Those of you whom follow world news know that on November 5th, Nicaraguans held presidential elections as they do every 5 years. For those of you who don’t know, there were three main candidates. First in the running was Jose Rizo of the Liberales, the party on the right and the party that has been in power for the last 16 years. Second, we had Comandante Daniel Ortega of the Sandinistas, the leftist party responsible for the revolution against the Somoza dictatorship in the 80’s. Daniel (pronounced Danielle) was president of Nicaragua during the revolutionary years and is close with Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro (read: not the horse the U.S. was backing). Finally, we had an uncharacteristically popular third party candidate, Eduardo Montealegre, who broke off from the Liberales, formed his own party and enjoyed strong support from the U.S. government. All the polls prior to Election Day predicted a close race between Daniel and Montealegre.
There were months and months of preparation leading up to the election. Pretty much every adult I know was trained to run or supervise the election process in various communities in my municipality. People stuck party propaganda posters to the sides of their houses, hung their party flags outside, and donned their party baseball caps. One morning after a night without power, we all awoke to find the entire town (sidewalks, gutters, and the dock) covered in spray painted messages about Rizo and the Liberal party. A quaint touch was that often, Rizo and his vice presidential candidate’s names were misspelled. Nice try, guys.
Many Nicaraguans feel very strongly about their party and as a result, there is high voter turnout. There are also many Nicaraguans who abstain from voting because they say that all the candidates are the same, that is to say, they’re all corrupt crooks who don’t do anything for the people. As Doña Melena, the woman who cooks at my host mother’s house, explained to me, “Politicians are like boyfriends, they promise you everything but in the end, they just fuck you.” Poignant words, I think, from a woman who regularly spits on the kitchen floor.
As Peace Corps Volunteers, we were instructed to stay as far away from the elections as possible. We weren’t to express any political preference or participate at all in the electoral process. When I asked if we could run mock elections (like between chocolate and vanilla) in the schools in order to teach about the democratic process, I was told no. Although the U.S. ambassador was more than vocal throughout the election process, we had to keep mum. That didn’t stop people in my community from trying to assign me a party. Whenever they asked whom I supported, I told them the Democratic party of the United States. They would then ask me if that party was on the right or the left. “The left”, I told them. “Then you’re a Sandinista!” They would tell me, despite my protests of impartiality.
A little more than 24 hours before the election (and for 48 hours afterwards), Nicaragua went dry. The sale of liquor was prohibited in order to prevent drunken violence and keep things calm. I found this to be a little paternalistic on the part of the government, I mean we are talking about grown adults here; arguably they should be able to control themselves. But at the same time I understood. Especially in the rural zones, Nicaraguans like to booze and shoot guns. Not the best combination when political passions run high.
Finally, the 5th, Election Day arrived and…nothing. My town was totally calm and it was like any other Sunday. In all honesty, I was a little disappointed. I was hoping for a little excitement, maybe a fight or two, something. I went up to the polling stations (all at the one school in my town) to check things out. People were lined up outside of the classrooms and some had told me they had been waiting for three hours in the intermittent rain and hot sun. Once they got inside to vote, their thumb was painted with a dark ink that doesn’t come off for days and they commenced marking their ballots with X’s and then stuffed them into cardboard boxes. I’d say it reminded me of our high school student government elections but even then we used scantron sheets. So, in a way, it kind of reminded me of Valentine’s Day in elementary school when we went around putting our valentines in the decorated cardboard shoe boxes of our classmates. But only if you had a valentine for everyone in the class, no one should feel excluded on Valentine’s Day.
Anyway, by 6 pm, the polls closed on Sunday. We had to wait until 6 pm on Tuesday to know the official results. This seems like a ridiculously long time to wait until you take into account communities like La Quezada in my municipality where people had to walk 6 hours just to bring their results to Sábalos where they had to be recounted before they were called in. And of course all the votes have to be counted and recounted by hand, which takes an incredibly long time. Because so many Nicaraguans feel so strongly about their parties, they are a good check on each other and according to all the international observers, it was a very transparent and fair election.
Finally, last night, the results were in and a winner declared. Daniel Ortega! Triumph for the Sandinistas!! My town is pretty evenly divided between Sandinistas and Liberales (Montealegre was supported more by city folk), so there were many very excited people shooting off fire crackers and playing their Sandinista propaganda music:
“El pueblo unido, jamas será vencido!” translation:
“The united people will never be defeated!” At the dock, all the children of Sandinista families were rounding up the children of Liberal families and throwing them in the river. I guess you could say that party loyalties run deep and start young.
Now, the Sandinistas have another chance at governance. Only time will tell how they perform this time around. One thing is for sure, after 16 years of the Liberal party in power, Nicaraguans wanted a change for the better. I hope they get it.
