TUESDAY, MARCH 23, 2010

Nicaragua News Bulletin (March 23, 2010)

1. Atlantic Coast elections: challenges of the RAAS results still unresolved
2. Special Committee interviews Rivas and other Electoral Council magistrates
3. Differences within opposition to the government multiply
4. US and Nicaragua meet to review property cases
5. Landmine removal to be 99% completed
6. Former banana workers form new association
7. Nicaraguan insurance market to open to U.S. companies in compliance with CAFTA

1. Atlantic Coast elections: challenges of the RAAS results still unresolved

Challenges continued to the Atlantic Coast election of March 7, with the Supreme Electoral Council (CSE) releasing cumulative vote totals without the detailed precinct counts that had been available the previous week. The Institute for Democracy and Development (IPADE) said that information compiled by its network of observers supported the results released by the CSE for the North Atlantic Autonomous Region (RAAN) but not for the South Atlantic Autonomous Region (RAAS) where challenges by the Constitutional Liberal Party (PLC) in four districts located in Bluefields, Kukra Hill, Laguna de Perlas and the Rama zone have not been resolved by the CSE. The deadline for resolving these challenges was Mar. 22.

In the RAAN, the Sandinista Party (FSLN) won 32,084 votes and, with the 17,408 votes of its ally the indigenous Yatama Party, can form the government of that region. The PLC received only 20,448 votes in the RAAN.

In the RAAS, according to CSE figures, the PLC won 16,226 votes, the FSLN 12,251 votes, the Nicaraguan Liberal Alliance 5,107, Yatama 1,762 votes, and four other smaller parties won a total of 4,023 votes. Alejandro Samaniego of the PLC said that, in the four districts that his party was challenging, there were serious irregularities that could cost the PLC four seats in the RAAS Regional Council, depriving them of the right to form the government.

Samaniego said, “That gives us four fewer council members. We had 24 council members according to the original data from the CSE and the original tallies that are in our power but it looks like there is a desire for us to be left with 20 so we won't be able to govern in the RAAS.” Each Regional Council is composed of 45 directly elected council members plus the three deputies of the National Assembly which brings the total to 48. A majority of 25 seats is thus needed to form a government.

Meanwhile, Lambert Grijns, Ambassador of The Netherlands to Nicaragua and president of the Budget Support Group, said that “We have still not decided [about support for Nicaragua's budget this year] because that depends on the results of the electoral process of the regional elections and, of course, other criteria and conditions.” The Budget Support Group, composed of European countries and several financial institutions, froze special funding for the budget of the Nicaraguan government after fraud was alleged in the Nov. 2008 municipal elections. The budget support funds can be used wherever the government feels they are needed. (La Prensa, Mar. 19, 21, 22; El Nuevo Diario, Mar. 16)

2. Special Committee interviews Rivas and other Electoral Council magistrates

The Special Committee on Nominations of the National Assembly continued its interviews with candidates for expiring high level government posts, concentrating this past week on the proposed candidates for the Supreme Electoral Council (CSE). Sixty-two candidates have been proposed for the seats of the five magistrates and five alternates who compose the Council. Among them were the current holders of the positions, all of whom aspire to be reappointed to their posts. The committee's deadline for completing its list of recommendations of candidates for the CSE and other positions is April 5. The recommendations will then be presented to the National Assembly where a candidate has to obtain a super-majority of 56 votes to be confirmed.

Particularly controversial is the current president of the CSE, Roberto Rivas, who was accused of allowing fraud in the Nov. 2008 municipal elections. Deputy Victor Hugo Tinoco of the Sandinista Renovation Party (MRS) bench said that Rivas' refusal to authorize public release of his statement of wealth when he appeared before the committee was enough to reject him for reelection. Ramiro Silva, chair of the committee and a member of the Nicaraguan Liberal Alliance (ALN), said that the current magistrates had told the committee that because of their extensive experience of five, ten and 15 years, they would be the best ones to carry forward the elections of 2011. He added, however, that the position of the ALN (joined by the other opposition parties) was that none of the CSE magistrates should be reappointed.

