Fabrizio Casari, Altrenotizie.org, 25 de mayo 2021
https://radiolaprimerisima.com/opinion/elecciones-las-reglas-del-juego-…
Photo: La Voz del Sandinismo
The recently approved electoral reform puts Nicaragua in the best possible position for its elections due to be held on November 7. From both a political as well as a strictly normative point of view, the law uses the same general criteria applied n all the great international democracies and, in fact, adds elements of modernity and progressive culture that should not be underestimated in any overall assessment.
The updating of the electoral law is not an indirect admission of previous inadequacies, but a demonstration of the most complete good faith to update the whole process by means of which Nicaraguans express their sovereign will.
The political basis of the reform, as established in the Constitution, is exclusively that of dialogue with the legally constituted parties. All of the nineteen parties participated in the debate on the criteria and direction to be taken. The proposals for change have focused on procedures to increase the transparency of voting as well as to clarify the rules and simplify the procedures for any appeals against the electoral outcomes.
It must be said that the changes enacted respond in their entirety to what the Sandinista government had planned with the OAS after the 2016 elections, when it was agreed to take measures to optimize the entire process. The Sandinista government has shown respect for the commitments entered into with the OAS, despite the fact that the institution is now severely compromised by the sectarian, coup-mongering management of Luis Almagro. However, even taking into account the legal and technical observations he proposed, the OAS can make no legitimate objection. So Almagro's attempt to impose on Nicaragua conditions different from those agreed, with the sole purpose of giving a lifeline to those with no electoral prospects, is untimely, sectarian, useless and, in many ways, pathetic.
The Reform
The democratic quality of the reform process is unquestionable. The election of the new magistrates comprising the CSE reflects the balance of parliamentary power to a proportionately, as occurs in all democratic countries when such supervisory bodies are appointed.
In essence, there are several points in which the Nicaraguan electoral procedures are updated. The first element to highlight, significant and paradigmatic in itself, is the absolute gender parity for all roles. This recognition of gender equality is unprecedented in international electoral doctrines and grants Nicaragua an optimal level of modernity and progressivism.
In this aspect, the political design of the reform is coherent with the legislative record of the various Sandinista governments that have succeeded each other since 2007, which have viewed the recognition of gender equality as an ideal and as a political value, and have realized it via the empowerment of women in the family economy, its most obvious manifestation in the socioeconomic project of the Sandinista government.
As everywhere else in the world, the Nicaraguan electoral reform is inevitably linked to rotuine legislation. In fact, as well as the general rules for carrying out the voting, the reform sets out the prerequisites for candidates to stand for election, both for parties and coalitions as well as for individuals.
The inviolable nation
As the basic principle of a reform that, while ensuring all rights, also rejects all interference, specifically defense of the nation against interference, rejection of violence and terror as a method of political struggle and protection of the national interest against political and diplomatic aggression. In essence, the reform ensures the defense of Nicaragua's identity and national sovereignty at all times, under any circumstances and against anyone.
One of the most important rules is the one prohibiting foreign financing of political organizations. It makes parties and individuals financed from abroad ineligible to stand for election. This is intended to clearly delimit the boundaries between individual freedom and publicly accountable functions and is consistent with international electoral doctrine, since in many countries of the world there are identical rules protecting the inviolability of countries against outside interference.
Among them are almost all the countries of Europe, which like to define themselves as the parents of liberal and republican models. In this as in the other side of the pond, the grandsons of Stuart Mill, Hobbes and Locke, even the disciples of Max Weber, march in lock step. That being so, no one, in good faith, can claim these electoral restrictions result from Sandinista ideological dogma, given that a qualified majority of the international community agrees, on exactly the same grounds, the need to protect each country's political framework from interference by others and, with no dissent at all, defends this principle with very harsh penalties for those who violate it.
In all countries, intervention to protect national sovereignty is considered appropriate and the financing by a foreign country of parties and associations that carry out political activities within their own country is considered intolerable, since that funding represents foreign intervention in internal processes. The recipient, in fact, automatically enters into a conspiracy with their funders thus triggering a conflict of interest against their own country. In short, it makes the internal politics of the country itself susceptible to foreign interests.
Nicaragua, precisely in the spirit of belonging to the international community and sharing its principles of law, legislates accordingly. After all, why should it legislate differently in this matter from France, Spain, the United States, Great Britain and Italy?
A recent example of how all countries protect themselves from such interference was proposed by the President of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who sent a diplomatic protest to the United States accusing them of financing, through USAID and organizations with other acronyms aimed at making people believe they are apolitical, Mexican organizations opposed to the government. After recalling that the Mexican Constitution prohibits receiving money from other governments to carry out political interventions, he described such conduct as "interventionism and efforts at coup d'état".
It could be argued that foreign funding is destined to NGOs, which do not participate in the electoral contest, but this would not be a serious argument. Any funding operation may be cautiously disguised with lexical wordplay, so in fact the names of the projects being funded and beneficiaries are of some importance. Especially in the case of Nicaragua, when the beneficiaries are paid as NGOs and disburse the funds as if they were political parties. This is not to be trifled with. We are talking about decency, we are talking about sovereignty.
Public commitment
The government, in order to support the participation of smaller parties in the electoral campaign, will provide all eligible parties with reimbursements of funds used, as supported by the documented expenses for the conduct of the electoral campaign, and with the percentage of votes they will reach.
On the other hand, the law prevents state entities and public companies from funding one or more political parties in any capacity, as well as Nicaraguan citizens residing abroad who are also prohibited from doing so. Instead, the law allows private citizens living in Nicaragua to fund political parties or coalitions within the established limits. Donations and funds received will have to be strictly documented and reported: if concealed, the justice system may impose fines of up to three times the amount received.
