Elections here, elections there, elections everywhere! So to all of you that wrote me interested in what went on in the elections down here...this is Bree's official election blog entry. Can I just start by saying how impressed I was to get so many emails, even amidst a heated election at home. So first, here's how I personally spent the election weekend.
It was a long weekend, the election was on Sunday but everyone had Monday off of work as well. So, the way elections work here is that each party has a team of people allover the country who "work" the elections. These workers are citizen observers from all parties that all work together to monitor elections. The sisters in my house, Margarita (31) and Lila (29) each worked the elections for the MRS party. So, for the weekend, Gloria (my host-mom) signed up to be the regional cook for the volunteers working the elections. That meant we (Gloria and I) were in charge of preparing 4 meals for 50 MRS election workers during the weekend. It all started Friday night when we packaged beans and rice, cheese, and coffee for fifty. Gloria and I created an assembly line and boxed up the meals. When people stopped by and commented on how hard we were working, Gloria told them how good of a packager I was "because she has worked in restaurants." Anyway, so 24 more hours of almost continuous carrot chopping, bean and rice sorting, chicken thawing, and coffee tasting, in the end we packaged over 200 meals for MRS election workers. Gloria explained to me that they have always worked in the elections. Several times they have done this same job for the FSLN (Sandinista National Liberation Front), before they withdrew their support. This is her way of contributing to the democratic process and really it was a great way for me to feel like I did something too. On Monday, while everyone awaited the results, everyone in the house was anxious. Gloria said her rheumatism was acting up because of stress and so she made some relaxation herbal tea that we all drank. The votes here are paper ballots so the results trickle in...in a painful process really that keeps everyone glued to the tv for days at a time. At mid-day on Monday we took a break and watched Lord of the Rings.
So, now it's Tuesday night (when I wrote this blog in my journal...it's actually Wed morning as I'm typing it). The results are in...well mostly. Over 90% of the votes have been counted and everyone is accepting that Daniel Ortega has won. The second place candidate already gave a graceful defeat speech, and there have been no real charges of fraud. Daniel won with about 38%, with the next guy Eduardo Montealegre (the US brain-child) with 29%, and then the rest split between the other 3 candidates. This country is basically split between people who love Daniel Ortega, and people who hate him. As the polls show, 38% love him I guess, and 62% hate him. But it was fair, it was democratic, and the Nicaraguan people chose their president in a heated election amidst incredible intimidation from the US. About 75% of the eligible population voted. This is how democracy works folks...people getting out and voting...the US should be ashamed of our average 45% of voters. As I write this blog in my dark room in a barrio called Ciudad Sandino, the sounds I hear are the inevitable roosters, faint screams coming from the horror movie my family is watching in the living room, and someone nearby is also shooting off fireworks and blasting the perpetual John Lennon "Give Peace a Chance" chorus that is the soundtrack of the FSLN (Ortega's party). People are celebrating…well at least 38% of the people.
What do I think this victory means for Nicaragua? Well I only wish I knew...everyone's pretty much waiting to see what will happen. Some people are convinced that peasants will get titles to their land, that education financing will increase, and that they will begin tackling the enormous gap between poverty and wealth in the this country. Others (about 62% of people I reckon) are holding their breath, hoping the Chinese owners of the sweatshops they work in won't pack up and head out (leaving them unemployed), hoping that they won't have lines at the grocery stores with empty shelves, and hoping that the money their family sends them from the US won't be cut off. It's kind of quiet here...everyone's waiting.
Basically, here are some thoughts of Ortega. I can't say this is “what I think of Ortega”, because that's too committal...but here are some thoughts. Ortega has come a long way since his defeat in 1990...and even farther from his FSLN victory in 1980. Ortega was president of the FSLN throughout the whole revolution of the 1980's, and then in 1990 the people elected a US-friendly neo-liberal president after a decade of crippling US economic sanctions and war. Since then, he has remained the powerful force behind one of the biggest parties in Nicaragua (FSLN). For the past 16 years since Ortega's first presidency, Nicaragua has had one US backed neo-liberal president after another...and the common theme has been that they have robbed funds from the people (including millions of Hurricane Mitch relief money) and turned Nicaragua into a tax-free playground for multinational corporations that are drawn here by cheap labor. My nica sister Lila has a college degree and works 40 hours week at a sweat shop, earning $80/month. Nicaragua is the second poorest country in the hemisphere (second only to Haiti), 78% of the people live on less that 2$ a day. The neo-liberalism of the past 16 years has been a load of empty promises.
