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Democracy Adrift:Caudillo Politics in Nicaragua
INTRODUCTION
On April 13, 2004, Nicaraguan president
Enrique Bolaños suddenly appeared in
public to alert his countrymen that he
was in danger of being overthrown. A person
not given to grandiose gestures, the president
warned the nation that he would only leave the
office to which he had been democratically elected
as a cadaver. Bolaños did not name those plot-
ting his ouster but he did not need to—any
reasonably informed Nicaraguan knew by in-
stinct that he was referring to Arnoldo Alemán
and Daniel Ortega, and apparently not with-
out cause.
According to an intense wave of rumor
sweeping the capital, Managua, the two caudillos
of Nicaraguan politics were seriously discussing
the possibility of effecting a constitutional coup
against the elected president. The discussions
came to naught, but not before sending shock
waves through the government, the donor com-
munity and the media. Ortega and Alemán would
have used charges of “electoral crimes” revolv-
ing around the presence of stolen money alleg-
edly found in Bolaños’s 2001 campaign coffers
as a pretext to impeach Nicaragua’s elected leader.
What would have come afterward is murkier but
may have included the calling of a constituent
assembly to make radical changes to the power
setup of the country.
Had this eventuality come to pass, Nicaragua
would have been the sixth Latin American coun-
try in recent years to have witnessed the exit of
an elected president from office before the ex-
piry of his term. However, Nicaragua would havebeen a very
different case from other recent over-throws. Whereas governments
in other placeshave been felled by mobs of enraged
citizens(Ecuador, Peru, Argentina, Bolivia) or at leastof
opportunistic former soldiers (Haiti), in Nica-ragua the force
propelling events would havebeen a political conspiracy by two
ex-presidentsof the country and mortal enemies of one an-other. An
additional curiosity of the momentwas that Alemán found himself in
prison andnegotiating with one hand tied behind his back.Even more
arcane were the fluctuating condi-tions of his confinement, which
derived fromOrtega’s ability to manipulate Nicaragua’s judi-cial
system at his whim.
The mini-crisis of early 2004 came at a dis-tinct moment in
Nicaragua’s recent political evo-lution. During the preceding six
months, as thetwo caudillos locked horns over the fate of
con-victed ex-president Alemán, the chronic dysfunc-tion in the
country’s political institutions grewacute. In the capital,
Managua, the National As-sembly, bogged down in political
wrangling, failedto pass more than a handful of ordinary
legisla-tive bills. The Supreme Court of Justice con-ducted its
annual election of officers in March,but only after a three-month
impasse in whichthe high court did not sit. Meanwhile, the
sup-posedly autonomous South Atlantic region con-tinued a two-year
stint without any consensuallyaccepted government while drug
traffickers ranrampant through its territory.
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2 Democracy Adrift
WHAT HAPPENEDTO THE TRANSITION?
If the events of the previous eight years had notbeen
sufficiently convincing, these episodes andthe trends behind them
rammed home an obvi-ous conclusion. Fourteen years after the end
ofthe Sandinista revolution and well after the “thirdwave” of world
political change has crested, theconsolidation of democratic
institutions in Nica-ragua is not occurring. Although it is now
fash-ionable to dismiss such naïve notions, in the early1990s
“consolidation” was the expected long-runoutcome of the wave of
transitions from au-thoritarian rule that had recently sprouted
inSouthern Europe, Eastern Europe, LatinAmerica and other parts of
the world. And inthe mid-1990s, Nicaragua briefly appeared to
bemaking progress in roughly the right direction.
By this date, however, it is increasingly recog-nized in
academic and policy circles that mostof the more than 100 countries
that embarkedon democratization starting in the 1980s are
notconsolidating their “transition” to democracy.1
Indeed, serious question has been raised aboutthe whole
analytical framework of “transitionstudies” and its adequacy as a
guide for policy toassist democratic development. In this
revision,many Latin American countries are coming tobe seen as what
Thomas Carouthers of theCarnegie Endowment calls cases of “feckless
plu-ralism,” a term which roughly denotes a stablestate of
unconsolidated democracy in which par-ties routinely alternate in
enjoying the spoils ofoffice without improving anything.2
Although feckless pluralism is one outcome,this report will
argue it has not been Nicaragua’soutcome. Its fate is more
disturbing, for it iscaught in a competition
betweenauthoritarianisms desirous of moving the coun-try back
toward rightwing or leftwing hegemony.Since 1990, these
authoritarianisms have beenpersonified by two individuals: Arnoldo
Alemánand Daniel Ortega, maximum leaders of the
country’s dominant political machines. In officefrom 1997-2002,
Arnoldo Alemán showed astrong tendency to regress to the
“dominantpower” system of traditional Liberal clientelism,and in
all probability still wants to do so eventhough he is now a
prisoner. While striving forpolitical and personal vindication, the
eternalleader of the opposition, Daniel Ortega, es-pouses
radical-democratic notions of politicsthat prefigure a drive to
reassert Sandinista he-gemony in an outwardly democratic
frameworkif he regains power.
Democracy, and president Enrique BolañosGeyer, seem hopelessly
and helplessly caught inthe middle of this gigantic tussle. At the
verybeginning of his administration, presidentBolaños outlined
ambitious goals for the reformof Nicaragua’s institutions and of
the archaicpolitical culture that underlies them. After nearlythree
years in office, he has been able to realizenone of those
objectives. His tangle has reachedthe point where, in the face of a
possible over-throw of the country’s democratically electedleader
in April 2004, Nicaraguan society barelyreacted—indeed, it did
little more than yawn.
If it is relatively easy to demonstrate thatdemocratic
development in Nicaragua is not oc-curring, it is difficult to pin
down exactly whynot. The traditional political science of
devel-oped countries harps on structural themes suchas high levels
of poverty and inequality, back-ward political cultures, and the
presence or ab-sence of specific historical sequences of politi-cal
and state development in “explaining” whysome countries make it to
developed democracywhile others do not. The United Nations
Devel-opment Program (UNDP) has recently publishedan analysis that
would supplant these genres ofexplanation with other structural
variables,namely the loss of state capacity vis-à-vis themarket and
the infringement of the effective sov-ereignty of the Latin
American countries by theforces of neoliberalism and
globalization.
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Introduction 3
Alone, none of these approaches has provedto be compelling,
leaving a cloud of explanatoryuncertainty. The only reasonably
certain thing tobe said is that absolutely all of the forces
hin-dering democratic consolidation apply to theNicaraguan case,
most of them powerfully. Inan apt summation, Argentine scholar
GuillermoO’Donnell, a leading political scientist for de-cades,
concludes that a series of countries in LatinAmerica that include
Nicaragua “function in waysthat current democratic theory has ill
preparedus to understand.”3
The consequences of this consolidation-not-occurring have
likewise long been blurred. While“feckless pluralist” politics as
conceived byCarouthers can go puttering on without endan-gering a
society’s viability, the destructive com-petition between
Nicaragua’s paired caudillosappears to be growing more dangerous.
Not onlyis it threatening to strangle such economic andsocial
progress as Nicaragua has been able tomake over the last decade,
but it may portend aserious threat to the nation’s safety and
integra-tion in the long term.
It is even more difficult to gain a grip on whatto do about it.
A multi-cornered entity knownas the “international donor community”
has beentrying to assist the development of Western-styledemocracy
in post-revolutionary Nicaragua fornearly 15 years. While such
assistance has donesome good, it is not clearly turning the tide.
Inthis respect, Nicaragua is not an exception toworld experience.
After reviewing tons of evi-dence, the World Bank’s governance unit
has re-cently cast serious doubt on whether most of
the work done to improve governance in devel-oping countries has
helped much.4
However, the question emerging at presentgoes beyond this frame
of inquiry. If democracyin Nicaragua is not consolidating, then
where infact is the country heading? On the path to apossible
answer to this query, one question thatneeds to be addressed is
“what is Nicaragua?”With a modicum of sociological scrutiny,
but-tressed by some historical reflection, Nicaraguaemerges as one
of the world’s most singular coun-tries, and also as one of the
more fragile.
This report thus begins by profilingNicaragua’s “national
problem.” After that, itoffers its readers a review of Nicaragua’s
politi-cal evolution since 1990 and briefly details theessentials
of its fledgling democratic system. Itgoes on to portray the
government in power,assessing its achievements and shortcomings,
andthen profiles the government’s opponents. In itslatter sections,
the document deals with the wayin which key institutions have
functioned in re-cent years and chronicles the
Bolañosadministration’s efforts to restart the democratictransition
in Nicaragua by reforming them, ana-lyzing why these efforts have
had little impact.
All this is a prelude to a final commentary onwhere Nicaragua
may be heading. Is the countryrambling eternally through an endless
transition,approaching a threshold over which democracywill begin
to consolidate anew, or heading to-ward crisis and possible state
failure? In this di-vided and highly unpredictable country, all
threeof these futures would seem to be potential out-comes. Could
there be others?
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NICARAGUA’S NATIONAL PROBLEM
The foregoing introduction suggests that
fourteen years after the collapse of the
Sandinista revolution, when the country
began to navigate the “third wave” of change in
world politics, Nicaragua has witnessed little
progress in the consolidation of its recently in-
stalled democracy. Although it may be less obvi-
ous, Nicaragua also faces problems as a country
that threaten in the medium term to produce
serious difficulties for internal public order. In
the longer run, these same problems could con-
ceivably put its territorial integrity and even its
cohesion as a nation at risk.
Despite a chronic lack of consensus and oc-
casional fits of ungovernability, Nicaragua is not
currently a country in imminent danger of col-
lapse or of sinking to the level of a “failed state.”
