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The Nicaraguan Constitution as Propaganda
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12944 |
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CURRENT ISSUES
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| Issue
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5 / 1987 |
2,423 Words |
| Author
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Howard J. Wiarda
Howard J. Wiarda is professor of political science at the
University of Massachusetts at Amherst, professor national
security studies at the National Defense University, and
visiting scholar at the Center for Strategic and International
Studies (CSIS). He was lead consultant to the National
Bipartisan (Kissinger) Commission on Central America and is
the author of Rift and Revolution: The Central American
Imbroglio and The Democratic Revolution in Latin America. |
The Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua is in trouble. It is more and more isolated internationally, the economy is a disaster, its social and political experiments haven't worked very well, and its friends and defenders have dwindled. In Washington, outside of the left wing of the Democratic Party (a fairly small group), no one supports the Sandinistas anymore. The consensus is well-nigh universal that Nicaragua has become a full-fledged Marxist-Leninist regime fully allied with and dependent on Cuba and the Soviet Union. Policy disagreements are no longer over the nature of the Sandinista regime but over what precisely to do about it.
The Sandinistas have, among other things, a public relations problem. They know they are losing support, both at home and abroad, and they need to rally their shrinking band of defenders. There are still quite a number of "true believers" in the Sandinista revolution - "political pilgrims," to use Paul Hollander's apt phrase - persons who can never admit they were wrong about the revolution and its democratic and benign character and who need a new reed, a new hope, to hang on to.
At the same time, the Sandinistas know there are others in the United States, Western Europe, and elsewhere who are so hostile to the Reagan administration and its policies that, while they will not support the Nicaraguan revolution, they can at least be kept neutral and maybe even hopeful about it.
For both the true believers and those they hope to keep neutral, the Sandinistas ran an "election" in 1984. This was not a genuine, free, open, and competitive election but a "demonstration election" aimed at impressing the outside world. It was what scholars call a "ratifactory election," a chance to vote "yes" on a regime already in power - rather than including any real choice. The Sandinistas sought to ratify themselves in power while providing just enough openness to the process to make it appear to the outside world that the election was democratic.
In this way, the Sandinista election was very much like the Somoza elections held in an earlier time. The government always won - that was foreordained - but the opposition was always assured one-third of the seats in the powerless congress. That is, of course, exactly the model and even the precise numerical formula that the Sandinistas followed. In this way, as local wages put it, the opposition could "have" its election and the government could "have its victory. The government never lost and could not possibly lose, but it wished to present the appearance of
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