Arnoldo Alemin, presidential candidate of the revived Liberal Constitutionalist Party (PLC), arouses strong emo- tions among his opponents. Former President Daniel Ortega, addressing a crowd of 40,000 people on July 19, 1996, the seventeenth anniver- sary of the Nicaraguan revolution, warned of what would happen if Alemdn won Nicaragua's October 20, 1996 national election. If victo- rious, he said, "the 'Somocista- Liberal' candidate would eliminate the Nicaraguan army, take all the land from the peasants, and con- tinue the current economic policies of unemployment." In short, an Alemin victory would spell disaster for ordinary Sandinistas, burying their aspirations of salvaging some- thing from the debris of their revo- lutionary experiment and ending all hope of reversing the misery that six years of neoliberal economic poli- cies have left in their wake. Ortega's words were intended to convince his followers, as well as undecided voters, into marking the Sandinista box on the October bal- lot. The faithful need no such urg- ing-they will vote for Ortega any- way. But they are not numerous enough to stem the rising Liberal Party tide. Meanwhile, few other Nicaraguans seem to be listening. Liberal Party candidate Amoldo Alemin on the campaign trail for Nicaragua's October 20 presidential elections. Although the election is not in the bag, Alemdn has a commanding lead. According to a Gallup-affiliate poll carried out in late June, 36% of the voters intend to cast their ballot for Alemin in October and only 26% for Daniel Ortega. A first- round victory cannot be ruled out, and a second-round victory is more than likely. Some Nicaraguans see Alemrn's impending victory as the beginning of the final phase of counter-revolu- tion, after six years of inconclusive "democratic" transition under cur- rent President Violeta Chamorro. An apocalyptic vision of the Somocistas sweeping back into Managua, intent on reversing the gains of the revolution and deter- mined to reinstall the pre-1979 dic- tatorship, haunts many Sandinistas. Yet a more dispassionate analysis suggests that both the makeup of the Alemdn coalition and the reality of existing domestic and international 6 NACIA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS Mark Caster is a freelance journalist based in Managua. 6 NACIAREPORT ON THE AMERICASUPDATE / NICARAGUA Some Sandinistas fear an Alem6n victory will mean nothing less than a full-blown return to Somocismo. Alem n's chief objective is not revenge against the Sandinistas. It is, rather, his own political aggrandizement-and that is what Nicaraguans should fear most. forces will lead to a different result. Rather than opt for vanquishing the remnants of Sandinismo, it is more likely that Alemdin will follow the well-trodden Nicaraguan path of deal-making-to the benefit of both his own political aggrandizement and Nicaragua's renascent savage capitalism. This outcome-which would likely pave the way for a last- ing Liberal hegemony-is what Nicaraguans should fear most. rnoldo Alemin was a stu- dent of law and finance whose father was an official in one of the Somoza governments. When the Sandinista revolution defeated Somoza in 1979, Alem.in worked in a company called Nicaraguan Investment and Development (INDESA), which the Sandinistas soon nationalized. In 1980, he was arrested in a raid of supposed counter-revolutionary plotters and spent nine months in jail, where, not surprisingly, his antipathy for the Sandinistas deep- ened. Upon his release, Alemdn neither went into exile nor adopted a stance of outright opposition. He enjoyed a modest prominence through most of the 1980s, first as the head of the Managua coffee growers' associa- tion and then of the national organi- zation, UNCAFENIC. Only after June, 1989, with the campaign for national elections underway, did Alemdn become a more vocal oppo- nent of the regime. He joined other coffee producers who were pro- testing government control of the dol- lars earned from the coffee trade. In response, the gov- ernment claimed that the growers were engaging in economic sabotage and confiscated the properties of three of them, includ- ing Alemin's. In the aftermath of these events, Alemdn decided to enter politics in earnest. He decided to run in the 1990 elections for the mayoralty of Managua, and he chose as his vehi- cle the tiny Liberal Constitutionalist Party (PLC). The PLC was a splin- ter group from the National Liberal Party (PLN), the party of Anastasio Somoza Debayle. A few years after Somoza appointed himself presi- dent in 1967, a former Somocista cabinet member, Ramiro Sacasa, defected from the PLN and founded the PLC. As part of a coaltion of opposition parties, the PLC tepidly opposed the dictator until his over- throw in 1979. Under Alemrn's guid- ance, the PLC joined the National Opposition Union (UNO), the 14- party coalition that defeated the Sandinistas (FSLN) in the 1990 national elections. With the help of supporters in Miami and the High Council of Private Enterprise (COSEP), an association of promi- nent Nicaraguan business leaders, Alemn won UNO's backing for his ultimately successful mayoral run. An insignificant party in 1990, Alemdn's PLC is now the preferred political option of 30% of Nicara- guans-roughly the same percent- age that identifies with the FSLN. How Alemin rose to his current heights is an untold story of graft and patronage. His strategy con- sisted of three basic components: building the PLC by investing his own (and probably municipal) resources in the party; taking advan- tage of public antipathy to the defeated Sandinista regime and later discontent with the Chamorro government; and using public- works projects and other populist gestures to build a popular support base. What few people in 1990 anticipated was the skill with which Alemin would use his mayoral base as a springboard for accumulating power. One of Alemrin's first steps was to appoint municipal-council members to posts in his administration, where access to graft lured other UNO par- ties to the PLC. He revived old taxes, garnered resources from U.S. AID-funded projects, and brought in additional aid from his Cuban friends in Miami's city hall. Alemin, who allegedly studied old Communist Party pamphlets to learn organizing techniques, spent his weekends building up the PLC's base outside Managua. He began transforming the PLC from an old men's club into a real political party. By this point, he had already set about debunking the myth that the Sandinistas were invincibile by sys- tematically destroying the symbols of their rule. Within his first year as mayor, virtually all the revolution- ary murals, graffiti and FSLN elec- tion slogans throughout the city were painted over, although Alemin denied responsibility. Such actions aroused deep hostility among Sandinistas. Alemin also began to rankle the Chamorro government, which he lambasted for developing a "co-government" with the FSLN. As frustration with the Chamorro government mounted, the critique that former foes had become bedfel- lows and were jointly impeding Nicaragua's economic recovery became increasingly popular. To garner support among the vot- ers, Alemdn set about building public works-repairing roads and Vol XXX, No 2 SEPrIOcr 1996 7 Vol XXX, No 2 SEPT/OCT 1996 7UPDATE / NICARAGUA constructing traffic circles and foun- tains. In 1993, he rebuilt the palm- lined Malec6n park along Managua's lake front, destroyed in the 1972 earthquake. Once again poor people had a place to stroll and gaze, admittedly at a lake becoming ever more polluted and foul- smelling. The Sandinista media dis- missed projects like the Malec6n as mere show, but ordinary people, caught in a cycle of increasing impoverishment and lacking inex- pensive ways to spend their leisure time, flocked to them. At a time when the Chamorro government was implementing adjustment poli- cies that threw massive numbers of people out of work, Mayor Alemin was able to make modest improve- ments in Managua's popular bar- rios. Thus, like Somoza before him, Alemin developed a popular base and a formidable political machine that reeks of traditional clientelism. In his early years as mayor, even Alemin's style resembled that of the first Somoza. A corpulent, hard- drinking and rough-mannered politician, Alemin rubbed shoulders with women in the Oriental market and with the poorer classes in gen- eral in an effort to cultivate an image of a politician with a popular touch. The underside of the image was unsavory-accusations of kick- backs, misuse of the municipal funds, and sundry other forms of corruption began to haunt Alemin. But in a country where corruption is a tradition and ordinary people fear unemployment above all other ills, many forgave Alemin's sins because he was perceived as doing something for them, while Dofia Violeta was not. After the PLC won the Atlantic Coast regional elections in February, 1994, national polls showed Alemin and his party grow- ing in popularity. In mid-1994, Vice-President Virgilio Godoy of the Independent Liberals proposed a merger of all the Liberal fragments. Alemsn rejected Godoy's offer, and by early 1995, he had cobbled together the "Liberal Alliance," which includes the PLC, several let- terhead-only groupings and rem- nants of the old Somocista PLN. As the May, 1996 deadline for forming official campaign alliances neared, Alemin also picked up support from splinter groups of Independent Liberals, National Conservatives and members of the Resistance Party (PRN) who were eager to get on the gravy train. Who is going to vote for this alliance in October? Viewed demo- graphically, support for Alemin is all over the map. He has support from the young, the old, the well- educated and the less literate, from people in the capital, the provincial cities and the countryside. Though muted now that the campaign is underway, his strident anti- Sandinista stance has made him heir to the anti-FSLN vote. By all indi- cations, the Nicaraguan Resistance is going to vote for him en masse. In northern Nicaragua, the remaining recontras are even engaged in armed propaganda on his The M behalf. Clearly, however, the ric Alemin has gone be- yond a right-wing, anti- Ameri Sandinista base, to occupy space in the cen- helped ter. He has become the COffer latest politician Nica- raguans have found to Alem6 believe in-a rough- hewn populist who steals suppo but gets things done, Fidel C hammers away at pow- erful forces that ordinary people consider their enemies, and promises that if they will recognize his authority, he will take care of them. ut as Alemin has prepared to campaign and then govern, it has become apparent that he does not enjoy the confidence of Nicaragua's upper crust nor, sur- prisingly, of significant parts of the diaspora in Miami. Both sectors find him too coarse, too divisive, too unsavory in his associations-in a