Where's the Left
in Nicaragua and El Salvador?

Jack Spence

Two regional elections held this past February in Nicaragua's isolated and ethnically mixed Atlantic Coast deepened Sandinista gloom. The party of right-wing bombast Arnoldo Alemán won both elections. An "outsider" from Nicaragua's Pacific side and current mayor of Managua, Alemán campaigned hard for his party's candidates. Besides victimizing the Sandinistas, he organized a defeat of the indigenous Yatama party and his former UNO allies, and vaulted himself into the front-runner position for the 1996 Presidential elections.

The story in El Salvador is much the same. In this year's March elections, a well-organized, FMLN-led opposition ran with Rubén Zamora as presidential candidate. Zamora was a skillful and exuberant candidate, and he ran against an incumbent party presiding over a war-damaged economy and extensive poverty. But the FMLN did not even come close to defeating the right-wing, nationalist ARENA party. ARENA candidate Armando Calderón Sol nearly won the presidential election outright (with 49% of the vote, just under the majority required for victory). Zamora ran second with 26%. The April 24 run-off was not close; Calderón Sol defeated Zamora by a two to one margin. In legislative elections ARENA fell just shy of a majority, and should have little trouble controlling the Assembly.

Both Nicaragua and El Salvador did have elections during the 1980s -- billed in each case as the first genuinely democratic elections in the country's history. In a context of ongoing war, however, some opposition groups boycotted -- in Nicaragua, the
hard line civilian opposition to the Sandinistas, in El Salvador, the FMLN and exiled civilians such as Zamora. The postwar elections, by contrast, included all groups. And the left lost.

What lies behind these defeats? Does the rise of Alemán in Nicaragua portend another Somoza-type leader? Has the traditional landowning class in El Salvador simply substituted elections for military government as an instrument of rule? Do the electoral failures simply reflect the post-
Cold War drought faced by the left internationally?

The beginning of an answer to these questions -- as with all questions about Central America -- lies in the role of the United States. But US power is not the whole story, and so we will need to look as well to the decline in the capacity of the left to confront dominant forces by posing an alternative program and unifying behind it.

The US Role

Almost all polls predicted a Sandinista victory, and indicated that Nicaraguans placed much more blame for the war on the United States and the contras than on the Sandinistas. But they also revealed worries about the implications of a Sandinista victory. Many Nicaraguans suspected that a vote for the Sandinistas would mean prolonging the war, while a vote for UNO promised better relations with the United States and an end to the war. And a large minority continued to fear a US invasion -- not an unnatural fear, considering the US invasion of Panama just two months before the election.

In El Salvador, by contrast, the United States supported the government side in the war and, for years, opposed negotiations that might lead to anything more than a guerrilla surrender. After the 1989 killing of the Jesuit priests and subsequent decline in Congressional support for the war, US policy shifted -- it began gingerly to back a UN-brokered peace process. The Salvadoran peace accords were finally signed two years ago. Although the accords had not been fully implemented by the time of the election, the incumbent ARENA party was not burdened with the prospect of ongoing war and reaped credit for the peace -- in sharp contrast to the situation faced by the Sandinistas in 1990.

Prosperity. Voters blame the incumbent when the economy is bad, and the Nicaraguan and Salvadoran economies were severely damaged by war. But the political costs of a war-torn economy were far greater for the Sandinistas than for ARENA.

The economic damage of the 1980s was simply more devastating in Nicaragua than in El Salvador. While GDP per capita in El Salvador was virtually stagnant from 1984 through 1988, in Nicaragua it declined almost 29%. In 1989, stagnation and ongoing war led to the electoral victory of ARENA over the Christian Democrat incumbents, and, early in 1990, economic collapse without peace cost the Sandinistas the election. But in the two years prior to the 1994 election, El Salvador's GDP increased by three and five percent.

What explains the differences in the wartime performance of the economies? A key factor is the type of foreign assistance they received. Considerable foreign aid flowed into Nicaragua, from a wide variety of sources. But very little was in foreign exchange, and much was tied to development projects that would only pay off in the long-term.

Foreign aid to El Salvador came almost exclusively from the United States, and it was far more effective in keeping the economy afloat than the crazy quilt pattern of Nicaraguan assistance. Putting military assistance to the side, US aid aimed to maintain a stable currency, hold inflation in check, and keep the infrastructure in repair. The Salvadoran economy suffered severe damage, but it never went over the edge. By 1988, however, the Nicaraguan economy was in free fall.

In short, US policy was a success: it kept the Salvadoran economy afloat, and wreaked havoc on the Nicaraguan economy. In 1990, the US-backed war was still doing damage in Nicaragua; in 1994, the ARENA government had less damage to repair, and the economy was recovering.

The Opposition Alliances. The United States also had an important hand in the formation of the anti-Sandinista UNO coalition. The Bush administration made it plain that the United States would provide substantial financial support only if the opposition unified behind a viable candidate. Virtually none of the 13 UNO parties had any recognition among voters. Their very weakness forced the parties together -- as did the promise of US election aid, and, for some, an inability by 1989 to preserve high hopes that the US-backed contras could defeat the Sandinistas.

