Caribbean & Central America - May 2017 (ISSN 1741-4458)

Nicaragua’s supreme electoral court (CSE) has granted legal status to two new political parties, Ciudadanos por la Libertad (CxL) and Partido de Restauración Democrática (PRD), which will be able to compete in the 5 November municipal elections. Like all other state institutions, the CSE is under the thumb of President Daniel Ortega and his ruling Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional (FSLN). Some consider the move, which was announced on 3 May, as the Ortega government’s latest attempt to address long-running democracy-related concerns raised by members of the international community including the US. These concerns have intensified since the November 2016 general election, which produced a landslide (72.5%) victory and re-election for Ortega albeit in a highly-questioned process.

Set up as a political movement in September 2016 ahead of the November 2016 elections, CxL includes some members of the now defunct Coalición Nacional por la Democracia (CND) coalition of opposition parties, led by long-time Ortega opponent Eduardo Montealegre. The latter was controversially stripped of his leadership of the main opposition Partido Liberal Independiente (PLI) party by the supreme court (CSJ) in June last year, a move which also set off alarm bells among the international community about the state of democracy in the country [RC-16-07]. The CxL will be headed up by Kitty Monterrey, a Montealegre ally.

Meanwhile the PRD is led by Saturnino Cerrato, an evangelical pastor who ran as presidential candidate for the small opposition Alianza Liberal Nicaragüense (ALN) party in November 2016 and came in fourth with just 4.3% of the presidential vote.

The CSE’s announcement regarding the two parties came six days after US Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) reintroduced in the US Senate a version of the Nicaraguan Investment Conditionality Act (NICA) of 2017, a companion to the bipartisan measure introduced in the House of Representatives on 5 April [RC-17-04]. The NICA is the latest version of an initiative first debated last year which would prevent the Nicaraguan government from accessing international financing until reforms are implemented that “promote democracy, strengthen the rule of law, respect human rights…until Nicaragua holds free, fair, and transparent elections overseen by electoral observers”.

With local private sector organisations like the American-Nicaraguan Chamber of Commerce (Amcham) urging the FSLN administration to take measures to prevent the US government from approving NICA, the CSE’s decision follows other efforts by the FSLN government aimed at providing reassurances regarding the state of democracy. These include a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) inked on 28 February by the government and the Organization of American States (OAS) [RC-17-04], a key provision of which was that the OAS would “accompany” the November municipal elections. This was a seemingly significant outcome given that a chief complaint of the international community and local civil-society groups was President Ortega’s refusal to allow any credible international observers to oversee the vote. Whether this will actually take place however has, since been called into question. On 8 May, the CxL presented the CSE with its observations regarding the calendar for the November municipal elections which, among other things, complained of significant omissions – including that there is no mention of international or national observers.

• Approval

The most recent opinion survey published by pollster M&R Consultores on 24 April showed the Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional (FSLN) government with 73.9% approval.