This however does not rule out that serious prob-
lems may loom on the horizon of a somewhat
more distant future. The dangers that cloud the
country’s coming years are derived from a set of
national dilemmas made up of four essential el-
ements.
A POLITICALLY FRACTURED SOCIETY
Nicaraguan society suffers from a political fracture, thepattern
of which is unique in the world. It began withthe 1979 revolution
and has yet to heal. This fracturehas led a large part of its
political class to display de-structive behavior that is rooted in
an anachronistic pat-tern of political struggle anchored in past
epochs of thenation’s history.
Following the overthrow of the Somoza dic-tatorship in 1979 and
the electoral defeat suf-fered by the Sandinista National
Liberation Front(FSLN) in 1990, Nicaraguan society has yet tocome
to a basic consensus regarding the country’s“constitution” in the
most elementary sense ofthe word. In a country in which three
antagonis-tic political projects compete with one another
to prevail, the basic political actors do not agreeon
fundamental values, on the appropriate fron-tiers between the state
and the market, or evenon who legitimately owns what. Pious
rhetoricaside, neither of the two main political partiesaccepts the
rules of modern liberal democracy,and both in essence would like to
turn the clockback to a glorious past long since relegated tothe
history books.
While it is true that after fourteen years theformer combatants
in a fratricidal war havelearned to coexist peacefully, the wounds
openedby the revolutionary experience have not yet suf-ficiently
healed. Society and the electorate con-tinue to be politically
divided, with anti-Sandinista forces regularly winning national
elec-tions by about fourteen points. The state mean-while remains
not only institutionally fragmentedbut also “invertebrate,” as the
forces of order—whether for better or worse is not clear—arestill
not under the real control of the executivebranch.
Intertwined with and supported by a politicalculture marked by
the historical continuity ofthe strongman phenomenon (caudillismo),
this lackof fundamental agreement allows for and indeedgenerates
highly anti-democratic conduct. Themost serious example of this
behavior in recentyears was the pact reached between the Liberaland
Sandinista caudillos in 2000, which has pro-pitiated the
clientelistic colonization of certaininstitutional spaces within
the state, distortingtheir functioning while the conflict between
thepact-makers not only goes on unresolved but isbecoming more
destructive.
In the context of a fragmented state, the po-litical struggle
between these two forces has hin-dered creation of the necessary
premises for theproper functioning of a market economy. It doesnot
allow for the consolidation of the most ba-
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Nicaragua’s National Problem 5
sic institutional practices—the rule of law, re-spect for
contracts and the impartiality of legaldecisions—that are essential
for the economy tofunction smoothly and propel vigorous growth.The
rivalry has also hampered correction of thefaulty design of the
political regime inheritedfrom the revolutionary period, which will
inevi-tably form the foundation for the desired demo-cratic order
of the future.
DEFICITS OF DEVELOPMENTAND SECURITY
There is a worrying gap between a slow rate of economicgrowth
and concomitant social development in Nicara-gua and the
accelerated pace of change in the interna-tional system (linked to
the diverse facets of globaliza-tion), as well as in nature and the
environment. Thisgap poses the prospect that it may be impossible
for thecountry to emerge from the “poverty trap” on time,
i.e.,before the negative forces of globalization, which
includetransnational organized crime, draw Nicaragua into avortex
of violence.
The United Nations does not classify Nicaraguaas a “least
developed country” (LDC). However,the country shares most of the
features used todefine this select group of nations.5 Its economy
isin large measure anchored to the export of rawmaterials to
markets that are not particularly dy-namic, although a certain
diversification has takenplace into non-traditional agricultural
products,export processing zones and tourism. Per capitaGDP,
recently re-estimated at US$750 per year,makes Nicaragua the
hemisphere’s second-poor-est country after Haiti.6 This view is
reinforcedby data on agricultural yields and average levelsof labor
productivity, which are possibly the low-est in Latin America.7
Taken as a whole, thesefigures define a vicious circle known as the
“pov-erty trap,” in which a country is structurally in-capable of
generating the public and private in-vestment resources necessary
to overcome itsproblems and therefore depends massively
uponinjections of foreign aid, capital and remittances.8
Between 1984 and 1993, as the result both ofan unviable model of
revolutionary change inits economic and social structures and a
bloodycivil war, Nicaragua saw its per capita nationalincome
decline for ten consecutive years, a recordequaled by few other
nations. Amidst this pros-tration a process of reverse change began
thatpropelled the country on a forced march downthe path to a
market economy. Together thesetwo processes—a socializing
revolution (1979-1990) and an abrupt return to capitalism
after1990— subjected Nicaragua to a rate of eco-nomic and social
change experienced by few othercountries in the world in the short
time span of25 years. A striking result of these vicissitudes
isthat today some 69% of the population viewstheir country as in
worse shape than it was whenthey were children.9
During the past nine years (1995-2003), Nica-ragua has returned
to a path of slow and medio-cre economic growth. The real GDP
growth ratehas been 4.2% annually; insufficient to more thandent
the chronic underemployment that afflictsnearly half the work
force.10 This sluggishnesscan be attributed in part to the
structural weak-ness of the private sector, which does not
investenough to promote faster growth, and to eco-nomic policies
that are poorly adapted to thelocal setting. At heart, however,
these weaknesseshave powerful roots in the lack of certain
basicinstitutional premises needed to propel a morevigorous
investment process. The revolutionundermined the already weak
legal, judicial andproperty regimes inherited from the Somoza
erawithout putting anything stable in their place.The efforts made
in recent years to create thisinstitutional web anew have fallen
short of theirgoals. Partly for this reason, the attraction of
for-eign capital has been insufficient to bridge thegap left by
weak national investment.
As the economy has grown, measurementssponsored by the World
Bank between 1993 and2001 demonstrate that the country has
moved
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6 Democracy Adrift
slowly, albeit not in a clearly sustainable fashion,to overcome
its very high levels of poverty. Thatthese encompass most of the
population identi-fies Nicaragua as a country in which poverty
isgeneralized and in which the absolute numberof poor people
continues to grow. According tothe latest standard of living survey
carried outby the Nicaraguan Statistics and Census Bureau(INEC),
relative poverty as defined in terms ofunsatisfied basic needs
dropped from 76.7% in1998 to 74.8% in 2001.11
These achievements are due in part to nationalefforts, but are
also attributable to the copiousremittances sent by Nicaraguans
living abroadand to generous flows of foreign aid, which
makepossible high rates of public spending on in-vestment.
According to some estimates, aid andremittances sum to $1,300m
yearly, equal to nearlya third of GDP. The downward tendency of
thepoverty index notwithstanding, certain key so-cial development
indicators display a dangerousstagnation. According to the World
Bank, illit-eracy and access to electricity have been
virtuallyunchanged since 1993, while sanitation and ac-cess to
drinking water have improved only mar-ginally.12 According to
numerous experts on thematter, the likelihood of Nicaragua
reachingmany of the Millennium Development Goals istherefore
questionable.13
The challenges lying in wait. In sum, the fig-ures cited above
indicate that even with very largevolumes of external resources to
which most of thecountries poorer than Nicaragua do not have
access, thecountry is not clearly emerging from the pov-erty trap
as defined by the United Nations Con-ference on Trade and
Development(UNCTAD).14 This reality posits the need toswiftly reach
much higher rates of economicgrowth and implement more effective
social poli-cies if employment and other deficits are to
beovercome.
At the same time, Nicaragua as a society facesgrowing challenges
and pressures emanating from
diverse quarters. A globalized system demandsits inclusion in
the international regime of freetrade, of which the recently
concluded US-Cen-tral America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA)is an
extension. Although they offer opportuni-ties, such agreements also
demand speedy adap-tations difficult to achieve in countries
whoseproductive structures are as obsolete and under-developed as
those in Nicaragua, particularly ifrapid change has to occur amidst
rules of thegame that fluctuate with the ups and downs ofdomestic
politics.
The globalized system of production and dis-tribution has
favored the development of cer-tain large nations of the former
“third world”,while creating new obstacles to the developmentof
countries, whose productive characteristicsresemble Nicaragua’s.
Over the past twenty years,these countries have seen the national
process-ing of their raw materials drop, accompanied bythe
concomitant loss of value added in theireconomies.15 Meanwhile, the
ways in which thesupply networks of world-scale traders operatemake
it more difficult for an economy such asNicaragua’s to gain access
to external markets athigher points on the value chain.16
As UNCTAD underscores, such situationsrequire new and stronger
responses than everbefore on the part of government and the
na-tional private sector. In particular, they requirethe
formulation of a long-term national devel-opment strategy that
propitiates high growthrates and serves as a reference frame for
socialand sectoral development efforts such as the poli-cies
normally included in poverty reduction(“PRSP”) packages.17 As will
be seen further on,the Bolaños administration has put forth a
strat-egy by which to do precisely that, without yetachieving
consensus in the society at large aboutthe validity of its
proposal.
Meanwhile, the forces of global disorder—international
trafficking in drugs, arms andpeople, and the money laundering
generated by
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Nicaragua’s National Problem 7
these activities—have penetrated Nicaragua’sborders and
institutions without a convincingstrategy having been put in place
to combat them.For over ten years, Nicaragua has served as atransit
route for a majority of the drugs arrivingin the United States from
South America.18 Theinternal consumption of cocaine and crack
isgrowing rapidly, alongside the social phenom-enon of youth gangs.