By contrast, no one in the Clinton administration proposed bankrolling a leftist coalition against ARENA. To appreciate US power in shaping the electoral playing fields, consider a reversal of history. Would US neutrality in Nicaragua have produced a different outcome? What would have happened in El Salvador had the United States encouraged the FMLN to stay armed, and simultaneously backed Rubén Zamora against Calderón Sol? The answer is not clear in either case. And that suffices to show the importance of US policy.

National Factors

Sandinista critics charged that the party had become arrogant and had lost touch with its base. The Sandinistas had sufficient organizational capacity to have its cadre sound out a dozen neighbors every few days. But some cadre evidently reported to their superiors what they wanted to hear; some failed to see that their neighbors were not being frank with proselytizing visitors. The Sandinistas also had the resources to run a lavish campaign. But that very lavishness contributed to self-deception. According to the Sandinistas, 400,000 people attended their final campaign rally in Managua. Though 250,000 may be more accurate, the rally was a massive, musical extravaganza six times the size of the final UNO rally. Yet UNO won 210,000 votes in Managua, 40,000 more than the Sandinistas. Many who were wearing Sandinista T-shirts at the rally simply needed T-shirts, and some may have been more attracted by the music than the politics.

Did the expensive campaign in a poor country cost the Sandinistas votes? Perhaps, but the formula apparently worked for ARENA in El Salvador. ARENA has built a highly organized, skillful, and well-financed electoral machine. The small wealthy class supports ARENA unanimously. This helped ARENA to outspend the left coalition on television advertising by roughly 6 to 1 (not counting top-of-the-line production costs).

In El Salvador, the FMLN suffered when, in the weeks preceding the campaign, several of its cadre and three of its top leaders were assassinated (one apparently in a common crime). These killings sent a chilling message to those who might publicly have associated themselves with the left. It is very common to see ARENA T-shirts and bumper stickers but, apart from campaign rallies, quite uncommon to see the same for the left. An FMLN T-shirt does not ensure a death threat, but people think twice before wearing one in many neighborhoods.

Organizational factors also hurt the Salvadoran opposition. An all-party, UNO-style alliance to defeat the ARENA machine was not in the cards. Nicaraguan parties formed that alliance in part because they were so tiny that each could barely win an Assembly seat. In El Salvador, centrist and left opposition parties knew they could get a block of seats running alone. Moreover the Salvadoran left was divided. The Zamora coalition had a messy marriage. The factions of the FMLN decided to back Zamora only after a three to two vote. The social democratic MNR launched its own candidate, and only reluctantly backed Zamora after pressure from the Socialist International. Furthermore, the left never coalesced in Assembly races, and while some municipal council races had left coalitions, most did not.

The FMLN was new at electoral politics, and the skills needed to fight a war are not always helpful in organizing a political campaign. Moreover, the FMLN has spread its leaders thin over efforts to monitor and negotiate the constant crises in the two year process of implementation of the peace treaty, and to find financial bases of support for the party and its full time cadre. And because the FMLN is itself a coalition of five factions, it spends much time in internal negotiations.

Rubén Zamora was an energetic, articulate candidate, but the Democratic Convergence was not much of an organization behind him. It won only a single Assembly seat, in part because, in an embarrassing gaffe, it failed to register some of its Assembly candidates on time.

Finally, an absurdly complex voter registration process also hurt the FMLN -- 200,000-350,000 people who tried to get voting cards were left without them. Then, on election day, an estimated 25,000 to 90,000 people who had cards could not vote because their names were not on voting lists (or were spelled differently) or because confusion at badly organized polling centers made it hard to figure out where to vote.

This badly administered system discriminated against the poor, particularly those in ex-FMLN war zones. Registration requires, at a minimum, two trips to what were often distantly located centers (300 nationwide) -- time-consuming and expensive bus trips for the poor. It also requires extensive documentation, with duplicate copies in a computer data base. But the poor tend not to have the required documents. Voting is not neighborhood-based, so election day requires travel in rural areas to municipal centers, or in urban areas to alphabetically-arranged polling centers.

In Nicaragua, by contrast, there were over 4,300 neighborhood based registration and voting centers, with one-stop shopping registration. Most could walk to a familiar polling place and did not have to know the alphabet to vote. As a result, voting centers were very orderly. Had the Sandinistas administered an election in 1990 with the biases and irregularities of the Salvadoran election, the United States would have been scornful in its condemnation.

The registration and voting problems in El Salvador did not affect the presidential outcome, but they may have altered the outcome in a few municipal races and perhaps cost the left a seat or two in the Assembly. In the United States, El Salvador was the showcase "fledgling democracy" after its 1982 elections. Six elections later, the government still seems unable, or unwilling, to put on an election without a high level of irregularities and numerous obstacles to voting.