The National Assembly as a whole, meanwhile, was not been able to session because the Liberal parties insist that the Assembly consider a piece of legislation to declare null and void a decree by President Daniel Ortega that permitted the functionaries whose terms were running out to remain in their posts until the Assembly approved their successors. According to Sandinista Deputy Alba Palacios, the Liberal deputies demand that the bill be sent to committee by the Assembly leadership and not by the full Assembly after a first reading as is the custom and which is supported by the Sandinistas. (El Nuevo Diario, Mar. 18; Radio La Primerisima, Mar. 17, 18)

3. Differences within opposition to the government multiply

In a week that revealed ever deeper divisions within the opposition to the Sandinista government, the Constitutional Liberal Party (PLC) on Mar. 19 held an extraordinary party convention in Boaco making changes in its statutes to include primary elections of its leadership and candidates for electoral office, including National Assembly deputies and the President. The PLC had hoped to have Honduran coup President Roberto Micheletti at the convention but he was denied entrance into Nicaragua by the government. PLC leaders called on the other Liberal parties in Nicaragua to join them in choosing by primary election one candidate for president for the 2011 elections in order to defeat the Sandinista Party. However, that call has met with limited response because no other political figure has the following of the PLC leader, former President Arnoldo Aleman. Aleman has served time in prison and under house arrest for crimes committed while in office from 1997 to 2002 but his party has the strongest structure and organization among the opposition parties and he remains its unquestioned leader.

PLC leaders lashed out at another Liberal figure, Eduardo Montealegre, leader of the “Let's Go with Eduardo” Movement, accusing him of treason for going it alone in the recent Atlantic Coast elections instead of uniting with the PLC, resulting in the loss of seats for the PLC.

On March 21, the Citizen Union for Democracy (UCD) organized what it called the March of the Brooms demanding that corruption be swept out and that the officeholders whose terms expire in the coming weeks not be reappointed to their posts. The group had hoped for a turnout of 50,000 people but the crowd was disappointing at about 2,000. Former candidate for president of the Sandinista Renovation Movement (MRS) Edmundo Jarquin said, “We see this not as the end but rather as the beginning of a process that will take us to the end of the government of Ortega,” preventing his reelection in 2011.

Controversies arose about where the funding was coming from to fund the activities of the UCD and other opposition unity efforts. Aleman said that he wanted all Liberal candidates for office selected in a party primary and that he rejected a proposal “from a well-known embassy” (understood to be that of the United States) and from civil society organizations that candidates for deputy be elected in a party primary and then those candidates choose the Liberal presidential candidate. PLC National Assembly Deputy Wilfredo Navarro called on civil society groups that have organized marches and rallies to reveal their funding sources and the salaries they receive from their respective organizations. He said, “It's time to demand transparency from them. …. The money that they have to manage these organizations is money that doesn't come in for them. It isn't money from individuals; it is money from governments and from international organizations that want to develop democracy in Nicaragua.”

Meanwhile, Esteli Bishop Juan Abelardo Mata, who has been sponsoring unity negotiations for months between the principal Liberal parties, said that if the parties could not come together or if they violated their commitments “I have a stick of dynamite at hand that I can make explode.” He added that he hoped the Liberals would return to the negotiating table after Holy Week to form one party. (Radio La Primerisima, Mar. 16, 18, 22; El Nuevo Diario, Mar. 18, 21)

4. US and Nicaragua meet to review property cases

A US State Department mission led by Christopher Webster, director of Central American Affairs, met on March 15 with Nicaraguan Attorney General Hernan Estrada and other government officials to review cases of “US citizens” whose property was confiscated during the Sandinista government of the 1980s. US law requires that when US citizens' property is expropriated that aid be cut off unless the Secretary of State issues a waiver. The US has based the annual waiver on “progress” in resolving these cases. Estrada opened the meeting reiterating Nicaragua's willingness to resolve pending cases “in conformity with Nicaraguan law.” During the cordial meeting, US Ambassador Robert Callahan and members of the State Department delegation thanked the Attorney General for Nicaragua's willingness to resolve the outstanding cases.