The resources available forfighting these scourges are extremely
scarce, andthe police force has but one officer per 700
in-habitants, half that of other countries in Cen-tral
America.19
THE ETHNIC–REGIONAL PROBLEM
The Nicaraguan state faces a pressing problem of anethnic and
regional nature. Its most worrisome expres-sion is the tendency
toward “failed government” on theAtlantic Coast, government
incapable of responding evenminimally to the demands of its
citizens for services andsecurity, and which may be in danger of
gradually devel-oping into a narco-government.
In 1987, the Nicaraguan government formallygranted autonomy to
large territories inhabitedby a significant population of
indigenous groupsand other ethnic minorities. In the Latin
Ameri-can area, Nicaragua may be the country in whichthe autonomous
territories encompass the larg-est percentage of the nation’s
physical space, butis simultaneously the country in which the
di-vorce between a theoretical grant of autonomyand the policies
necessary to put it into practiceis most severe.
The stagnation in the development of Coastautonomy is rooted in
material premises—anunviable regional economy and an acute
budget-ary dependence upon the central government inManagua.
Together these lead to a poverty trapeven harsher than on the
Pacific side of the coun-try. Lacking the necessary resources to
offer evenminimal services to the population, the
regionalgovernments (and the central government by as-sociation)
have fallen into discredit in the eyes
of the population, despite efforts made by for-eign cooperation
to strengthen them.
Over a period of seventeen years, autonomousregional governments
have not only failed to sinkfirm roots in society, but have become
a tangleof disparate interests which passively presidesover the
undermining of the Coast territoriesand indeed the entire country
by the forces oforganized crime. The national political parties—the
PLC and the FSLN—dominate regional poli-tics, subordinating or
marginalizing the Coast’sautochthonous parties to the dictates of
leadersin Managua. On more than one occasion, therivalries between
or within the two major par-ties have left one or the other of the
two au-tonomous regions (North or South) without afunctioning
regional council for years at a time.20
Much as is the case at the national level, acuteproblems of
corruption underlie these powerstruggles.
Although a law on the subject finally passedthe Assembly in
December 2002, the demarca-tion of indigenous landholdings on the
Coasthas yet to begin, and uncertainty regarding prop-erty rights
is even more pronounced than in theremainder of the country. When
added to thesilent invasion of mestizo colonists from thePacific
who move in and claim the physical con-trol of land and forests,
this impasse is nourish-ing the gradual development of separatist
senti-ment in the North Atlantic Autonomous Re-gion (RAAN).21
Most dramatic at the moment, however, isgovernment’s evident
incapacity at all levels—central, regional and local—to deal with
theemerging problem of drug trafficking. Whiledrugs make their way
to the most isolated com-munities, undermining the integrity of
local cul-ture, those who traffic in the substances havesubjected
the legal system to their designs andare in the process of
corrupting the police insti-tution as well.22 Tentacles emanating
from theseprocesses have already branched out to other
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8 Democracy Adrift
parts of the country, leading to an emerging cri-sis in citizen
safety.
THE DECLINE OF SOVEREIGNTY
Nicaragua has lost sovereignty, conceived as control overits own
fate, due in part to objective economic dependencyand a concomitant
political vulnerability, but also be-cause the country seems
incapable of forging the mini-mum political will necessary to solve
its problems.
When Violeta Barrios de Chamorro took overthe government on
April 25, 1990, after her clear-cut electoral victory two months
earlier, Nicara-gua was economically prostrate and on the vergeof
collapse as a state. At that point, a veritableflock of
international actors went quickly intomotion. Since that date, part
of a remote pastfor the majority of the population, this many-sided
entity has made enormous efforts, not al-ways coordinated and at
times ill-conceived, tohelp rebuild a country whose foundations
hadbeen severely fractured. Fourteen years later, at-tempts to
introduce a market economy and a lib-eral democracy cannot be
considered entirelysuccessful. Although this is not in itself a
seri-ous problem, it is worrisome that these effortsmay dissipate
over the medium term without thepieces of the country having
finally put back to-gether in one way or another.
In the meantime, Nicaragua, a country ex-tremely dependent upon
foreign aid, has becomethe prime example of a general Latin
Americantrend toward loss of sovereign decision-makingpower over
its own fate.23 In transit between asemi-centralized economy
(misleadingly called a“mixed economy”) under the Sandinistas to
arigorous market economy, the borders betweenthe state and the
market have been redrawn inwhat is perhaps the most abrupt and
radical man-ner in the entire region. Likewise, as the recentUNDP
Report on Democracy in Latin Americapoints out, the political
agenda of the fledglingdemocracy has been subtly restricted while
theimplementation of Enhanced Structural Adjust-
ment Facilities (ESAFs) and the Poverty Reduc-tion Strategy
Papers (PRSPs) is carried out.
In contradistinction to the analytical schemeput forth by the
UNDP, this report argues thatlamentable though it may be, this
situation isnot the key variable explaining Nicaragua’s na-tional
problem. Instead, Nicaragua’s dilemmasare firmly anchored in the
domestic politicalsphere and in specific problems, which will
betreated in the later sections of this report. It isin the
political sphere that an answer to a ques-tion that should be
urgent for Nicaraguans mustbe found: how can this sovereignty be
recovered?
In Nicaragua’s case such recovery faces a for-midable additional
barrier—the regional powerof the United States, expressed since the
end ofthe war in 1990 as the exercise of an episodictutelage over
the political development of thecountry that has sought, above all
else, to avoidthe return to power of the FSLN and itsstrongman
Daniel Ortega. This geopolitical be-havior is another element that
shapes Nicaragua’sproblems, and one that threatens to become
moreconflictive in the future but simultaneously lesseffective.
Portents. At this point in history, amidst abrupteconomic
changes and the sharp vicissitudes ofpolitics, the daily life of
the average Nicaraguanhas become fragile in the extreme. The
economicdata that most eloquently support this statementare
wages—the US$75 a month made by a pri-mary schoolteacher and the
US$100 earned by arecently graduated medical doctor working in
apublic hospital or the young woman who ex-pends her energy in the
exhausting work of amaquila garment factory. These figures are
farlower than in any of the neighbouring countriesand place
Nicaragua squarely in the world ofsevere underdevelopment.
Similarly troubling information, derived fromcreditworthy
sources, is available regarding thestate of the spirit this
fragility engenders. Ac-cording to the latest UNDP Human
Develop-
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Nicaragua’s National Problem 9
ment Report on Nicaragua (2002), almost twothirds of Nicaraguans
(64%) feel that the settingin which they live their lives is
basically unpre-dictable. Three-quarters (76%) mention that it
issheer luck, rather than their own efforts, thatdetermines success
or failure in life.24 In the opin-ion of analysts, these
perceptions hinder manypeople from adequately planning their
futuresor assuming a greater share of control over theirlives. Such
data also suggest a high level of per-sonal precariousness, typical
of countries inwhich the social fabric has been badly rent,
thatcasts doubt upon the officially accepted figureof 45.8% as the
most appropriate indicator ofthe percentage of people living in
poverty inNicaragua.25
This precariousness is also evident in the situ-ation of
Nicaragua’s young people, for whomthe need to create opportunities
is extremely ur-gent. According to the most recent World
Bankpoverty analysis, a full 25% of Nicaraguan youthbetween the
ages of 15 and 24 years living in urbanareas neither work nor
study.26 Taking into accountthat population growth continues at
approxi-mately 2.4% annually (which again places Nica-ragua close
to the LDC average), the countrywill clearly be harboring for a
long time to comea large “youth bulge,” whose despair will
onlyserve to increase the drug consumption and ju-venile
delinquency that have flourished of late.27
Indeed, unofficial information on the growth ofjuvenile and
organized crime suggest that in themedium and long term (five to
ten years), Nica-ragua may face serious problems of public or-der
if its rate of economic change and socialdevelopment fails to
accelerate.28
However, the most disturbing fact of all isthat according to a
survey held by the CentralAmerican University (UCA), 57% of
Nicaraguanssaid that they would have preferred to be born in a
coun-try other than Nicaragua.29 This pathetic figure re-veals a
dangerous weakening if not of a senseof national belonging, at
least of a sense of re-
sponsibility toward their country, a cultural de-terioration
that it may be supposed is derivedfrom the violent vicissitudes of
the past few de-cades of its history. It must be stressed that
thissurvey took place among Nicaraguans living inthe country, and
therefore does not include thehundreds of thousands of citizens who
haveemigrated to the United States, Costa Rica andelsewhere.
The chilling sum of these weaknesses has aprofound political
implication—the exercise offull democratic citizenship is a concept
foreignto most Nicaraguans. The aftermath of the vi-cissitudes just
mentioned is a society of “specta-tor citizens” who attentively but
impotentlywatch the course taken by ever more frightfulsocial and
political developments. Obviously, thisbehavior does not exempt
them from responsi-bility, as every few years a large majority
votes infavor of the two sterile political alternatives thatare
responsible for the way things now stand.
IN SUMMATION
The end of the Nicaraguan revolution cameshortly after the fall
of the Berlin wall and coin-cided in time—the year 1990—with the
upswingof the modern era of globalization. From thatmoment onward,
the country has tried to cometo grips with the challenges that the
globaliza-tion process poses. It does so, however, danger-ously
lacking a true national state capable ofmanaging both the
“neo-liberal” economic poli-cies and the modern liberal democracy
demandedby the international system. During these pastfourteen
years, a fatal lack of political consensushas hampered and
continues to hamper the ef-forts underway to create such a state,
to such anextreme that outbursts of behavior have occurredthat
verge on the depredation characteristic offailed states. The most
lasting results have beensickly economic progress, chronic social
crisis,and now the spectre of a wave of citizen insecu-rity, which
accompanies the drug-traffickers’
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10 Democracy Adrift
march across the national territory from the At-lantic.
