Felipe Cochefunebre The Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) made substantial advances in the Nicaraguan municipal elections held on November 7. While abstentions went up from 38 per cent to 44 per cent, the FSLN's vote rose from 618,821 in the 2000 municipal to 737,500.
With 44.63 percent of the vote, the Sandinistas won 88 out of the 152 municipalities, and increased the number of department capitals it controls from 1l to 15 out of a total of 17. Sandinistas mayoral candidate Dionisio Marenco kept control of the capital Managua.
The biggest losers in the
were the main rightwing party, the Liberal Constitutional Party (PLC) and the new conservative Alliance for the Republic (APRE). With 35.46 per cent of the vote, the PLC won only 43 municipalities.
The FSLN has moved substantially to the right since losing power in the 1990 elections.
Today, at best the politics of the party are social democratic; much of the old FSLN cadre from the revolutionary period - those who survived the war - have left the FLN or politics altogether.
Despite this, the FSLN remains the main political alternative to the two rightwing parties.
And the possibility of its return to power in the 2006 elections is viewed with alarm in Washington.
US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld met President Bolaños five days after the Sandinista electoral victory to pressure the Nicaraguan president to destroy the country's remaining 1,367 Sam-7 surface-to-air missiles. The Nicaraguan Army had previously destroyed 666 SAM-7s in return for US military aid.
Bolaños has promised US benefactors that he would destroy all the missiles by the end of his term.
The motivation for destroying the Russian-made missiles, acquired during the Sandinista period, is of course the "threat' that the FLN will come back to power.
The SAM missiles are of course purely defensive, but potentially capable of shooting down overflying US planes, in the event of a future FLN government... or of course of being sold to another Latin American state or guerrilla movement.
second motive of Rumsfeld's visit was doubtless to express the US's concern at the split within the Nicaraguan right. Enrique Bolaños and his APRE party are a product of the coruption by, and imprisonment of, preVious president Arnaldo Aleman and the PLC. This gave the 'modern' neoliberal right their chance.
However Bolaños in turn has been hit by corruption FSLN The last thing the US wants is a divided right and a unified left allegations, and does not have
stable majority in the National Assembly. The Bush Administration also dis. patched Dan Fisk, Deputy to Assistant Secretary of State Roger Noriega, to Nicaragua.
The purpose of his visit was to attempt to stitch together an alliance of Constitutional Liberal Party (PLC) and other non-Sandinista forces.
The last thing the US wants is a divided right and a unified left as the politicians start jockeying for positions in the lead up to 2006 presidential and National Assembly elections.