There were protests from part of the opposition about the timetable set to comply with everything. The fact that the reform ran its course on schedule had both procedural and political significance. As has been very clear, time is neither the problem nor the solution. For many years now, the right wing has been trying to unite: it did so for the first and last time in 1990; from 1996 onwards, the separate parties preferred to plunder their share of the country in solitude.
The question, then, is not one of time, it is that opposition unity is impossible under the given conditions: the internal contradictions are irremediable, because they are personal and patrimonial, not political. They refer to a fierce struggle between aspiring leaders, which is nothing more than the battle to take over the country and plunder it. But the truth is that both the moderate political forces, as well as the conservative and liberal Nicaraguan ones, which in any case do enjoy electoral support, responded within the deadlines established by law to the inscription of their respective parties in the electoral registry. A sign that time was neither the problem nor the solution.
Who is watching whom?
Due to the changes agreed and made, which are the backbone of the reform, third party electoral observation will not be necessary for the validation of the process, which instead will be accompanied by international experts separate from agencies prejudiced against the government. The OAS, as well as the U.S. and European institutions that have demonstrated preconceived political hostility towards Nicaragua with intentions of illegitimate, illegal harassment and sanctions, do not have the technical and political neutrality required of an external agency to verify the vote correctly.
It does not matter what Washington thinks of the Nicaraguan elections. The United States cannot set itself up as a judge of the legitimacy of the vote, after the soap opera of the US presidential election and after one of the candidates, the outgoing president, denounced the fraud of the U.S. electoral system. To demand from others what you do not do yourself is ridiculous.
Even less can the OAS sit in judgment, after the direct participation of its mission of experts in the coup d'état was proved in Bolivia that defrauded the legitimate president Evo Morales and given the presence of Luis Almagro as its Secretary General, a position he holds directly on the orders of the U.S. government. Much less can the European Union, whose Parliament has issued unjustifiable condemnations and sanctions against Nicaragua on the dictation of the United States, and which itself offered political and financial support to the Nicaraguan coup d'état.
Under what kind of neutrality would these subjects present themselves to examine the voting operations in Nicaragua? It is easy to believe that, having lost in the coup attempt, they would try to ruin the electoral result by inventing frauds and irregularities in order to weaken the international prestige of the Sandinista government, necessary fodder for future international sanctions. Therefore, no U.S. or European organization and no OAS mission is going to seem eligible to act as election observers.
The stunned
The electoral reform is also the ultimate tombstone for the ambitions of the Catholic Church hierarchy, which has lost its role, its political weight, its influence and, above all, its faithful. The hateful homilies of some of the priests and bishops have demonstrated not only the hyper-politicized character of a visibly reactionary church with fascist traits but also come seasoned with alienation and anger towards the population they claim to represent.
Already during the recent climatic catastrophe, the absence of the church had illuminated its essential vindictiveness, and even during the health campaign against Covid-19 the prelates once they had tried initially exploiting it politically, then took refuge in silence.
The attempt to lead the opposition, giving it a body and tail by exploiting the religious identity of the Nicaraguan people, has failed and the litanies of Silvio Baez from Miami or the homilies of some other rancid reactionary dressed in a cassock are of little use. The ecclesiastical hierarchy is now on the margins of the country's political and social life and no longer represents either a point of reference or an important interlocutor for any political force, much less for the government.
The losers
The first and most important of the losers is the gringo government, which, as in the last three elections, has failed to unify the Nicaraguan opposition. It demonstrated, in fact, the impossibility of bringing together the entire Nicaraguan right wing, in all its shades, to create a single electoral cartel. Money, threats and courtship were not enough because bitter hatred cannot be seduced.
Equally defeated is the Sandinista Renewal Movement (MRS), the military wing of the coup, on the sidelines with no institutional representation and against the evident unwillingness of other political parties to share candidates, leadership and political protagonism. The MRS project, in fact, was to take over the symbols and legal representation of the right wing parties and to impose their candidates. For the last three years, in a cunning, hypocritical campaign, they sought to secure private benefits while hiding their total lack of influence, proposing a refoundation from below of anti-Sandinismo: that is to say, proposing a street coup representing more effective opposition to the government than the traditional political forces historically opposed to Sandinismo. A miscalculation of militant losers.
Moreover, if internally their threats and pressure have had the reverse effect of hardening everyone against them, then bad news has also come from the United States. The end of the Trump Administration has deprived the MRS of its political allies, the reactionary, terrorist Miami dross led by Ted Cruz, supported in the presidential Cabinet by Elliot Abrams and Mike Pompeo, to whom the MRS had a direct line. With the departure of the Miami terrorist gang from the White House, the never stellar influence of the MRS in the Nicaraguan right wing galaxy has been reduced even more.
The defeat of the MRS, or whatever it now calls itself, is very hard politically, because it set out originally with hegemonic pretensions and now suffers definitive isolation in the opposition political framework. The worst thing for them is the difficulty how to get their hands on the loot, the money coming from the United States and the EU. It is about 40 million dollars and the MRS expected to pocket most of it. Another mission flunked, like all the others from the very start.
The arrogance of the ex-Sandinistas with oligarchic surnames confirms the political poverty of betrayal. Hatred is never a sufficient political line in itself. Changing from independence promoting nationalists to mercenaries promoting annexation, from anti-imperialist guerrillas to imperial vassals, and given such absence of principles beyond greed for power and money of their respective elite families with zero political integrity, the hegemonic pretensions of those ex-Sandinistas turn out to be little more than the whims of spoiled children.
Politics, however, is an adult thing made of principles that dictate dreams, of strategies that guide processes, of tactics that manage battles, of forecasts that signal political outcomes.
Meeting the challenges for transformation is what writes a country's history; cruelty and betrayal drop straight into the dustbin of resentment, home of all frustration and its discontents