word, unreliable as a guarantor of their present and prospective invest- ments. To furbish his image, Alemin appointed Enrique Bolafios, a former president of the private-sector lobby, COSEP, as his running mate and fundraiser both at home and in Miami. Although as strident as Alemin, Bolafios is reputed for his rectitude. Since he came on board, sources say that Alemin's campaign has received individual contributions of up to $200,000. It is not the Nicaraguans in Miami, but rather the extreme wing of Miami Cubans, led by Jorge Mas Canosa and the Cuban-American Foundation, that has furnished Alemin with the most significant foreign financing-all of it illegal under Nicaragua's revised electoral law. The Cuban-American Found- ation supports an Alemin vehicle iami Cubans, particularly Sht-wing Cuban- can Foundation, have d fill Alemn's campaign s. At fundraising events, in has expressed warm rt for the overthrow of :astro. known as the Nicaraguan Foundation for Development and Democracy (NFDD), apparently a conduit for campaign funds. The quid pro quo, according to uncon- firmed reports, is Alemnn's commit- ment to allow the Cubans to set up an anti-Castro radio station in Nicaragua. At fundraising events, 8NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 8UPDATE / NICARAGUA Sdnchez Herdocia, a former Somoza-era senator and landowner in Le6n, whose deceased brother was contra leader Aristides Sdnchez; and Sergio Garcia Quintero, a for- mer Somocista judge, who will likely be Alemin's defense min- ister. These and other Alemrn allies are, no doubt, awaiting the opportunity to recover old properties, to harass Sandinistas, and, in many cases, to steal. Behind them stands a phalanx of other former property holders who want Alemdin to recover their holdings. Not sur- prisingly, Daniel Ortega has repeatedly called on Alemn to negotiate a Alemin supporters at a neighborhood rally. The sign a, to gotat reads: "If God is with Alemn who could prevail against "pact of governability" Alemin?" with guarantees against "revenge-seeking" be- the Liberal candidate has expressed fore the voting starts. The desire for warm support for the overthrow of revenge is undoubtedly strong, Fidel Castro. especially the desire to make high- The governing board of the ranking Sandinistas return, or at NFDD shares members with the least pay for, properties appropri- boards of companies in Miami that ated under the so-called piiiata, purchase supplies for the Managua which took place during the transi- municipal government, with much tional period after the FSLN's 1990 raking off the top. Alemnn's agent electoral defeat and before Violeta in many of his Miami dealings is Chamorro's inauguration. Byron J6rez, known in the city as Equally powerful reasons exist, "Byron King," who supposedly par- however, for Alemin and his clique ticipated in the Mano Blanca to restrain themselves if they come (White Hand) death squad under to power. In the first place, Alemin Somoza. Eduardo Sevilla Somoza, a can ignore the power centers in and nephew of the former dictator, is surrounding Nicaragua only at his also a prominent board member. peril. Contrary to rumors that he Additional key Alem.n supporters has promised to reinstate officers of include, among others: Jaime Somoza's National Guard, he is not Morales Carazo, a wealthy lawyer in a position to challenge the living in Mexico, and Alemdn's Nicaraguan ("Sandinista") army, campaign chief, who will likely be which in recent years has won named secretary to the president; acceptance as an apolitical army in Lorenzo Guerrero, an architect and a reborn capitalist state. Another former Somoza official; Enrique constraint facing Alemin is the lock on Nicaragua's economic poli- cies exercised by multilateral lend- ing institutions, such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. Given the country's continued dependence on foreign aid, the next government will have no choice but to uphold Chamorro's agreements with the IMF. Just as important is the fact that the IMF and the World Bank want to see stability-not another wave of destructive conflict over property. They also want to see cor- ruption of the kind that has been rampant under Chamorro held in check. These are powerful reasons for Alemin to engage in the Nica- raguan tradition of pact-making. Indeed, the path of least resistance may also be the path to conven- tional success. An exhausted Chamorro administration has bequeathed Nicaragua a reviving economy whose exports have dou- bled in two years, whose debts are being radically reduced, and to which foreign donors have commit- ted large sums. If Alem.n does not rock the boat, he can expect to ride the crest of a wave of economic recovery that will offer him and his cronies opportunities far more lucrative than those offered by tak- ing things away from Sandinistas. This does not mean that Sandinistas, many of them poor peasants, will not lose things any- way, but it will be mainly to market forces. The Alemdn campaign has promised that it will provide prop- erty titles to poor people who lack them. But most Nicaraguans can expect their lives to get modestly better as the economic recovery begins to take hold. For that improvement, Arnoldo Alemin and his Liberal Alliance can expect- deservedly or not-to take credit, thus entrenching themselves in power. This will not be the return of Somocismo, or the beginnings of a new dynasty, but it may be a long run.
