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Nueva Nicaragua?
| Article
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16943 |
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CURRENT ISSUES
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| Issue
Date : |
4 / 1990 |
1,824 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. |
While there have been many heartening openings toward freedom in Marxist-Leninist regimes this past year, surely one of the most stunning occurred in Nicaragua on February 25. On the day, Nicaraguan voters went to the polls in massive, unprecedented numbers; repudiated and ousted Daniel Ortega and the Sandinista government; and elected opposition leader Violeta Chamorro as president.
The opposition victory came as a surprise to nearly everyone. Most of the pre-election polls had predicted that the Sandinistas would win. After all, the Sandinistas controlled the jobs, the patronage, the television, the economy, as well as immense coercive power. Between the Sandinista party, the military and the militias, the public bureaucracy, and the Sandinista-controlled popular associations (for women, students, peasants, nearly everyone), the regime commanded at least one-third of the voters. So how could the Sandinistas lose?
Few thought the Sandinistas would blatantly rig the election or the ballot counting. Too many international observers would be on had for that. Instead, it was assumed that the "fix" (jobs, promises to the faithful, intimidation where necessary) would be on long before the observers got on the scene. Nor did the Sandinistas ever conceive that their own people would repudiate them. The Sandinistas did not hold this election to lose. But lose they did, on a massive scale.
Under Sandinista rule, the Nicaraguan economy went into a tailspin. Per capita income dropped steadily during the 1980's, until Nicaragua achieved the dubious distinction of nearly matching Haiti as the poorest, most miserable country in the Western Hemisphere. As the economy ran downhill, the regime's vaunted social programs in health, education, and agrarian reform also had to be curtailed. Misery spread - and so did disenchantment with the Sandinistas.
The causes of the regime's economic shortcomings have been variously described, depending on one's political point of view. The Sandinistas and their foreign supporters blame all the problems on the United States (for its imposition of economic sanctions) and the U.S. funded Contra war. The regime's foes blame it all on Sandinista incompetence and mismanagement. Actually, both sets of factors were critical. There is no doubt the sanctions and the Contra war hurt, and hurt badly. But incompetence on the part of Sandinista leaders who had never run an office before - let alone a government - was also a key element. The global recession of the early 1980s also hurt, as did
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