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

The Organization of American States (OAS) has confirmed that it will be sending a mission to “observe/accompany” the 5 November municipal election in Nicaragua. Headed up by Wilfredo Penco, the deputy president of Uruguay’s electoral court, the mission will comprise 60 specialists. The announcement has been met with a mixed response however. Local opposition groups and US legislators (who are closely following the electoral process in Nicaragua), point out that Penco has acted as an observer to Nicaraguan elections on previous occasions (2008, 2011 and 2016) and has endorsed victories won by President Daniel Ortega’s Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional (FSLN) which have been slammed for lacking transparency.

That the OAS would send a mission to “accompany/observe” the election is in line with an agreement struck between the hemispheric body and the Ortega government earlier this year. The deal was aimed at addressing democracy-related fears which have gathered pace since the November 2016 general election (which gave Ortega a landslide victory, albeit in a highly questioned process and from which credible international observers were barred).

Speculation as to whether the OAS would make good on the deal mounted after an OAS delegation paid a visit to Managua in May to discuss a three-year plan with the FSLN government, but left prematurely, cancelling meetings scheduled with opposition political groups and civil-society organisations. At the time, local investigative newspaper Confidencial attributed the early departure to a disagreement with the Ortega administration over whom the OAS mission was permitted to meet.

The response to the announcement regarding the OAS mission has been mixed. Complaining that efforts instead should be directed at strengthening the country’s electoral system, the national coordinator for one of the main opposition groups, Frente Amplio por la Democracia (FAD), Violeta Granera, dismissed the OAS mission as “irrelevant” and a “protocol visit”. However, Mauricio Díaz, the Managua mayoral candidate for another opposition group, Ciudadanos por la Libertad (CxL), welcomed the OAS announcement (although it is worth pointing out that Díaz himself was forced to step in after CxL’s initial choice of candidate quit, citing transparency concerns [see box]).

This scepticism regarding the OAS mission has also come from afar. On 21 September US Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), along with US Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), issued a statement complaining about the “lack of transparency in the observation’s process and mission”. The statement flags up the “selection of Wilfredo Penco – a well-known rubber stamp for Daniel Ortega’s electoral manipulation” and warns that this, along with “the widespread, systemic corruption within the Nicaraguan Supreme Electoral Council, all point to a predetermined and favourable outcome for the Ortega regime”. The statement concludes that “by sending down this flawed observer mission rather than take any real and meaningful action, the OAS is legitimising this corrupt and illegitimate process”.

Less than two weeks later, on 3 October, the US House of Representatives then approved the Nicaraguan Investment Conditionality Act (NICA Act) of 2017 which prevents 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”. Authored by Ros-Lehtinen and Rep. Albio Sires (D-NJ), the act was passed unanimously in the House Foreign Affairs Committee on 27 July and passed the Western Hemisphere subcommittee on 24 May. It is the latest version of an initiative first introduced in 2016 in response to the transparency concerns surrounding the November 2016 general elections.

Changes to electoral law

Further exacerbating transparency related concerns ahead of the vote, the FSLN-controlled 92-member national assembly approved changes to the electoral law on 31 August which allow those not included on the electoral register to vote by presenting their identity card on election day. The move was considered part of efforts to reduce abstention (which, in the 2016 general elections, the electoral authorities [CSE] officially put at 31.8%, although CxL suggested it was more like 76.2%). However, figures like the former president of the national assembly’s legal affairs committee, José Pallais (Partido Liberal Constitucionalista, PLC), have signaled concerns that the amendments will make it more difficult to keep tabs on turnout and could allow people to vote twice.

Managua contest

Díaz agreed to run this month for the hotly contested Managua seat after CxL’s initial choice of candidate, Mauricio Mendieta, resigned on 8 September. Among the reasons for his decision, Mendieta cited the OAS’s “complacent silence…with regard to the dictatorship of Ortega” as well as the recent changes to the electoral law.

On 5 September the FSLN presented as its mayoral candidate for the capital Reyna Rueda Alvarado, the current secretary of Managua’s mayoral council.

In the 2012 elections, the FSLN’s Daysi Torres won the Managua mayoralty convincingly (with 83% of the vote). Her defeated opponent in 2012, Alfredo Gutiérrez of the Partido Liberal Independiente (PLI), announced plans in August to stand again, although this time for the PLC. The PLC emerged as the biggest opposition party following the November 2016 general election, with 14 national deputies to 71 for the FSLN and ahead of the PLI which has just two.

• Polls

The most recent poll by Cid-Gallup published in the local press on 21 September showed that 41% of respondents would vote for the Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional (FSLN) in the upcoming municipal elections, 3% for the Partido Liberal Constitucionalista (PLC), 2% for the Partido Liberal Independiente (PLI), while 53% said that they would not vote for anyone. The survey, which interviewed 1,200 households across national territory, showed that 31% of respondents had “much interest” in voting while 34% said they had “some interest”. Meanwhile 50% of respondents said that the participation of the Organisation of American States (OAS) in overseeing the electoral process is “very important” while 16% said it was “quite” important.