In an effort to summarize the outcome ofthese different
processes, former vice-presidentVirgilio Godoy once coined a
mordant and lapi-dary phrase, stating that “Nicaragua is becom-ing
just a place.” His words incisively sum uphow fragile the unity of
a nation has becomethat has failed to organize and confront the
glo-balization that envelops it. Although this situa-
tion is not fundamentally different from that fac-ing many other
countries, what is different inNicaragua is the danger a returning
to a clash ofsystems in which a weak social fabric, rewovenafter
the disasters of the past, may again be rentasunder.
To understand how this might be possible re-quires a brief
review of recent history, whichwill help to understand how
Nicaragua hasreached its present political impasse.
The 25th anniversary of the Sandinista
Popular Revolution passed recently, of
fering a time to reflect on its legacy and
in particular its contribution to the development
of democracy. The FSLN’s claim to have fathered
this form of government by voluntarily relin-
quishing power after the 1990 election has al-
ways rung hollow. But the revolutionary experi-
ence did bequeath a better-educated populace
more conscious of its rights, a competent and
professional electoral body, and an adaptable con-
stitution whose philosophical underpinnings
were essentially liberal rather than socialist. Af-
ter February 25, 1990, when the Sandinistas un-
expectedly found they had been defeated by
Violeta Chamorro, these slender threads were
strong enough to help effect a peaceful turnover
of governmental power.30
Since then, however, Nicaragua’s unique po-
litical vicissitudes have confounded hopes that
the peaceful, electoral end of a socializing revo-
lution would initiate a long-term consolidation
of the multiple facets of democratic rule. Though
Nicaragua has since held two presidential elec-
tions, it is abundantly clear that much of the
remaining agenda of full democratization is now
at best stagnant and at worst in retreat.
A TOUR OF THE TRANSITION
At a superficial level, why democratic consoli-dation has made
relatively little progress in Nica-ragua is simply explained. As
successive electionshave shown, the basic divide in Nicaraguan
poli-tics is not that between democrats andauthoritarians. The
post-revolutionary era’s en-during cleavage has instead been
betweenSandinistas and anti-Sandinistas, forces that longago
congealed into competing authoritarianprojects led by caudillos who
wish to turn theclock of history backward, albeit to
differentepochs. In the middle, those sincerely pushingto
consolidate democratic institutions and forgea political culture
appropriate to supporting themhave been few and have so far proven
incapableof organizing popular support for their efforts.
Why this has occurred goes to the heart ofwhat makes Nicaragua
different from the rest ofthe world and gives the country the
capacity tosurprise others with the unexpected twists andturns of
its politics. As the histories of Mexicoand Bolivia in the 20th
century attest, social revo-lutions in Latin America have not
helped tospawn liberal democracies (except perhaps inextremely long
time frames). The 11-yearSandinista revolution (1979-1990) in
Nicaragua,a genuine social and economic convulsion which
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A Tour of the Transition 11
had to fight against a US-financed counterrevo-lutionary war, is
not an exception to the pattern.It was peculiar, however, in the
manner of itsconclusion, or rather its lack of a firm
conclu-sion.
A TRUNCATED REVOLUTION
The United States having proved unable to pushthem out of power
using a proxy militarily force,Daniel Ortega and a part of the
still youthfulSandinista leadership refused to believe that
theirrevolution was over and done with. For nearly15 years, Ortega
has quietly nurtured a beliefthat the revolution can come back the
same wayit went out, i.e., through an election. Viewed
com-paratively, this would seem a vain striving—inEastern Europe,
no former Communist presi-dent has made a comeback through the
ballotbox. But the FSLN’s ability to secure 40% of thevote in each
new election since 1990—withoutchanging its name, leader or
ideological funda-mentals—suggests that the Sandinistas might bean
exception to world rules. Seen in this light,Violeta Chamorro’s
rout of the FSLN may nothave been the decisive historical event
that somepeople thought.
In the early 1990s, Ortega nurtured his beliefin a possible
revolutionary resurgence in a defacto situation of dual power,
something thatalso distinguished the aftermath of socialism
inNicaragua from that in Eastern Europe.31 Notonly did the FSLN
briefly retain control overthe forces of order–-a revolutionary
army andpolice which have since become icons of theSandinista
legacy—but exercised blocking powerin the National Assembly
(legislature) and en-joyed major influence in the court system,
theunions and media. Amidst the battles of the earlypost-revolution
years, these power resources per-mitted Daniel Ortega to exert
pressure (even“govern,” he once insisted) from below and ne-gotiate
with the Chamorro government above,blunting the thrust of the
counterrevolution,
which inevitably waits in the wings of every revo-lution that
fails.
The new government succeeded in pushing areturn to a market
economy, beginning a “struc-tural adjustment” that has since seemed
to goon interminably. But using pressure in the streets,Ortega
forced it to compromise on the issue ofreturning confiscated
properties, which washandled through a series of “concertations”
as-sisted by high-level negotiations behind thescenes (arreglos
cupulares). De facto, these dealingsleft many properties in the
hands of Ortega’ssupporters in the party though they made
littleheadway in sorting out the legality of the titlesthey
possessed.
Such backroom bargaining, though undemo-cratic and sorely
lacking in transparency becameone of several keys to Nicaragua’s
fragile post-war stability. Another was US pressure on theChamorro
government to curb Sandinista partycontrol of the army and police;
by 1995, suchpressure had helped oust the chiefs of both
in-stitutions, eroding the situation of dual powerand stabilizing
Mrs. Chamorro’s position.32 Thishelped to provide a minimum of
order for capi-talism to function anew, but spelled tactical
de-feat for Ortega, depriving him of key power re-sources for which
he would later seek compen-sation in other arenas.
The democratically-elected government nev-ertheless spent its
first three years balanced onthe knife edge of failure, facing
opposition bothfrom the Sandinistas and from two forces un-happy
with Mrs. Chamorro’s compromising withOrtega—politicians of the
14-party United Nica-raguan Opposition (UNO) coalition that
hadbrought her to office, and rearmed peasants(“recontras”) of the
Nicaraguan Resistance. Anassist from rearmed Sandinistas
(called“recompas”) helped Mrs. Chamorro fight off thelatter’s
periodic rebellions.33 But in retrospect, itis clear that the
Chamorro government’s forcedtransactions sparked general popular
dissatisfac-
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12 Democracy Adrift
tion. Using unabashedly anti-Sandinista rheto-ric, Managua’s
Liberal mayor Arnoldo Alemánadroitly captured this sentiment and
turned it tohis advantage. By 1994, when the Liberal
Con-stitutionalist Party triumphed in Atlantic Coastregional
elections, Alemán was the rising star ofNicaraguan politics.
THE TRANSITION
Despite this inauspicious beginning, liberal de-mocracy managed
to make some progress underMrs. Chamorro’s maternal gaze, if not
alwayswith her blessing. The progress accelerated afterserial
crises in 1993, which included mutualkidnappings of FSLN and UNO
party leadersand brought the country to the brink of
seriousdisorder. The “democratic transition” then ar-rived to
resolve the country’s impasse. In late1993, the major legislative
camps (UNO andFSLN) each underwent a split, leading to theemergence
of a moderate cross-party majorityfavoring reform of the 1987
Sandinista consti-tution as the way of bringing political
peace.34
When their efforts finally bore fruit in constitu-tional changes
approved in 1995, the regimechange some observers thought they had
dis-cerned in 1990 finally took place.
The important changes included a rebalanc-ing of the powers of
state, which served to curbthe prerogatives of an overweening
presidency.The National Assembly not only gained therights to
approve tax legislation and internationaleconomic agreements, but
also to suggest andvote on choices for magistrates of the
SupremeCourt and other bodies of state, theoreticallybolstering
their independence. Complementingthis overhaul was a prohibition on
immediatere-election of the president and separation ofthe
municipal elections from national voting. Fi-nally, the army,
already separated de facto fromthe FSLN, was suitably nationalized,
becomingsimply the “Army of Nicaragua.”
The reformers’ final salvo was a set of changes,some of them
unfortunate, to the elections lawin January 1996.35 With this
reform, the scaf-folding of liberal democracy bequeathed by
therevolutionary constitution had been put on asounder footing. No
sooner did this occur, how-ever, than the coalition of wills
powering reformdispersed in the face of each player’s need toseek
relegitimation in the 1996 elections, and thetransition came to an
unnoticed close. Thechanges nevertheless furnished Nicaragua withan
increment of political stability and nourishedhopes, soon to prove
illusory, that the consoli-dation of democratic institutions would
ensueas a natural consequence.
Regress Sets In. Unfortunately for this scenario,Arnoldo Alemán
(with 51% of the vote) andDaniel Ortega (with 38%) dominated the
1996elections, crowding the reformers, who had splin-tered into a
myriad of small parties, off the po-litical stage. At six years
from an inconclusiverevolution, a majority of Nicaraguan voters
em-braced Alemán’s truculent ranting against thestill-powerful
Sandinistas, confirming that thecleavage that had expressed itself
in the 1990balloting was still very deep. Their decision leftthe
ongoing fate of democracy squarely in thehands of two people
without any fundamentalcommitment to that form of government.
