from all the parties, are chosen by the
Parliament for five-year periods and many of
them should have been ratified in their
posts or removed months ago, but nothing has
been done because no consensus has been
reached for adding the 56 necessary votes.
In face of this situation and for keeping
the State from paralyzing, President Ortega
issued last January a decree, whereby
magistrates whose periods for which they
were elected have come to an end will be
kept in their posts until the Assembly
ratifies them or remove them.
For enforcing that rule, Daniel Ortega
relied on article 201 of the Political
Constitution, providing the President of the
Republic with that faculty.
In their up-to-now fruitless attempts to
have that decree annulled by the Parliament,
that the opposition deem unconstitutional,
it has repeatedly boycotted the sessions
and, as a matter of fact, the Assembly has
hardly worked in the last two months.
Meanwhile, the number of magistrates whose
period for which they were elected has come
to an end is steadily increasing.
Those who remain in their posts, protected
by the presidential decree, are just
considered breachers of the law by the
opposition and prone to be taken to jury,
but they argue to be protected by the decree
and the Political Constitution itself.
The argument was transferred to the Supreme
Court of Justice in mid-April, as two
Sandinista magistrates' period expired, but
they decided to keep their posts until the
Assembly ratifies them or removes them.
The strife among the members of the various
parties within this important Power of the
State, even led to insults between two of
them, as part of a debate constantly fanned
by the two nationwide newspapers and other
radio and TV mass-media close to the
opposition.
On April 16, the SCJ's Constitutional Hall,
met with legal majority made up of four
Sandinista magistrates, two of them
alternate magistrates to the ones whose
period in the post had expired, issued a
verdict declaring that the presidential
decree was attached to the Constitution.
Likewise, it commands the National Assembly
to relinquish the proceeding of the draft
submitted by the opposition to repeal it.
The opposition seems to have been touched by
such decision, and former President Arnoldo
Alemán, who has self-proclaimed leader of
the opposition parties, reacted at once by
condemning Daniel Ortega's "dictatorial
behavior", and regarded it a "coup d'etat to
the Republic's institutionalization.
The Constitutionalist Liberal Party (CLP)
will propound "preventive actions contained
in the OAS's Democratic Charter so as to
avoid bloodshed or a civil war", in
Nicaragua, said Alemán in statements to a
Managuan radio station, in a dangerous
escalation of attacks against the Sandinista
government.
In this war of attrition, uncertainty is
evident, above all in Parliament, where
there are no signals indicating the
reenactment in brief of legislative work,
not only for ratifying or electing new
magistrates of the State's power, but, most
of all, for examining and eventually pass
several laws of social benefit still
pending.
A parliamentary commission is about to
finish the analysis of each candidate
proposed by all the parties involved and
make the judgements, on which they should
talk over while the plenary Assembly states
its points.
But for adopting any decision, opposition
deputies have to rely on the Sandinistas,
who, having 38 curules at the hall, do not
hold absolute majority, but the number of
its bench's members makes the need of pacts
essential.
But a pact with the FSLN in Parliament has a
political cost for any opposition party,
which may become fateful for its aspirations
in the 2011 elections, so that none of them
has sent a signal to make stride on that
road, at least in public.
Sooner or later, however, that will be the
road. Sandinistas have expressed their
willingness to negotiate. It just remains to
be known what opposition party will give the
first step.
(*) The author is Prensa Latina's
correspondent in Nicaragua. |
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