Massive vote for the Sandinistas followed by new war moves by the US
NICARAGUA Vincent KERMEL Although the bourgeois press generally described them as the first elections since the overthrow of the Somoza dictatorship, the democratic and pluralistic poll held on November 4 was in fact the first free election in the entire history of Nicaragua.
The withdrawal of the candidates of the Nicaraguan Democratic Coordinating Committee (CDN), a reactionary coalition including bourgeois parties and the employers' organization, COSEP, headed up by Arturo Cruz has been used by the imperialist propaganda machine as a basic argument for disputing the legitimacy of the elections.
However, after 80% of those eligible to vote did so and the FSLN got about 67% of the vote, the CDN has been shown up as a media event, made to look as if it represented more than it actually did in order to suit the needs of US strategy.
Some leaders of the Socialist International, including figures who endorsed the election of Napoleon Duarte in El Salvador without a qualm, nonetheless used the CDN boycott as a pretext for lamenting, as the Spanish premier, Felipe Gonzalez, did, the fact that "the Nicaraguans have not been able to make a more than 50% of the population, clearly demonstrated their support for the process of national and social liberation that is underway and for the FLN, which is leading it.
Thus, when Daniel Ortega, the newly elected president of the country, declared on the very eve of the election, "we have to be ready to fight in the streets of Managua against the Americans with guns, stone or machetes," he was only expressing a profound popular feeling.
This election also highlighted what manifold and powerful pressures the Sandinista revolution has to face. For example, the representatives of the Socialist International mounted a vast diplomatic operation to try to open the way for the reactionary forces of the CDN to participate in the November 4 vote. Under their auspices, several meetings were held between the Sandinista leaders and Arturo Cruz without result.
So, it is important to expose the more subtle counterrevolutionary game of some of the components of the Socialist International, which want to take advantage of the polarization between Nicaragua and US imperialism and the tight corner into which the revolution has been pushed in order to advance their own proposals for regional compromise and to bring to bear real choice."
When you consider that the elections organized last spring in El Salvador by the US embassy and the Salvadoran dictatorship were generally presented as an expression of the regime's the region in response to the war policy of the United States. desire to democratize, the bias of the capitalist press becomes striking.
The lesson in democracy shown by a mass electorate giving a large majority of its votes to the revolutionary organization that is leading the process underway in Nicaragua and holding state power there, could not get anything like the same generosity from the international press.
Of course, it is not surprising to see the big press violently opposing the march of a people toward national independence and socialism. But it has to be understood as well that this disinformation campaign is preparing international public opinion for stepped-up military pressure against Nicaragua and for the possibility of a US intervention against the Sandinista revolution.
Several lessons can be drawn from the election results. The first is that none of the groups that claim to represent a socialist alternative - the PCN, the PSN or the MAP-ML - nor even all three of them together, since their combined vote was under 4%, is in a position to challenge the FLN's political hold on the working masses. Their electoral score shows quite well the relatively marginal role they are playing in the revolutionary process.
Secondly, the abstention rate of around 20% on the average, but going as high as 30% in some regions inhabited by Miskito Indians, was the result of a combination of factors: Firstly, the problems of holding an election in a country at war; Secondly, the lack of democratic traditions and the opposition of some strata that are relatively rather small.
Finally, the three bourgeois parties that stood in the elections - the PCD (14%), the PPSC (about 6%) and the PLI (about 10%) - got a total of around 30% of the votes cast. These results show the democratic character of an election procedure that allowed a not insignificant fringe of certain sections of society to express their discontent over the economic problems engendered by the imperialist boycott and the aggression
However, the fundamental lesson of this election lies elsewhere. It rests in the fact that the great majority of the working people of Nicaragua, and especially of the youth, who represent International Viewpoint 26 November 1984 their own pressures for "moderation."
Their objective is to prevent an advance of the revolutionary process in Nicaragua and a spread of rebellion throughout
Thus, the Sandinista leadership is continually forced today to navigate between the Seylla and Charybdis that represent the two poles of imperialist strategy in order to continue its advance and defend the Nicaraguan revolution.
Nonetheless, the most immediate danger to the revolution is the military escalation of US imperialism. Reagan did not wait long after his reelection before launching a new provocation designed to step-up the pressure on the Sandinista revolution, threatening to bomb the country's ports if it accepted delivery of Soviet Mig aircraft.
The Sandinista's electoral triumph and the exposure of the CDN's lack of credibility, when it, along with the contras, is Washington's main card in Nicaragua, are factors that could lead US imperialism to increase its military pressure.
In this context, the US administration's recent declarations against Soviet aid to Nicaragua have two precise objectives. first is to seek a pretext for an immediate escalation of surveillance and sabotage on Nicaraguan territory. Thus, US planes have for the first time carried out reconnaissance flights covering Nicaragua from one end to the other, while an American general has made an ostentatious appearance on the southern border of Nicaragua, where there is a big concentration of
Moreover, the US diplomatic offensive is also designed to assemble the political conditions for direct imperialist military intervention and to step-up in the immediate period ahead the military actions of the contras and the sabotage actions of the
The Sandinista leadership has taken very seriously the escalation of aggressive acts and statements by the American government. Twenty thousand youth and trade unionists who were to participate in the coffee harvest have been kept in the capital. At the same time, a military alert has been declared, and Nicaragua has demanded a meeting of the UN Security Council.
The alert must also be sounded throughout the whole of the international movement in solidarity with the Sandinista revolution. It must prepare to oppose every new imperialist tightening of the squeeze on Nicaragua.
5
mood became more and more serious as Daniel Ortega's speech went on.
The speech was a direct appeal to the people of Managua. It was a warning, and a strong call to prepare for an American invasion, and, as an inevitable result of
'We have won!
that, bombing of the capital city.
"Today the military defense of the revolution is the highest priority. And the second is defense of production."
Ortega enumerated the most recent provocations by the US. The day before, an FR-71 military plane had flown over most of Nicaragua. A cargo ship had
The following articles from our correspondent in Nicaragua were written respectively in the capital of Managua and the northern city of Esteli in the first week of November. The contra plan for seizing Esteli and its importance is also taken up in the interview with Alain Krivine, a French