Once installed in power, Arnoldo Alemán,already stained by
corruption accusations dur-ing his stint as mayor, allowed his
authoritarianinstincts free reign. A master at clientelistic
poli-tics, Alemán exercised iron control both of hisLiberal
Constitutionalist Party and of the na-tional government, brooking
no internal oppo-sition to his dictates in either arena.36 As
timewent by, his methods of governing ran up againstthe limits of
what could be considered tolerablein a democracy—Alemán threatened
the press,extracted tithes from public employees, andbrought
businessmen to heel with arbitrary tax
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A Tour of the Transition 13
audits.37 He also began the quest for personalenrichment and
economic empire that has ledhim to be catalogued as one of the ten
mostcorrupt world leaders of recent times.38
Midway into his five-year reign (1997-2002),Alemán’s behavior
had begun to call up uncom-fortable comparisons to the Somozas and
sparkquestions about where the “transition” was lead-ing. While
Alemán blithely ignored the multi-tude of corruption accusations
flung by Comp-troller General Agustín Jarquín, a docile courtsystem
declined to take action against him. Match-ing the Liberal
president’s caudillistic style washis striving for long-term
hegemony—he averredthat his PLC would rule for the next forty
years.What democracy would look like at the end ofthat reign no one
could quite imagine.
Alemán’s hair-raising aspiration posed a seri-ous problem above
all for Daniel Ortega. Fac-ing an aggressive adversary, Ortega
initially didwhat he had done to Violeta, challenging Alemánin
April 1997 to a duel in the form of a wide-spread rural protest
that was inconspicuouslyarmed. Though the military pledged its
loyalty,the Liberal president was unwilling to risk quell-ing the
revolt by force and capitulated. His ac-ceptance of defeat meant
abandoning the pre-tension to take back the Sandinistas’ illicitly
ac-quired properties and opened the door to newnegotiations that
left the status quo, includingthe legal limbo in which many
properties stood,intact.
TOWARD THE 2000 PACT
Along with this re-equilibration of forces,Alemán’s excesses
paved the way for the nextunexpected twist in Nicaragua’s tortuous
politi-cal course. As the leader eyed the eventual endof his
five-year term, he recognized a need toprovide himself impunity for
his misdeeds. Thislent him incentive to extend his clientelistic
ten-tacles into other branches of state, where plac-ing party
stalwarts in key positions could pro-
tect him from pesky accusations of wrongdoing.His need of
Ortega’s collaboration to do thisgave the Sandinista leader an
opportunity to for-tify his own base of power, which was then
indecline
A shared interest in impunity between themaximum leaders of
Nicaraguan politics becamethe driving force behind a momentous
eventknown as the Liberal-Sandinista pact (called sim-ply “el
pacto” by most Nicaraguans), which wassealed in January 2000
through a series of re-forms to the constitution and other laws.
Afterexpanding the Supreme Court of Justice (CSJ),the Supreme
Electoral Council (CSE) and theoffice of the Comptroller General of
the Re-public (CGR), the pacting caudillos proceededto divide up
the key positions in each arena ac-cording the their respective
political weights. Asthis report will later detail, this deal
created acorrupt “bipartisan” administration which domi-nated each
of these institutions and denaturedits role—from the very outset
the five newComptrollers proved their worth by covering forAlemán
cronies, and when that was not enoughthe politicized court system
let them off thehook.39
In addition to jointly colonizing institutions,the two leaders
decidedly to radically truncatethe framework for political
competition, creat-ing Law 331, the most restrictive election law
inLatin America. This law introduced draconianrequirements for
party registration and mainte-nance and politicized the operation
of the Su-preme Electoral Council at all levels. WhileAlemán bet
these arrangements would guaran-tee his supremacy indefinitely,
Ortega believedthe new rules would force fractious small par-ties
to fuse into a single bloc and split the anti-Sandinista vote,
helping the FSLN to triumphwith a minority 40% vote share.
By the end of Alemán’s term, democracy’shorizon appeared ever
more clouded. With cor-ruption rampant, foreign donors dismayed
by
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14 Democracy Adrift
the pact largely withdrew their assistance fromthe pacted
institutions, preferring to invest inthe development of municipal
government wherehopes for democratic progress could be keptalive.
Municipal elections in November 2000, thefirst to be held
independently, offered some en-couragement as the Conservative
Party emergedwith 13% of the vote, briefly breaking the
Lib-eral-Sandinista stranglehold over the electorate.
Who will Control the Pact? The pact met withoverwhelming public
disapproval and was quicklyjudged as a threat to democracy. At the
begin-ning, however, no one seems to have anticipatedhow
conflictive the pacters’ administration oftheir agreement would
become.
Early evidence that the pact was not an easydivision of spoils
between two mafiosos came inAugust 2000. In that month, Alemán
deliber-ately touched off a run against the Sandinista-controlled
Interbank, and in November Ortegareplied torpedoing the Banco
Nicaragüense, inwhich Alemán cronies held a large stake. Bothbanks
eventually failed, an outcome that left thecontending leaders
apparently unfazed.40 The2001 election became a second occasion for
con-flict when pact representatives—vested as mag-istrates of the
Supreme Electoral Council(CSE)—fought indecorously over control of
theapparatus and barely brought the voting to apeaceful conclusion
on November 4th.41 Theseepisodes suggested that the marriage of
conve-nience between the Liberal and Sandinista lead-ers might not
be lasting.
Instability notwithstanding, Alemán initiallyappeared to be
turning the pact to his advan-tage. Once his term had concluded,
having electeda handpicked successor and reinvented himselfas
president of the National Assembly, the Lib-eral caudillo was
riding high. By contrast,Ortega’s ambition to see a third force
divide theanti-Sandinista vote to his benefit had been bit-terly
frustrated. Then, in an irony of history,
Alemán’s miscalculation in the choice of EnriqueBolaños as his
successor gave the Sandinistaleader a chance to turn the
tables.
The anti-Sandinista majority in the electorateasserted itself
with undiminished vigor in No-vember 2001, when the Liberal party
candidatewon an easy 56-42% victory over Ortega. Oncein office,
however, a supposedly docile presidentBolaños showed unexpected
mettle and beganto pursue his benefactor on corruption chargesin
order to gain space with which to govern. Hislegal offensive
against Alemán gave Ortega anopportunity to wield his party’s
influence in thecourt system to gain leverage over both
hisarchrival and the new president. By September,2002, judge Juana
Méndez, one of the FSLN’sjudicial handmaidens, had levied
indictmentsagainst Alemán for fraud and money launder-ing, and
concocted a potential accusation againstBolaños for “election
crimes” related to the fi-nancing of his 2001 campaign.
As this report later describes, the succeedingtwo years have
witnessed Ortega relentlessly ex-pand his quotas of power in
Nicaragua’s dis-jointed institutions, bringing other figures
ofNicaraguan politics under his sway. The engi-neering of Alemán’s
deposition as National As-sembly head in September 2002 became the
start-ing point for a process of power accumulationthat quickly
encompassed the Supreme Court andthe Supreme Electoral Council,
eventually cre-ating working majorities in both arenas for theFSLN.
Success in these quests furthermore as-sisted Ortega in forging an
accommodation withthe Catholic Church, a once-bitter enemy whichthe
Sandinista leader is keen to neutralize beforethe next
election.
By mid-2004, Ortega’s power-mongering hadreversed the balance of
forces in a pact in whichthe FSLN was originally the junior
partner. Pow-erfully assisting this achievement has beenOrtega’s
manhandling of the judicial case againstAlemán, which since his
arrest in December 2002
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A Tour of the Transition 15
has seen the conditions of the former president’sconfinement wax
and wane to pressure or in-duce him to negotiate. Both in the
institutionalarenas affected by the pact and others like
theNational Assembly, Ortega’s complex maneuver-ing and Alemán’s
reactions to it have engenderedfurther instability. But they have
left theSandinista leader poised to make his most seri-ous bid
since 1990 to recover power.
IS THE TRANSITION DEAD?
As the discussion above argues, Nicaragua’sdemocratic transition
was brief—an interlude ofless than three years in which a temporary
coali-tion of political wills without strong roots insociety came
together to propel positive politi-cal change. Once that coalition
broke up, andthe dominant forces reasserted themselves in
le-gitimate elections, a regression set in whose ef-fects have
slowly become more pronounced andpernicious.
As is now patently obvious, Nicaragua’s po-litical institutions
do not function as democratictheory suggests they should, and at
times threaten
not to function at all. While a politicized judi-cial system
hands down rulings that are ever moreinexplicable, and a frustrated
president pondersemergency measures to reverse their effects,
thetwo caudillos dicker behind the scenes over thecontinuing
division of the spoils in a corruptedsystem and even over whether
they will let thepresident go on governing. While all this
occurs“above”, Nicaraguan society unfortunately lookson from below
largely as a passive spectator.
This does not mean that all is lost. Demo-cratic practices are
gradually taking root at thelocal level, exerting pressure on the
system above,and a weak civil society is slowly gatheringstrength.
But at the national level, a strange pat-tern of accommodation and
deadly wranglingbetween opposing strongmen has brought demo-cratic
consolidation to a halt. For it to start upagain, the impasses they
have created for them-selves and for the country will somehow have
tobe overcome. To begin to understand how thismight happen, some
essential points about howNicaragua’s political system functions in
the post-revolutionary era need to be taken into account.
Electoral democracy has now survived in
Nicaragua for fourteen years or for
twenty if one counts Daniel Ortega´s
election in 1984. In a hemisphere suffering a cri-
sis of representation in which political parties
are seen as largely discredited, Nicaragua more-
over sports a stable party system, although one
whose bipartisanship is artificial and often pain-
ful. Despite occasional harassment, freedom of
the press and media also prevails.
