This Is No ‘Free And Fair Election’ In Nicaragua

Tammany Hall Sandinista-Style

Few events in recent Central American history have had a greater potential to serve as a watershed for the region’s future peace and security than does next week’s election in Nicaragua. A "free and fair election" would establish a regime in Managua that is committed to bringing genuine democracy, respecting human rights and demilitarizing the domestic economy as a crucial step toward its revitalization. It would also bring to power a government opposed to a policy of subversion and aggression toward Nicaragua’s neighbors.

The conduct of the Nicaraguan election could also be an important precedent for those now scheduled in Eastern Europe. For decades, communist governments in the Soviet bloc have made a mockery of democracy through electoral fraud. As Egon Krenz, the recently deposed leader of East Germany put it in memoirs published today, "All…elections [held in his country] since 1950 were rigged." What remains to be seen is whether the polling in Nicaragua will point the way toward a different future for all those who have suffered under communist oppression, or simply demonstrates new, more sophisticated techniques for propping up the oppressors.

Unfortunately, it now appears that the ruling Sandinista government — led by its presidential candidate, Daniel Ortega — has no intention of permitting a truly free and fair election in Nicaragua. Rather than lose power and accept an ignominious repudiation of the decade of misrule and aggression Sandinista policies have inflicted on Nicaragua, bankrupting the national treasury and jeopardizing peace throughout the region, the Ortega government has employed an array of techniques calculated to deny an honest chance for victory to the United Nicaraguan Opposition (UNO) led by Violeta Chamorro.

These techniques have been documented in a number of recent reports by the U.S. State Department, the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs and the National Republican Institute for International Affairs (NDIIA/NRIIA), the Puebla Institute and other organizations. They include:

Systematic Harassment of and Violence Against the Opposition

The Ortega government has mounted a sustained effort to intimidate the opposition. As they did in the course of their successful effort to steal the 1984 elections, the Sandinistas have systematically used heavily armed military and police units in ways calculated to frighten would-be voters at registration sites and at UNO demonstrations. Organized gangs of Sandinista thugs, reminiscent of Noriega’s "Dignity Battalions" in Panama and known as turbas, have set upon members of the opposition and their supporters with a view to disrupting rallies, inflicting injury to people and property and, in some cases, coercing candidates to withdraw their names from the UNO slate.

This campaign seems likely to have the desired effect of intimidating many voters. What is more, it almost certainly will scare off independent or opposition poll-watchers whose absence from polling stations will simplify stuffing of ballot boxes by the Sandinistas.

In addition, as the nation’s largest employer, the government has threatened its workers to prevent them from supporting the opposition, attending UNO campaign events or voting against the Sandinistas under pain of dismissal or other job actions. The same devices have been employed to swell pro-Sandinista rallies.

An "Unfairness Doctrine" for Media Coverage of the Campaign

The Nicaraguan government has also massively abused its advantages with respect to access to national media. Government-owned television and radio stations have systematically been used to provide disproportionate and relentlessly favorable coverage of Sandinista propaganda, frequently in the guise of "news." By contrast, the opposition is relegated to extremely limited amounts of broadcast advertizing and is forced to rely for dissemination of its message on stations whose transmissions cannot be received throughout the country.

Manipulation of the Electoral System

The Sandinistas have also exploited their control of the government to rig the election process to their own benefit. This effort to stack the deck against the opposition has involved:

• Conducting unverified voter registrations. The Sandinista-run Supreme Electoral Council maintains that 90 percent of the eligible voters have been registered. To date, there has been scarcely any opportunity for a rigorous review of the rolls. According to the Puebla Institute, as of 22 January, a mere 5,000 of the 1.7 million names on the list had been validated by the independent Institute for Electoral Training and Promotion (known by its Spanish acronym, IPCE).

 

• Footdragging on the dissemination of funds supplied to support democracy. IPCE’s inability to do more is a direct result of the Nicaraguan government’s calculated refusal to pass-through funds provided by the United States for support of that organization’s crucial activities. From 2 November 1989 until 11 January 1990, repeated attempts were made to secure the Sandinistas’ release of $1.5 million appropriated by Congress last year for this purpose, to no avail.

 

• Instead, endless bureaucratic preconditions and excuses were introduced in a transparent effort to compromise the fairness of the election process. As the directors of the NDIIA and NRIIA put it in a letter to the Nicaraguan Foreign Minister dated 16 January 1990: "We are seriously concerned that this pattern of delay is the result of a political decision taken by your government to inhibit action on programs designed to support the democratic process….This will seriously undermine Nicaraguan and international confidence in the electoral process."(1)

 

• Keeping financial support from the opposition. Similarly, the Nicaraguan government stalled on granting UNO access to $1.8 million contributed to it by the United States, funds absolutely essential to the opposition’s ability to mount any significant campaign. The effect of its delay was to impinge severely upon the opposition’s ability to obtain the materials, facilities and logistical support required to convey its message.

 

• Abusing government resources. By contrast, the FMLN has had apparently unbridled access to the resources of the Nicaraguan government. International observers have tried to put the best face on this scandalous abuse of incumbency by suggesting that the Sandinistas are simply leasing the equipment and facilities and that they will compensate the government for such use in due course. The Sandinistas seem to be taking an extremely cynical approach: As long as they win, there will be no need to worry about such technicalities.