Prospects

The opposition, by contrast, has almost no financial base. The Christian Democrats have minimal support in the business class, and can no longer count on financial assistance from international Christian Democrats (certainly not the Italians) or the United States. The party has faded badly in the last four elections. Drawing over 500,000 votes in the early 1980s elections (and 750,000 in the 1984 second round), their votes shrank to 300,000 in the late 1980s and 200,000 in March. Failing to end the war or improve the economy in the 1980s cost them; so did their barefaced corruption. More recently, vicious party in-fighting has produced still more defections.

The left's electoral prospects are not completely grim. In 1991, with the FMLN still at war, the Democratic Convergence received 127,000 votes. In March of this year, Zamora and the FMLN increased the total by 200,000 votes, and added another 75,000 in the April second round. Competing in its first election, and running against an incumbent party which was basking in peace and an improving economy, the FMLN won 21 of 84 Assembly seats, eclipsing the veteran Christian Democrats for second place. It showed surprising strength in regions of the country where it had little presence during the war. And the FMLN has a chance to shape a dynamic opposition agenda in the Assembly. However, since the election, the FMLN internal divisions have grown sharper and have expressed themselves in an extraordinarily public fashion.

To improve its prospects, the Salvadoran left needs to win poorer voters away from ARENA, not impossible since ARENA is unlikely to improve their lot. It needs to attract the 30% of the electorate who stopped voting in the mid 1980s, and to win over the 50% of those polled before the election who said they had little or no interest in the election. But attracting those votes will require unity and a sharper programmatic image. And here the left faces a serious problem: in this neo-liberal era, the ideals, principles, and policies that it stands for are unclear. Both Zamora and Calderón Sol called for more schools and better crime protection. Zamora blamed ARENA for poverty, but his campaign did not project a clear-cut alternative to ARENA.

In Nicaragua, ironically, the Sandinista bench in the Assembly has ended up supporting Chamorro, joining forces with a small minority of UNO legislators to give Chamorro a paper-thin majority against a coalition of conservative and far right anti-Sandinistas. Although this tactic has kept the right at bay, it has been costly for the Sandinistas. Even more than in El Salvador, the left does not, at the moment, seem to stand for anything. One Sandinista group supported Chamorro's structural adjustment model, trying to ameliorate its effects, while the Sandinista labor movement launched street protests against the layoffs and the sweeping spread of poverty generated by the government's program.

The Sandinistas have also been damaged by their leaders' corruption while still in office. The continued hold of Daniel Ortega's brother Humberto over the military has been a mixed blessing. It prevented the new government and the United States from forming a new army, no doubt out of the ex-contra army. But Humberto Ortega has made the army his own fiefdom and many Sandinistas regard him with great suspicion. Finally, in recent months, an open and intense rivalry has surfaced between Daniel Ortega and Sergio Ramirez, former Vice President and current leader of the Sandinista bench. It all adds up to a sharp decline in the Sandinistas as a political force.

But they are not a spent force. The Sandinista bench recently agreed with moderate UNO legislators to Constitutional changes and a legislative package. This pact should isolate the far right to about 20 seats. The Clinton administration's unwillingness to confront Senator Jesse Helms's rabid anti-Sandinista attacks kept the Chamorro government on the brink of foreign exchange disaster, fueling the revanchist right, including several hundred armed ex-contras. Recent signals from the Clinton administration suggest a more balanced approach. However, in the May Sandinista congress, Ortega's forces soundly defeated his rival, Ramirez, in what may prove to be a victory costly for party unity. It is the case, though, that an enlarged National Directorate will have some Ramirez supporters.

As weak as they have become, the Sandinistas are still the largest organized political force in Nicaragua. They have little financial base, but then neither do the other political parties, though Alemán has conservative financial backers among Nicaraguans and Cubans in Miami. The vacuum may permit the rise of Alemán, but he too faces many obstacles, including a downtrodden and impoverished electorate, too cynical to support a right-wing demagogue. Were there an election tomorrow, the no-shows would win in a landslide.

Some see in Alemán the rise of a new Somoza and in the ARENA victory simply a perpetuation of the landed oligarchy, now through elections rather than military force. The current political scene is not, however, a return to the 1970s in either Nicaragua or El Salvador. The Sandinistas have much more strength than they did before 1978, though they face more cynicism as well. Their government-created popular organizations, though heavily damaged, have significant political power, more power than anybody else's organizations. The Salvadoran left has gained an electoral foothold and good-sized, though divided, bench in the Assembly. Despite the lingering presence of death squads, it faces radically safer political conditions than it did before the war.

Each left group can build on these strengths, attack their government's unsuccessful structural adjustment model, and attempt to gain power -- hoping that US policy will be, if not neutral, more passive than it has been. In the 1980s, the left in each country confronted desperate conditions, largely created by the United States, and fought US-backed forces to a standstill. But then the left had considerably more organizational unity and programmatic coherence than it does now. To defeat their adversaries in the murkier post-Cold War world of the 1990s, they will need to forge a unified force around an electoral program that offers a clear cut alternative to the incumbent governments' policies. Whether they will succeed -- where left parties in so many other countries have not -- remains to be seen.

For reports on the electoral and peace processes in El Salvador and Nicaragua, contact Hemisphere Initiatives at 130 Prospect St., Cambridge, MA 02139; (617) 354-1896.