With these features entrenched, the popular
election of officeholders seems likely to continue
in some fashion. But a consolidated liberal de-
SYSTEM SNAPSHOT
mocracy requires that three other things developalongside
elections. The first is institutional limi-tation of the exercise
of power, operatingthrough the classic system of checks and
bal-ances as well as internal controls over the ac-tions of
officeholders. The second is subordina-tion of all actors’ behavior
to a set of universal-istic legal rules (the “rule of law”),
protectingthe rights of the citizenry from abuse. The thirdis
citizen participation in the making of policy,through either
individual petition or group pres-sure and lobbying. As this report
will detail, atleast certain checks and balances have begun to
-
16 Democracy Adrift
run amok, potentially hindering effective gov-ernment, while the
rule of law often appears tobe in chaos. Though it shows some
promise,popular participation in policy-making is as yetweakly
developed.
As in many third-wave countries, a bevy ofinternational
democracy promoters has triedmightily to fill in Nicaragua’s
institutional lacu-nae and help civil society learn to exert
pressureand lobby. Soon after 1990, in fact, the countrybecame a
major world site for “institutionalmodeling.” This process assumes
that once pre-existing institutions are rearranged to fit a
stan-dard mold, their ongoing operation will habitu-ate those
working within them to democraticnorms and practices, producing a
political cul-ture to support democracy in case one did notalready
exist.42
In effect, the “transition paradigm” assumedthat political
elites would learn democracy bypracticing it. This can only occur,
however, ifelites are interested in the apprenticeship. TheChamorro
administration contained some sin-cere democrats (notable the
president herself),but they were outweighed by
opportunisticjobseekers and confiscated property owners de-manding
redress of grievances. Daniel OrtegaSaavedra, leader of the FSLN,
has consistentlytold the world that he is not a liberal democratand
means what he says. For his part, ArnoldoAlemán aspires to lifelong
tropical satrapy, a wayof managing public affairs that has had
disas-trous consequences for democracy all over theworld.
In addition to the drives of the principal ac-tors, the actual
functioning of democracy inNicaragua reflects the underlying
political cul-ture and the extant institutional rules. A
briefexamination of these topics sheds light on howcaudillistic
politicians exert their power in Nica-raguan politics, but also
reveals certain counter-weights to their power as well as the
emergenceof promising countervailing tendencies.
POLITICAL CULTURE
Nicaraguan political culture on balance supportsbut accords
declining legitimacy to theclientelistic exercise of power by
elites, whosepolitical attitudes may differ significantly fromthose
of the mass of the population.
Political culture in Nicaragua was shaped firstby the typical
Latin American colonial experi-ence, whose innate patrimonialism
left behinddisrespect for the law and a penchant for treat-ing
public office like private property.43 An in-dependent history
marked by civil strife and pe-riodic foreign intervention
reinforced a tendencyto strongman rule (caudillismo), which found
ex-pression in long periods of Liberal dictatorship,first under
José Santos Zelaya (1893-1909) andthen the Somozas (1936-1979).44
An exceptionto this pattern was the Conservative
Republic(1858-1893), a period of stable oligarchic democ-racy that
stands out as an oasis of peace andconsiderable material
progress.45
Given this history, traditional readings of po-litical culture
tend to characterize Nicaraguanelites as authoritarian
(caudillistic) and person-alist-clientelist, with behavior strongly
rooted ina familistic matrix of values.46 Caudillistic rul-ers
exert iron control over their respective forces,rewarding the
unconditional loyalty of subalternleaders by allowing them to
breach the law totheir own benefit. Along with this basic
pattern,it is argued, goes scant respect in the dominantelites for
democratic norms, a zero-sum view ofpolitics and permissive
attitude toward the useof violence to achieve political ends. Such
po-litical proclivities in the elites help little to con-solidate
democracy and do a great deal to fo-ment corruption.
Analysts who have examined post-1990 pat-terns argue, however,
that mass political culturediffers from the elite pattern. The
ordinary citi-zen thus displays overall support for
democraticrules, shows a basic tolerance for the rights ofothers,
and disapproves of violence as a means
-
System Snapshot 17
to influence political outcomes.47 Nicaraguans’strong support of
democracy-in-the-abstractobviously reflects the experience of
having livedsequentially under two systems that contradictedthis
norm in different ways. Mass political cul-ture has also probably
ceased to be a culture inwhich clientelism and corruption are
generallyaccepted as norms, although in practice there isa great
deal of acquiescence to both. The gradualimpact of urbanization and
secularization, it isargued, helps explains this change away from
tra-ditional patterns.48
The latter findings, though encouraging, arequalified by
Nicaraguans’ low feelings of politi-cal efficacy. Ordinary people
strongly disapproveof the way in which most political
institutionsfunction but feel they can do little to correctthings.
Nicaraguans exhibit one of the highestrates of voter turnout in
Latin America, but theirnon-electoral participation in politics is
quite lowand limited mostly to local-level petitioning
andassemblies.49 Still sizable illiteracy, an extremelyhigh level
of interpersonal distrust, and a strongpost-revolutionary
disillusionment with politicsall contribute to this passivity.
People once fa-mous for their political combativity,
Nicaraguanstoday are inordinately difficult to mobilize forpurposes
of political protest.
INSTITUTIONAL FLAWS
In the absence of strong commitment to demo-cratic norms among
elites, the best-designed sys-tem of institutions cannot guarantee
the function-ing of democracy. In Nicaragua,
political-culturalproclivities interact with key institutional
arrange-ments to perpetuate the clientelistic exercise ofpower by
the dominant power-holders. Other ar-rangements, however, place
some bounds on arbi-trary power-wielding by the same actors,
assuring aminimum of stability. A third set inhibits, but doesnot
altogether prevent, the growth of popular par-ticipation at sites
where that participation is vital toconsolidating a democratic
political culture.
Poor Representation for the Voters. The mostserious
institutional failing of Nicaraguan de-mocracy is the use of a
restrictive variety of pro-portional representation in the election
of legis-lative deputies. In a system that has been in placesince
the days of Zelaya, Nicaraguans vote inthe departments where they
reside not for indi-vidual lawmakers but for closed lists of
deputieswho have been chosen by party leaders and notby the
populace.50 Such legislators are and feelbeholden to the party
caudillos rather than tothe voters, with whom they cultivate only
spo-radic ties. Although this setup produces exem-plary party
discipline in the Assembly, where thedeputies mostly do their
leaders’ bidding, it gen-erates only the most rudimentary sort of
ac-countability to the public.51 National politicalleaders also
choose most local mayoral candi-dates undemocratically, though a
countertrendto this practice has begun to make itself felt.
Law 331, the Electoral Law as reformed bythe pact, limited the
prospects for effective rep-resentation even further. The reform
imposeddraconian requirements for the registration ofpolitical
parties and candidates as well as the for-mation of alliances in
elections. Though someof its provisions were struck down in
Novem-ber 2002 by the Supreme Court, most are stillon the books,
impeding the creation of newgroupings and easing the way for the
Council todisband those that fail to win a 4% vote share ateach
election. In addition, the reform outlawedindependent, non-partisan
(“popular subscrip-tion”) candidacies for mayor, a device which
hadbriefly offered an alternative to big-party domi-nance of local
politics.
Clientelistic Colonizing of the Powers. The1995 constitutional
amendments divided poweramong the principal branches of government
inNicaragua in reasonably balanced fashion. Toensure adequate
equilibrium, the reforms grantedthe National Assembly the right to
propose thetop-level personnel of state bodies such the Su-
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18 Democracy Adrift
preme Electoral Council, the Supreme Court ofJustice, and the
Comptroller General, althoughthis power is shared with the
president and civilsociety is to be consulted. Those promoting
thereforms took advantage of the opening to placesupporters in
these institutions in 1995 and 1996,with a mixture of positive and
negative results.But when the Liberal-Sandinista pact material-ized
in 2000, the new constitutional rules per-mitted leaders of the PLC
and FSLN to placeparty stalwarts willing to do their bidding in
thesesame settings. In this way, the pact colonized andfurther
politicized the three institutions men-tioned above, later
affecting the Public Ministry(attorney general) and the Office of
the HumanRights Procurator (ombudsman) as well.
In addition to vitiating the institutions them-selves, the
operation of the pact has more re-cently begun to alter the
boundaries betweenthem in disturbing ways. One tendency is for
thelegislative branch to cannibalize the executive,transferring
parts of the central government tothe “pacted” sector. In June
2004, the PLC andFSLN thus announced they would fuseNicaragua’s
public utilities regulatory agenciesinto an omnibus superintendency
whose direc-tors would be named by the National Assemblyrather than
by the president.52 They were soonsignaling that they would strip
control of thesocial security administration from the execu-tive as
well. A second tendency has seen the ju-dicial branch invade the
sphere of the legisla-ture. In a move denounced by some as
“judicialdictatorship,” the Supreme Court ruled in May2004 that
parties may seek injunctions (amparos)against draft laws that are
in the process of for-mation in the Assembly. As the court
typicallytakes months or even years to process one amparo,this
invitation to obstruction could potentiallyparalyze the legislative
process.53
Independent Forces of Order. In contrast toother institutions,
Nicaragua’s military and po-lice forces, both products of the
revolutionary
era, have resisted co-optation by either of thetwo caudillos,
but control by the central govern-ment as well. Under Gen. Humberto
Ortega, theSandinista Army began to evolve away from partycontrol
even before the revolution’s end, and theprocess was complete by
the time Gen. JoaquínCuadra took over the reigns in 1995.54
WhenAlemán attempted to float his own candidate asCuadra’s
successor in 2000, the institution sharplyrebuffed his
interference.55 The legal underpin-ning for this independence, a
Military Codepassed in 1994, requires that civilian presidentsname
successive army commanders from a listof candidates proposed by a
52-member assem-blage of top-ranking officers known as the
Mili-tary Council.
