by Andrés Medina:
“I don’t know what’s wrong with President Ortega, but he seems bent on starving his own people,” opined Nicaraguan merchant Francisco Bonilla. Second only to Haiti in Latin American poverty indexes, Nicaragua has been rocked by recent scandals surrounding the Ortega administration. After widespread government-led fraud in the 2008 municipal elections, the United States and European Union announced that they would terminate aid to the country. If President Daniel Ortega continues to pursue constitutional amendments allowing him to seek reelection in 2011, he will risk more than his government’s credibility: At stake will be a population already struggling to make ends meet.
Although Ortega claims to run a “government for the poor,” his actions undermine his slogans. Now that the U.S. and E.U. have cancelled their aid packages, his administration cannot fully fund its flagship Zero Hunger project, which was meant to reduce hunger among the country’s 1.7 million rural poor.
Topping Ortega’s agenda are constitutional amendments that would allow him to extend his rule beyond established limits. Nicaragua’s constitution allows a President to serve two nonconsecutive terms; Ortega’s current term is his second. Carlos Tunnermann, former Nicaraguan ambassador to the U.S. and executive member of the watchdog group Movement for Nicaragua, said: “The reforms come at the expense of the government’s little credibility. The administration’s discourse of ‘government for the poor’ is pure farce.”
Internal government opposition to the amendments is almost nonexistent – Ortega controls legislative, judicial, and electoral chambers – but civil opposition is widespread. Defying Orteguista gangs daily, Tunnermann proudly counts himself as a civil sector dissenter. He believes that demonstrations by the public could eventually thwart the amendments.
The prospective constitutional changes typify a larger trend of bargains that have tarnished the government’s credibility since 1999. Committed to a “disruptive form of government from below” since losing the presidential elections of 1990 and 1996, Ortega tried to change his luck in 1999 by entering into an infamous agreement with then-President Arnoldo Alemán. The deal, referred to locally as El Pacto, did away with any opposition to the duo. According to Carlos Arroyo, professor at Nicaragua’s la Universidad Americana and an expert in contemporary Nicaraguan politics, Alemán awarded Ortega pockets of power in state institutions in exchange for “an agreement to call off street protests of FSlN-led students and workers.”
As a result of the 1999 political alliance, Alemán and Ortega obtained the votes necessary to pass a series of constitutional amendments. Weary about his inability to muster more than 40 percent of the national vote in presidential elections, Ortega lowered the constitution’s electoral requirement for a first-round victory to 35 percent. Although this was not sufficient for a victory in 2001, Ortega managed to win the 2006 elections with 38 percent of the vote. The amendments to remove presidential term limits constitute the final step in Ortega’s effort of power consolidation. Dora Téllez, minister of health under Ortega’s revolutionary government in the 1980s and founder of the recently banned Movimiento Renovador Sandinista (MRS), describes the proposed reforms as “the ultimate blow in the liquidation of Nicaragua’s government credibility. ”
With complete control over state institutions, all Ortega needs to legally reform the constitution is for 56 of 91 assembly deputies to back his proposal. After struggling to gain more than 50 votes in the Assembly, however, the praetorian Supreme Court of Justice took matters in its own hands. On October 19, six of the Court’s 15 justices tried to pave the way for Ortega’s reelection by declaring the constitutional barrier for a third, consecutive term unconstitutional. The validity of such interpretation remains to be seen, as seven magistrates of the same Court refuse to recognize the decision.
Ultimately, the country’s poor will continue to bear the costs of a self-serving political leader. As Ortega himself deals the fatal blows to his government’s credibility, the suspension of aid will drag on, and the budgets for social welfare programs will continue to evaporate. The poor will bear the brunt of the burden, and the only consolidated institution that Nicaragua will be able to boast of will be an old, anachronistic tradition of rule by strongmen.
Andrés Medina is a senior Political Science major in Trumbull College.