The Third Way Sandinistas?

["Ken Hanly" <khanly@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I wonder what Louis P. thinks of all this?

Cheers, Ken Hanly

Ortega prepares for his second coming

The former Sandinista leader has reinvented himself - and adopted the colour
pink - in his bid to lead Nicaragua

Sandra Jordan in Managua
Sunday November 4, 2001
The Observer

The 'Danielistas' were waiting for their leader in a cornfield in Nindiri in
their tens of thousands. It was the last chance for Daniel Ortega, the
veteran Sandinista leader, to address his supporters before Nicaraguans go
to the polls today to elect a new government.
The older members of the crowd wore bandannas and waved flags of black and
red - the 'death and blood' emblems from the war against the US-backed
Contras in the Eighties. Schoolgirls and babies, however, wore 'Daniel'
headscarves in the Sandinistas' new official colour - pink - reflecting the
new party mantra: 'Love is stronger than hate.'

Ortega was late, appearing - when he finally did - by helicopter. 'Long live
Daniel!' yelled vice presidential candidate Agustín Jarquin. The crowd
erupted: 'Viva!'

Surrounded by bodyguards, perched on a little pick-up truck and sporting a
pink shirt, Ortega parted the crowd, touching hands as he moved stagewards.

'I'm going to vote for Daniel because he's the nicest, I like him,' said
Ivania, a secondary school pupil. (In Nicaragua, anyone over 16 can vote.)
'Daniel Ortega is another person today,' said Carlos, 25, a farmer. 'He
thinks about the people. He's concentrating on creating work for the
campesinos [peasants].'

That evening, Ortega flew back to the capital for an evening reception at
the Rubén Dario theatre. Beneath the chandeliers in the elegant marble
auditorium, the 55-year-old 'Comandante', dressed in a dark, classic suit,
his moustache neatly trimmed, looked every inch the statesman. It was far
cry from 1988, when he attended a summit in combat fatigues and George Bush
Snr described him as the 'animal at a garden party'.

For 'new' Daniel Ortega read New Sandinistas. The revolutionaries who
nationalised the land and fought the American backed right-wing Contras are
selling themselves now as social democrats.

And most recent polls suggest that Ortega is within a whisker of becoming
president of the world's poorest Spanish-speaking country. They put him up
to seven points ahead of his Liberal Party rival, Enrique Bolanos.

Each side has accused the other of plotting electoral fraud, despite the
presence of international observers, and the allegations have led to fears
that violence could break out in Nicaragua's cities tonight.

In 1979, the Sandinista rebels, led by the young Ortega, orchestrated the
revolution that ousted the brutal Somoza dictatorship. Next, the Sandinistas
established a Marxist state, seizing and redistributing land and businesses.
This led to almost a decade of war between the Sandinistas and the Contras.
In 1990, Ortega, certain of winning, agreed to hold elections as part of
peace negotiations with the US. He lost to Violetta Chamorro. In 1996, the
Sandinistas were defeated again, this time by the current Liberal Party
administration headed by Adolfo Alemán. Ortega held on to his seat but -
tainted by scandal - he looked like yesterday's man.

He had further damaged his reputation by making use of his last months in
office to distribute confiscated land and property to his cronies and
formalise thousands of property transfers.

Then in 1998 further disgrace came when his step-daughter, Zoilamérica
Narváez , accused him of sexual abuse, which she claimed had begun when she
was 11. Ortega avoided the courts by hiding behind his congressional
immunity. Most Nicaraguans considered him finished.

But deep disillusionment with corruption and scandals in Alemán's government
could revive Ortega's career.

More than 70 per cent of Nicaraguans live in poverty and a 60 per cent
unemployment rate is forcing tens of thousands to emigrate to Costa Rica and
the United States. In the last year, a drought, combined with rock-bottom
coffee prices, has led to increased suffering.

Mario Urteobo, 40, a social scientist, sickened by government corruption,
plans to vote for Ortega. He said there were 400 government functionaries
who earned $120 million a year. 'They're a club, a mafia, a family. When
Alemán was Mayor of Managua, he had a Russian car, a Lada. He had to push it
to get it started. Now he's one of the richest millionaires in Latin
America.'

He added: 'The poor have got to reclaim the government. Daniel can change
poverty if he overthrows corruption.'

And if he doesn't? 'We'll die. Half the country will perish.'

Liberal supporters are sceptical. 'Look at Daniel Ortega and what he had in
1979 and what he has now,' said Julio González, a driver. 'Look at the home
he lives in that he didn't pay for. Daniel is a thief, but when he was in
power you couldn't say that or you would go to jail. You can call Alemán a
thief and you won't go to jail. We prefer that option.'

Ortega has tried to banish his past incarnation as a hardliner who
confiscated property, censored the press and imposed conscription. A brash,
populist campaign, orchestrated by his wife, Rosario Murillo, has tried to
rebrand the Sandinistas and show the softer side of the comandante.

The message is that Ortega has changed. He drives an American jeep, went to
the Fourth of July party at the US embassy and has recently got an American
Express card.

Campaign posters showing loving family portraits chez Ortega (minus
Zoilamerica) are covered with hippie flowers and the message: 'Love is
stronger than hate! We will govern with love! Work, Schools, Peace.'

Instead of a centralised economy, Ortega talks of small loans to turn
campesinos into entrepreneurs. He promises to create 950,000 new jobs.
Policy details are sketchy, and whoever wins today's elections will have to
depend on international assistance.

Indeed voters are not offered the Sandinista Party as such, but the
'Convergencia', or Alliance, an umbrella group incorporating breakaway
Sandinistas and former political foes, including Contras. All of the
signatories will be offered government jobs if Ortega wins.

Opponents see the New Sandinista makeover as a cynical bid for power,
calling the Convergencia the 'Con vergüenza' or 'With shame'.

'They [the Sandinistas] are using the Convergencia because they are ashamed
of their own name,' says 22-year-old Julio Ramírez, a student.

The Liberal campaign, denounced as 'dirty' by Ortega, has alluded to the
leaders of Cuba, Iraq and Libya, suggesting if they could vote in Nicaragua,
they'd vote for Ortega.

Washington, too, is dismissive of the new, 'changed' Ortega, believing that
the Sandinistas have retained links with Iraq and Libya that suggest they
cannot be counted on to support the international anti-terrorism coalition.
It has indicated that they may cut aid to Nicaragua if Ortega is elected.
Paradoxically, this may encourage more Nicaraguans to vote Sandinista.

But while he may not be able to convince his old foes in Washington, some
former enemies closer to home have been convinced.

'Ortega has changed,' says Comandanta Elía María Galeano, a former Contra
fighter and head of the Nicaraguan Resistance Party. 'In the war, we killed
Sandinistas. They killed us. We were enemies. But we've reconciled, we can't
live in the past. We're family now.'

One issue, however, will not go away, the allegations of sexual abuse of his
own step-daughter. Zoilamerica may have gone to ground during the campaign,
but the scandal surrounding her has come back to haunt Ortega.

On Thursday Ortega attended a pre-election mass. He sat in the front row
with all of Nicaragua's political elite. The sermon, by the influential
Cardinal Miguel Obando y Bravo, was about family unity and relations between
candidates and their families, asking 'if they have been exemplary within
their families'.

Ever the politician, afterwards, Ortega said of the mass, 'it was a great
act of togetherness'. Whether he can bring together Nicaragua in the same
way remains to be seen.