Danielismo in Nicaragua

 

Presidential power: Phoenix today, fugitive tomorrow

 

Por: Pastor Valle-Garay

Senior Scholar, York University
November 25, 2006
 

Toronto, Canada – A fortnight ago Daniel Ortega y Rosario Murillo rightfully celebrated the electoral triumph with the Nicaraguan right. They won. The Carter Center said so. An army of national and international observers rubber-stamped the vote count. The Catholic hierarchy held a thanksgiving mass. The vote was officially declared transparent. In the colorful Nicaraguan vernacular some declared it as pure and clean as chicken shit. For a nation riddled with institutionalized corruption and political pacts with the devil, this is as close as democracy will get. Hey! We are growing up!

 

Petty politics aside, Nicaraguans exhaled a sigh of relief, shrugged collective shoulders, looked the other way and yawned. For now it is best to overlook that during the electoral campaign  Daniel Ortega discarded the red and black Sandinista emblem, wrapped himself in pink, got in bed with the opposition and grabbed the ultimate prize shortly after deciding that a laughable 35% of the vote would be sufficient to guarantee him the presidency.

 

Pre-cooked election? Details! A bit more respect, please, we are talking about President Daniel Ortega Saavedra and First Lady-in-waiting Rosario Murillo, reborn Christians, devout Catholics, sworn enemies of therapeutic abortions, in short, a fairy tale about the transformation of perennial losers into wealthy national leaders. Like Bush, rightful representatives of the American Dream. Not a bad deal. And if people chose mediocrity over common sense, who are we to criticize? One question remains unanswered: Does Ortega deserve the presidency? Who knows but time will tell.      

 

For the time being, the noisy birds of ill omen at the US Embassy in Managua finally shut up. Like failed harbingers of mayhem the State Department buzzards vanished. Otto Reich, Condoleezza Rice, Collin Powell, Robert Fisk, Donald Rumsfeld, two Ambassadors-at-large and countless Republican congressmen finally quit making the Nicaraguan pilgrimage, packed their suitcases, took flight and left the carcass alone. Good riddance. Better to concentrate on one failure at a time. For them it is back to the Iraq drawing board. For Nicaragua it is about time to stop interfering in their affairs.

 

Watching from the side lines, Nicaraguan novelist Sergio Ramírez Mercado, ex vice president in Ortega's government of the last century and presently his unrelenting critic, called for national calm and suggested to give Ortega the benefit of the doubt. Without batting a false eyelash Rosario Murillo, Ortega's wife and campaign manager, thought it convenient to put aside the campaign’s blushing pink emblem and to resuscitate the Sandinistas traditional red and black. Clever move. It fitted nicely with Ortega’s image of the Phoenix rising from its political ashes. Daniel’s followers took to the streets. It was time to celebrate. But, was it time to pop open the champagne or the Flor de Caña, Nicaragua’s celebrated rum? Perhaps. ¡Quién sabe! It is advisable nevertheless to do it carefully. Flying corks have a wicked way of bouncing back and smacking the celebrants in the face.  

 

Under the current political wave of change in Latin America, it’s advisable to exercise caution, to act in a more sober fashion, and to rejoice in moderation. Not too long ago other so-called “statesmen” provoked similar outbreaks of unbridled dementia. At one time or another the followers of General Augusto Pinochet (Chile), Alberto Fujimori (Perú), Alfonso Portillo (Guatemala), Raúl Cubas (Paraguay), Juan Bordaberry (Uruguay) y Arnoldo Alemán (Nicaragua) hailed them as the Hemisphere’s new Messiahs. They were dead wrong.     

 

Today, coincidentally with Ortega’s electoral triumph, each one of these nations demands that the ex presidents be brought to trial. They stand accused of theft, bribery, nepotism, corruption, torture, assassinations, fraud, money laundering and who knows what else. Pinochet at 90 and Alemán, a younger 60, attempt to hide behind their ages and their self-inflicted parliamentary immunity to escape the prison terms they so richly deserve. The others are in the process of being extradited from various exile heavens to face justice in their own countries.

 

These should be sobering thoughts for Ortega. As his presidential term begins, he has only two options: he either governs well or prepares himself to face Nicaraguan justice five years from now. History does repeat itself and Ortega can no longer afford to abuse the presidency as he did in the past. Should he fail again neither Fidel nor Hugo, Lula, Evo or the Holy Virgin Mary recently adopted by Rosario Murillo will save him. There will be no place to run and at 66 years at the end of his presidential mandate Ortega will be too young to hide behind his age or claim immunity and too old to try to run away. The Phoenix may have risen. The ashes still smolder. Good luck, Señor Presidente!