In a television interview on Mar. 17, Estrada stated that he believed that the Nicaraguan government has met the conditions this year to receive a waiver from the US and a continuation of aid. He said that 53 cases have been resolved in the past year, five more than the previous year. The majority of cases are those of Nicaraguans linked to the Somoza dictatorship who later became US citizens. Estrada said that claims remain from 258 Nicaraguans who obtained US citizenship but that an agreement was reached to remove former officers of the Somoza's National Guard and former officials of the dictatorship. He said that the Ortega government has paid US$5 million in bonds to compensate for properties that could not be returned. From 1990-2001 the Nicaraguan governments paid out US$1.104 billion to resolve property claims. (Radio La Primerisima, Mar. 16, Mar. 17; El Nuevo Diario, Mar. 17)

5. Landmine removal to be 99% completed

Six mine fields are the last remnants of the terrible Contra war of the 1980s. After nearly three decades, the hidden danger will end for Nicaraguans. It has been a bloody legacy, with 87 killed and 1,171 mine accident survivors since the war ended.

The Program for Mine Removal Assistance in Central America of the Organization of American States (PADCA-OEA by its Spanish acronym) finalized funding for Nicaragua's mine removal program last December and will conclude its operations in the country this May. PADCA-OEA was able to end its funding of the program when other donors emerged, namely Russia and Japan. Last November, Russia offered Nicaragua US$6.5 million for humanitarian mine removal and for strengthening civil defense capabilities against natural disaster.

Landmine removal is almost completed, and work continues on the remaining six fields. This number is a vast improvement over the 137,000 mines planted in the thousands of fields the army had registered in 1993 and an unknown number planted by the contra forces in the northern and southern border regions. After the removal of mines from the remaining six fields, Nicaragua will be 99% safe from mines. While the military will be capable of removing anything new that is found, authorities caution that it is still important to exercise caution when dealing with artifacts (including unexploded ordnance) from the war. The army will leave a small team of engineers behind to handle reports of landmines and respond to emergencies.

When complete, this removal will have benefited some 2 million people who populate 70 municipalities in the country. The artifacts had impeded local development and the use of lands for agricultural production. The process was a long and dangerous one. The mine removal teams experienced 23 accidents with their workers that resulted in 42 injured. Of them, six were killed and 20 experienced various amputations or loss of vision. (El Nuevo Diario, Mar. 21)

6. Former banana workers form new association

Attorney General Hernan Estrada on Mar. 17 hand delivered the charter for a new organization of former banana workers, survivors of illnesses caused by agricultural use of the chemical Nemagon, called the Association of Nicaraguan Former Banana Workers (ASONEF). Estrada promised government support for national and international legal actions by the new association.

ASONEF President Altagracia Solís called the new organization “one more step in the struggle initiated 17 years ago” to hold banana companies responsible for health damage caused to banana workers in the 1970s and ‘80s. “I feel proud because the struggle has not ended yet. Twenty-five hundred co-workers have died and many more are seriously ill, but here we are, fighting without resting,” she said shedding tears.

"It is a just struggle that we have had for 17 years. None of past three governments was capable of helping and supporting us in this struggle against the transnational companies which were guilty of damaging the health of banana workers,” pointed out Guillermo Armando Vivas, vice-president of the association. (Radio La Primerisima, Mar. 17; El Nuevo Diario, Mar. 18)

7. Nicaraguan insurance market to open to U.S. companies in compliance with CAFTA

National Assembly Deputy Walmaro Gutierrez, chair of the Economy Committee of the Assembly, announced on Mar. 17 that a bill was being introduced to “modernize” Nicaragua's insurance industry and bring it into compliance with the Dominican Republic-Central American Free Trade Agreement (DR-CAFTA) which went into force between Nicaragua and the United States in 2006. Gutierrez noted that Nicaragua's insurance industry has been regulated by a law that dates to 1970 and which impeded the entrance of foreign companies so that the local sector could grow. But now, he said, “the insurance industry is strong and growing and merits a new law.” He said that the new law would both protect the purchaser of insurance and open the insurance market to foreign companies. But, he said, “We have to regulate ‘swallow' capital that is here one day and flies away the next and the law will help a great deal in that.” Gutierrez, a Sandinista, also said that a goal of the new legislation was to “democratize access to insurance so that a small grocery can access it, or an agricultural cooperative.” (El Nuevo Diario, Mar. 18)
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