Development: On 5 October Nicaragua’s Frente Nacional de los Trabajadores (FNT), a trade union confederation aligned with President Daniel Ortega’s Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional (FSLN), announced that public buses from Managua would no longer be used for Ortega’s campaigning efforts, ahead of the 6 November general election.
Significance: Ortega’s use of public transport to bus thousands of his supporters to rallies, has been widely criticised by the opposition. Even his usually reticent vice-president, Jaime Morales, recently spoke against the government’s use of state resources for electoral purposes.
Key points:
• For the past three Saturdays, the FSLN has been using Managua public buses to transport supporters to rallies across the country, prompting complaints in the capital that locals have been left without transport.
• Leonel Teller, the spokesperson for the opposition Partido Liberal Constitucionalista (PLC) of the disgraced former president (and current presidential candidate) Arnoldo Aléman (1997-2002), said this overrides the transport regulatory institute for Managua (IRTRAMMA).
• Other recent behaviour by the government, which the opposition and civil groups claims is electorally motivated, includes its speeded up distribution of land titles. Roberto Zúñiga, of the local Transparency International (TI) office, recently pointed out that between August 2007 and August 2011, the government handed over 78,000 property titles, equivalent to 53.4 titles a day. Yet over the electoral period (September 2011-January 2012), the government plans to hand over 58,000 titles, equivalent to 379 titles a day.
• The most recent poll by Cid-Gallup, published in the national daily ‘El Nuevo Diario’ on 30 September, showed little significant change, with Daniel Ortega on 45.8% of voting preferences, just above the 44% registered in the previous survey published in early September. This is well above the 35% plus five percentage point advantage necessary to win in the first round (and 40% for an outright victory). The poll, which interviewed 1,200 people, showed Fabio Gadea, of the alliance Unidad Nicaragüense por la Esperanza-Partido Liberal Independiente (UNE-PLI), in second place (33.5%) and Alemán third (10.1%).
• The poll did not include voting preferences for the legislative elections. Achieving a majority in the unicameral 92-seat national assembly is a major objective for Ortega, long been hampered by the fact that his FSLN only has 38 seats.