So during the past 16 years, Ortega has been pulling strings and collaborating with power-elites (often times the very ones that were stealing money) in order to rewrite the laws that would someday favor him in an election and he's also kicked people out of the FSLN party that speak out against him. His personal fortunes seems to be continuously growing (substantiated by the 5 mercedes benz SUV's parked in his driveway). He even underwent a "religious conversion" (sound familiar?) that won him the support of the catholic church. Basically that conversion just entails an anti-abortion platform and throwing "gracias a Dios" around in his speeches...but I digress.
So, he won...fair and square...and sometimes I have hope that he will be different than the presidents of the past 16 years. That maybe he will restore some dignity to Nicaragua, and try to chip away at the ol' poverty block. Maybe he'll have some solutions of how to do this that will fall outside of the abomination that is "trickle down economics." Some of his supporters say that he just played the last 16 years smart...making friends with the devils on many occasions, so that he could end up where he is right now, as president, where he can do something good. Machiavellian politics at its best I guess (you know..."the ends justify the means"). And then there's the US factor. People are still scared. And although lots of people feel betrayed by Ortega, the overwhelming reason why people are scared of him...is their fear in what the US will do. What if they put up an embargo (like they did in the 80's)? What if they cut off the aid? What if they cut off the money people send us? AHHHH!!! So we'll see. I personally, think that things are different now than they were in the 80's. Nicaragua, regardless of who its president is, has few economic options. We are in an era where poor countries not only have their hands tied by rich countries, but also by institutional financial structures like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. There are strict "free market" restrictions imposed on these countries that provide no wiggle room. Ortega has already vowed to cooperate with international investment and to continue participation in CAFTA (Central American Free Trade Agreement). So as far as I'm concerned...it's gonna be neo-liberal business as usual for now.
So having said that, why is the US so fired up? Because the US acts like an ass sometimes. If the US would just open their eyes and smell the friggin sweatshops, they would see that Ortega has changed a lot, and is looking more and more like someone they would support. Whether you see that change as a good or bad thing, well that's the big debate I guess. Did I mention that Ortega's vice president is a former leader of the contras? (those who faught against the Sandinistas in the 80's?) Yeah...how's that for "reconciliation" for you? That's been Ortega's whole campaign...peace and conciliation. we'll see.
Final thoughts: I'm partially disillusioned, I don't think the best person won (Edmundo Jarquin with the MRS)...but the worst people did not win either (Montealegre or Rizo). I hope Daniel Ortega has just been acting like an asshole for the past few years so he could get in power and really shake things up in a good way. I am glad that Nicaragua stood up to the US after an election filled with intimidation and threats, I hope that the US is learning one country at a time that "democracy promotion" includes accepting the decisions that democratic countries make. I'm also glad I will be listening to John Lennon for the next year.
That was the end of the election blog:
So guess what. So, my family recently got a new tv, a gift from a cousin, and this one has a dvd player. So for the past week i've been watching movies. But for some reason, the family only wants to watch horror movies. In the past week i've had my mind horrifyingly filled with mother's drowing their children to extract the evil deamons, chinese women who see dead people, and most recently, a exorcism thriller. About 30 minutes into the exorcism thriller, I decided it was enough, I excused myself to go to my room and read. But, as I moved a skirt out of the way to make room for newly folded clothes...guess what i found..a scorpion. The scene was surely something that would have fit into any of the horror movies I've watched this week. I've learned to be comfortable with a lot in Nicaragua...pelting rabid dogs with rocks, sharing my living space with mice, bats, bull frogs, but I will not...I repeat not...tolerate scorpions. After several hard blows by a sandal, I triumphed victorious, but I'll probably sleep with the light on tonight. oh my god.
much love..bree