In light of how Ortega and Alemán have ruledin the past, and
might rule again, many Nicara-guans regard the military’s
independence fromcivilian control as a necessary evil at the
currentstage in the country’s incipient democracy.56 Thelast two
army leaders have hewn closely to thissentiment, posing as
guarantors of the constitu-tion while steadfastly refusing to be
drawn intothe squabbles of the politicians. A drawback tothis state
of affairs is that the army largely runsthe country’s foreign
military policy on its own.Not only has this allegedly fomented
corruption,but also the civilian government has proven pow-erless
to intervene in cases such as a bogus armsdeal to Panama in 2002 in
which the militarywas under suspicion for participating in
illicittrafficking.57
The National Police enjoys less solid legalbacking for its de
facto autonomy, and Alemánsuccessfully placed current police chief
EdwinCordero in his post in 2001. Though more effec-tive than other
Central American police forcesin controlling ordinary crime, the
institution hasclung to a self-image as a non-repressive
revolu-tionary force as a way of resisting executive de-mands to
impose order over violent protests suchas the perennial “battle of
the 6%.”58 The
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System Snapshot 19
Bolaños government’s unwillingness to test thelimits of this
resistance has undermined its au-thority and has inhibited reforms
that are ur-gently needed to clamp down on what is believedto be
significant police complicity in drug traf-ficking.
Excessive Centralization. Nicaragua’s consti-tution and laws
provide autonomy both for themunicipalities and the regions of the
AtlanticCoast. In principle, these dispositions open spacefor
local-level participation in politics, a trendwhich foreign donors
have been keen to encour-age as a counterweight to the power of
thecaudillos. However, under the last four presiden-tial
administrations (including that of DanielOrtega from 1984-1990),
effective autonomy hasbeen held back by the unwillingness of the
cen-tral government to provide financially strappedsubnational
governments with needed resources.
Approved in 1987, an Autonomy Statute al-lows the Atlantic
Coast, which contains about12% of the country’s population, wide
discre-tion in the management of its own affairs. Butas the
governments in Managua have been si-lently hostile to this
autonomy, they have typi-cally used central budget support as a
lever toexert de facto control over the regional authori-ties while
dragging their feet on proposals todraft specifying regulations for
the Statute. Nu-merous gray areas in which the division of pow-ers
and responsibilities between the central andregional governments,
and between the latter andthe Coast municipalities, long remained
unclearhave seriously hindered the development ofCoast
institutions.59 Regulations for the Statutefinally passed the
National Assembly in July 2003,but only because the dominant
parties wished toembarrass the Bolaños government, which wasunable
to block them and which has since letthem lie.
Passed in 1988, a basic municipalities law (Law40) similarly
furnished the central governmentwith de facto powers to curb
municipal-level
spending. The 1995 amendments to the consti-tution removed these
shackles and mandated thedirect election of mayors, who had
previouslybeen selected by the municipal councils.60 But itwas only
in the late 1990s that local governmentsbegan to receive meager
dispensations from thenational budget. And it was only in 2003
thatthe Bolaños administration finally promoted alaw providing for
a staggered transfer of up to10% of the national budget to the
municipali-ties.
Despite this obstruction, regional and munici-pal government in
Nicaragua is undergoing anumber of positive changes. Intent on
forgingdecentralization, foreign cooperation has slowlyhelped to
strengthen subnational units by build-ing local planning and
management capacities,fomenting greater transparency, and
involvingcommunities in the identification of
investmentpriorities.61 These gains will likely intensify withthe
coming decentralization of budgetary re-sources and
responsibilities, coupled with effortsto spur greater citizen
participation. In addition,the holding of separate municipal
elections be-ginning in 2000 has set in motion a positive dy-namic
that promotes a certain degree of inde-pendence from national party
dictates on the partof local political actors, who must recruit
po-table candidates to run in elections without ben-efit of their
leaders´ coattails.62
SYSTEM PERFORMANCE IN NUMBERS
The foregoing suggests that Nicaraguan democ-racy suffers from
restrictive electoral rules, theclientelistic distortion of
institutional checks andbalances, insufficient control over the
forces oforder, and an excessive centralism that constrainsthe
development of popular participation. It isuseful to ask how the
performance of this sys-tem stacks up in comparison with other
coun-tries in Latin America and other world areas.
Among the international institutions, theWorld Bank has argued
most forcefully that “gov-
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20 Democracy Adrift
ernance matters” for theeconomic developmentof nations.63 The
Bankhas marshaled evidenceto suggest that positiveincrements on the
sixgovernance dimensionslisted in the table belowproduce massive
re-wards in terms of sus-tained economicprogress. To generate
itsdata, it has developed an elaborate method forsurveying
governance and applied it to 175 coun-tries, including
Nicaragua.
Nicaragua does not come out well in the com-parison. Measured
over the period 1996-2002,which spanned three presidential
administrations,its ratings on all dimensions except stability
fellwell below Latin American and Caribbean aver-ages, to say
nothing of developed country stan-dards. More worrisome, on key
variables such asgovernmental effectiveness, the rule of law
andcorruption control, it mimicked the values scoredby the
countries of Sub-Saharan Africa. It isnoteworthy that ratings for
the rule of law andcorruption control both fell significantly
duringthe Alemán years (1998 and 2000), then re-bounded under
Bolaños (2002). More signifi-cantly, even after this rebound
Nicaragua has along way to go in key areas to match the notvery
robust averages of a region, Latin America,whose deficits in
democratic performance incomparison with more developed world
areasare well known.
System Support as Measured in Surveys. Ifafter fourteen years
the democratic system func-tions this badly, how much support do
Nicara-guans accord it? The most recent Latinobarómetrosurvey found
opinions on this score to be virtu-ally schizophrenic.65 Asked in
mid-2004 to re-spond to the assertion “democracy may have
itsfaults, but is better than any other system,” 70%
World Bank Governance Measures64
1996 1998 2000 2002 LA AfricanAvge. Avge
Voice and accountability 43.5 54.5 48.2 52.0 60.5 33.0Political
stability 23.2 40.0 52.7 47.6 51.3 38.8Effective government 34.1
27.3 25.0 17.5 49.8 31.5Regulatory quality 36.5 64.1 61.1 39.7 60.0
32.8Rule of law 25.9 20.0 15.7 32.0 50.3 32.5Corruption control
52.7 25.7 17.4 39.7 50.8 32.5
of Nicaraguans polled replied in the affirmative.However, over
the years the same survey has alsoasked whether Nicaraguans agree
that “democ-racy is preferable to any another form of gov-ernment,”
obtaining the following fluctuatingpercentages in their
answers:
The table indicates strongly that Nicaraguans’faith in democracy
is at some level significantlyinfluenced by the immediate
vicissitudes of poli-tics. This is not surprising in a fledgling
democ-racy. But the sharp downward trend—59% to39% in eight years,
registered across sizable fluc-tuations—is highly disturbing, and
is the largestsuch percentage change found in the 18 coun-tries
surveyed. When pollsters ask about mili-tary or authoritarian
alternatives to democracy,responses are similarly incongruous. In
anothercommon finding, 70% of Nicaraguans staunchlyinsist they
would never support a military gov-ernment. But the very same
percentage, 70%, in-dicates that they would acquiesce to such a
re-gime if it managed to resolve their economicproblems.
All in all, these findings suggest that supportfor the
democratic system in Nicaragua is sig-nificantly more precarious
than it at first appears.Democracy doubtless has a reserve of
supportrooted in historical memories of privation and
1996 1997 1998 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004
59 68 72 64 43 63 51 39
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System Snapshot 21
abuse under prior regimes. But social and eco-nomic
vulnerabilities, experienced by a largemajority of the people,
appear to be attenuatingsystem support.66
Confidence in Particular Institutions. Poll-sters have long
queried Nicaraguans as well abouttheir faith in an array of
institutions. A recentand typical ranking is that in the table
below. Itshows that Nicaraguans express highest confi-dence in
their churches, a noteworthy fact in viewof the distinct
politicization of the Catholic hi-erarchy in recent decades. The
news media havelikewise earned strong backing for their role
indenouncing corruption as well as in exposingsocial and human
rights abuses. Though moretepid, confidence in the military is
basically posi-tive and probably owes to the army
leadership’scapacity to avoid the appearance of overt inter-ference
in the political affairs of the country.
The most telling result of the survey, as inothers done in
recent years, is the very low con-fidence expressed in institutions
targeted by theLiberal-Sandinista pact, in particular the
judiciaryand the elections council. Faring even worse arethe
political parties and the National Assembly,for which popular
opprobrium is by now almostuniversal. Although a solid basis of
statisticalcomparison is lacking, the operation of the pacthas
arguably undermined public confidence in
the very actors that promoted it and the institu-tions it has
distorted.
IS DEMOCRACY FLOUNDERING?
The preceding review indicates that democracyin Nicaragua has
relatively weak roots and foun-dations. In addition to the
motivating force ofentrenched poverty and its concomitant—pub-lic
office seeking for purposes of personal en-richment—the cultural
base of a traditional LatinAmerican society still provides
significant sup-port for old-fashioned political
clientele-build-ing. Flaws in the way the system is designed
helpclientelistic power seeking to spread, albeit notwithout limit.