The "International Observer" Scam

The Sandinistas have also brilliantly managed what otherwise might have been a serious inhibition to their efforts to steal the Nicaraguan election — namely the requirement imposed by the Central American peace plan for international observers to monitor the proceedings.

Despite the aforementioned indicators of Sandinista complicity in election fraud, the Nicaraguan government has evidently misled several observer groups (notably those organized by the United Nations, headed by Elliot Richardson, by the Organization of American States and by former President Jimmy Carter) with professions of commitment to "free and fair elections," by disavowing the activities of nominally independent actors like the turbas, and by eventually agreeing to correct some of the wrongdoings for which they are unmistakably responsible (for example, belated release of the funds supplied to the opposition by the United States).

If the fact that these observers have chosen to ignore abundant evidence of the Sandinistas’ efforts to steal the election were not enough to impeach their findings, the international monitors have shown an alarming readiness to overlook fatal procedural problems in their determination to legitimize this vote. For example, in averring that the present process will — if carried forward as now envisioned — provide for a honest, open election, they have dismissed the fact that less than one in ten — some 400 out of a total of 4300 — polling stations will be under their observation. If the Sandinistas’ intimidation campaign succeeds in dissuading opposition poll-watchers from showing up to cover sites unmonitored by the international observers, it will be a relatively simple task for the government to stuff sufficient ballot boxes to ensure victory. What is more, this all-too-likely scenario can be reliably expected to defy President Carter’s assertion that "There’s [no] way the Sandinistas can steal the election without it being apparent."(2)

To minimize further the risk that international observers might declare the election other than "free and fair," the Sandinistas have denied visas and/or hotel rooms to those they believe might be disposed to reach a different conclusion. As a result, an official U.S. congressional delegation and numerous private American groups willing to serve as independent monitoring entities will have no opportunity to validate the assessments of those whose judgment the Sandinistas prefer.

Will This Stolen Election Stay Stolen?

In short, it is clear that the Sandinistas have worked assiduously to ensure that the coming election legitimizes their rule. Despite the fact that, in important respects, the process the Ortega government has used to guarantee a Sandinista victory is actually a parody of a "free and fair election," the Richardson, Carter and OAS observer teams have clearly signalled that they are inclined to portray it as an honest one.

If they do so, the United States will be under infinitely greater pressure to agree that the Sandinistas have received a bona fide popular mandate. This in turn increases the likelihood that the Bush Administration will clear the way for the normalization of U.S.-Nicaraguan relations and an infusion of American capital into Managua’s bankrupt economy. Recent comments by unnamed Bush Administration officials strongly suggest that at least the State Department would actually welcome such an outcome, seeing it as an opportunity to relieve the U.S. government of the albatross of an unpopular policy toward Nicaragua inherited from the Reagan Administration.

One problem remains with this scenario from the Sandinistas’ point of view: The extraordinary lengths to which they have gone to steal the 25 February elections may yet prove insufficient to do the trick. The courage and tenacity of the Nicaraguan opposition and the bitter contempt of most of the population for Sandinista misrule — combined with the eleventh-hour release to the opposition of even modest funds — may enable UNO to overcome the various measures the Sandinistas have employed to retain power.

Should such an eventuality arise, however, it will be despite the fact that the deck was systematically stacked against the opposition; despite the feckless monitoring of the various Sandinista-approved observer groups; and despite the evident readiness of some in the Bush Administration to do business with the Sandinistas if only the Ortega government can survive an election — no matter how rigged. And yet, as Manuel Noriega discovered, sometimes even monstrously rigged elections can fail to have the desired results. Noriega reacted by force of arms; his friends in Managua may choose to do the same.

Sticky as that outcome might be, however, U.S. policy options for responding to it appear relatively straightforward compared to the more likely prospect — namely, that the Sandinistas succeed in stealing the election but are, nonetheless, declared innocent of wrongdoing by Messers. Carter, Richardson, et. al.

Recommendation

The Center for Security Policy believes that the Bush Administration must denounce Sandinista efforts to rig the election at once if it has any concern for the cause of freedom in Nicaragua or any desire to foster democracy in other countries trying to rid themselves of communist dictatorships. Before any more time elapses, President Bush must tell the American people, the United Nations and the Organization of American States what they will not otherwise hear — namely, the palpable differences between the current Nicaraguan elections and those that could by any reasonable definition be called genuinely "free and fair."

By so doing, the Bush Administration can establish a clear policy in support of truly free elections and a basis for choosing not to recognize the Sandinistas should they triumph in this stolen vote. The Administration can also improve the prospects for public support in the United States and overseas for its policy toward Nicaragua in the event UNO does manage to prevail despite the Sandinistas’ skullduggery. Finally, President Bush can establish in this manner that communist efforts to steal elections in Eastern Europe and elsewhere will not be tolerated — or rewarded.

1. Letter from J. Brian Atwood and Keith Schuette to Nicaraguan Foreign Minister Victor Hugo Tinoco, 16 January 1990.

2. "Carter Wins Nicaraguan Pledge to Free U.S. Funds Sent to Back Opposition Races," Atlanta Journal and Constitution, 29 January 1990, p. A-3.