Add in the inherited fragmenta-tion in institutions and the system
both func-tions badly in promoting economic progress, so-cial
justice and human rights, and seen to func-tion badly by the
citizenry.
In a system in gestation for only a little morethan two decades,
these facts are not surprising.What is worrisome is the trend—which
has beenfor both system support and democratic toler-ance to erode
since the advent of the 2000 Lib-eral-Sandinista pact.68 The
political attitudes ofthe 1990s youth generation reinforce this
con-cern.69 In principle, young people espouse sup-port for the
democratic system and values, andare politically aware but
non-participant. Sociallyconservative and committed to traditional
reli-gious values, they are strongly concerned withtheir own
material welfare and yearn for politi-cal and social order but find
none. As a result,they reject existing political leadership as
cor-rupt, and believe democracy in Nicaragua doesnot work.
The government currently in office in Nicara-gua has wanted to
change such attitudes by pro-moting reform and demonstrating that
democ-racy does work. Why it has so far been unable todo so stems
mostly from political roadblocksmounted by the caudillos, but in
part also fromits own limitations.
Confidence Levels in Institutions67
(Percent)
None Little Some A lotChurch 16.0 10.3 22.6 51.1Media 18.1 12.8
31.7 37.5Army 33.8 15.8 31.8 18.6Mayor 41.5 17.9 29.1 11.5CSE 47.9
18.0 29.1 5.0Judiciary 54.7 17.2 23.3 4.8Central govt 56.5 17.3
22.7 3.4Parties 70.4 12.6 13.7 3.3Assembly 63.4 15.2 18.9 2.5
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THE BOLAÑOS GOVERNMENT
In his first message to the nation after win-
ning election in November 2001, Enrique
Bolaños essayed his designs on Nicaragua’s
political institutions and culture. “I am firmly
committed,” he stated, “to promoting a profound
modernization of the judicial power, the elec-
toral branch and the Comptrollers to make them
more democratic, more participatory and more
professional, as part of this new era.”70 Although
his slogan during the campaign had been “em-
ployment and more employment,” Bolaños re-
vealed a conviction that institutional reform was
a vital prerequisite to Nicaragua’s development
and an ambition, theretofore muted, to be a po-
litical reformer.
In his three years in office he has demonstrated
the sincerity of his commitment to this trans-
formation in the midst of making important con-
tributions to the future economic development
of the country. Progress in achieving the politi-
cal reform agenda has nevertheless been disap-
pointingly slight. For the most part, as will be
detailed later, this has been due to powerful ob-
jective constraints. However, Bolaños’s weak-
nesses as a political leader have prevented him
from building a broad base of public support
for the reforms he wishes to effect, leaving him
a prisoner to the caudillos’ machinations.
As events in 2004 attest, this weakness has
reached the point of imperiling his presidency
and the executive branch of government. It has
furthermore produced such frustration that the
president has at times found himself tempted to
take authoritarian measures to escape from his
impasses. Equally significant, it has hindered the
development of a political party alternative nec-
essary to provide continuity for the
administration’s achievements after it leaves of-
fice in early 2007. None of this bodes well for
Nicaragua’s future.
Understanding the achievements and short-comings of the Bolaños
administration is animportant prelude to examining how the
poli-tics of reform have played out since the begin-ning of 2002.
Both depend in significant mea-sure on the character of Nicaragua’s
president.
Who is Enrique Bolaños? In pre-1979 Nicara-gua, Enrique Bolaños
Geyer was a prominentbusiness figure, owner of an agroindustrial
com-plex, which produced, processed and marketedcotton. As
president of the Higher Council ofPrivate Enterprise (COSEP) during
much of the1980s, Bolaños gained international media fameas the
Sandinista revolution’s most sulphuric pri-vate sector adversary.71
When they needed landto pacify peasants in his home department
ofMasaya, the Sandinistas confiscated Bolaños’sholdings in 1985 but
did not dent his oppositionto their regime. In 1989, an opportunity
to viefor power in elections presented itself andBolaños put his
name forward as a pre-candi-date of the National Opposition Union
(UNO)for president, only to see that aspiration thwartedwhen the US
threw its support to Violeta Bar-rios de Chamorro.
Bereft of properties and position, Bolaños satout the Chamorro
administration politically, lim-iting himself to partially
successful efforts toobtain compensation for his lost
patrimony,which he valued at some $10m. Though othersin his family
played politics on the Conservativeteam, Bolaños joined forces with
ArnoldoAlemán as vice-presidential candidate of the Lib-eral
Alliance in 1996. In office, he regularly de-fended his chief ’s
probity but remained person-ally aloof from the corruption that
permeatedthe administration. In addition to overseeing atame
National Integrity Commission, Bolañosworked on initiatives to
modernize the publicadministration, promote science and
technology
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The Bolaños Government 23
policy, and develop wider citizen participationin
government.
His nomination as the PLC’s presidential can-didate in the 2001
national race owed everythingto his not being a Liberal by
birthright. Barredfrom succeeding himself, Arnoldo Alemánneeded a
seat warmer in his office in CasaPresidencial until he could
reclaim the throne in2006. After certain business backers vetoed
hisfirst choice, he turned to Enrique Bolaños aswhat he thought
would be a potable yet pliantsubstitute. Bolaños’s advantage in the
selectionwas his complete lack of a Liberal political base,which
meant that as president he would be un-able to challenge the
caudillo for control of theparty.72 Alemán then engineered a
victory forBolaños in the PLC’s 2001 nominating conven-tion over
rival aspirant Eduardo Montealegre.
TO BE OR NOT TO BE PRESIDENT
A year later, just after Bolaños had installed him-self in his
purple-trimmed oval office in January2002, Alemán engineered
another election, el-evating himself to the post of president of
theNational Assembly. Enjoying unconditional backfrom an initial
cohort of 53 PLC lawmakers,Alemán clearly betrayed an intention to
go onbeing both kingmaker and king. Noting that hehad kept silent
over the many troubling accusa-tions of wrongdoing lodged against
Alemánwhile in power, many predicted that Bolañoswould not have the
resolve to stand up to thehard-driving, ebullient and ruthless
former presi-dent and actually be the leader of the country.
Their mistake was in large part a misreadingof Bolaños’s
character, whose antinomies havefor better and for worse shaped the
course ofhis administration. Austere and responsiblewhere Alemán
was wasteful and slipshod,Bolaños has unexpectedly proved a
painfully slowdecision-maker and has exhibited difficulty
inefficiently managing his executive team. Politi-cally
inexperienced himself, he has recruited a
shifting coterie of political advisors whom out-side observers
regard a hopelessly inept and whohave led their president from
mistake to mis-take. But he has fulfilled the expectations of
thosewho knew him as an entrepreneurial opponentof revolution by
stubbornly insisting on his rightto govern.
This stubbornness has an uncomfortable cor-ollary. A rigidly
principled individual, EnriqueBolaños has staked out an
uncompromising op-position to traditional caudillism but has yet
todevelop an alternative style of effective leader-ship. He is
famously loath to engage in the lob-bying that normally accompanies
the exercise ofpresidential power in a democracy, and often
givesthe impression it is enough simply to point theright way
forward to get other people to followit. Now in his mid-70s, and
without further po-litical ambitions in life, neither is he the man
tocall on Nicaraguans to do battle with thecaudillos in the
streets.
In sum, many Nicaraguans think Don Enrique,as he is called, is
simply not a political leader, andsome already view him as a
caretaker halfwaythrough his administration. The Bolaños
govern-ment nevertheless has substantial achievements toits credit,
particularly in the realm of economicpolicy. In 2002, it stabilized
the nation’s finances,gutted during Alemán’s final year, and
success-fully negotiated support from the IMF for a newthree-year
Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility(PRGF). Over the course of
2003, it put in placethe remaining preconditions for a massive
pardonof Nicaragua’s $6.4bn foreign debt under theHighly Indebted
Poor Country (HIPC) initiative,and renegotiated a large volume of
domestic gov-ernment debt. Together, these measures freed
upresources for greater public investment to pro-mote growth and
reduce poverty. In tandem withincreased governmental probity, they
have alsopersuaded foreign donors to begin channeling aportion of
their assistance directly to the centralgovernment as budget
support.
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24 Democracy Adrift
In longer-term perspective, the most impor-tant achievement of
the Bolaños administrationmay well turn out to be the formulation
of aNational Development Plan (PND) designed toprovide an
overarching framework forNicaragua’s development as a country. In
con-junction with negotiation of the US-Central-America Free Trade
Agreement (CAFTA), com-pleted in late 2003, the PND aims to foster
theexternal competitiveness of the Nicaraguaneconomy by promoting
synergies among the ac-tors involved in “clusters” of economic
activity,including both national and foreign investors.Whether any
Nicaraguan government can makethis approach work has been hotly
debatedamong economists.73 But the exercise of formu-lating it is a
positive first step in preparing thecountry to compete more
effectively in worldmarkets, and is a welcome move in the
directionof national policy ownership and the recoveryof
decision-making power over the country’s fu-ture course.
Shortcomings in certain areas, such as mis-management of the
planned introduction of pri-vate pension funds and of Nicaragua’s
publicutilities regulatory agencies, balance theseachievements
Nonetheless, by 2004, effective andresponsible economic management
had helpedGDP growth to recover to the 4% trend line.Halfway into
his term, Bolaños confidently as-sured Nicaraguans that during the
second halfthey would experience the benefits of programsand
policies his government has put in place.Given that the recovery
has not yet paid off injob creation, however, the broad public is
stillunconvinced and as shown below has