Ortega, the anti-abortion Sandinista who has conquered the Church

11/ 8/2011

The new President of Nicaragua is inspired by Chávez but is on excellent terms with the Fmi


Pablo Manzo
São Paulo

President Daniele Ortega with Barack Obama

For the third time running, Nicaragua has elected to power the outgoing President Daniel Ortega, the former Sandinista guerrilla who in 1979 defeated the Somoza dictatorship. Hehad ruled the country between 1985 and 1990, after defeating the CIA-funded paramilitary contras. His landslide victory yesterday, with 62% of the votes in the first round, was predictable. Now, this controversial leader who is inspired by Marx, but has come to terms with right-wingers, now faces another five years in power. Accused of rape in the past by one of his daughters and unable, in theory, to stand again according to the Constitution - which in his case was not applied - 65 year old Ortega continues to be a "leftist", especially on the international front. When Gaddafi and NATO intervened in Libya, for example, he maintained the same position as Fidel Castro. For ideological reasons, but perhaps also because one of his top advisers is Mohamed Lashtar, the Colonel's 51 year old cousin. For years Mohamed has managed the flow of capital between Tripoli and Managua.

And Sunday he was elected to Parliament. He holds the same intransigent position, bordering on anti-Semitism, with regards to Palestinian-Israeli issues, perhaps encouraged by his friendship with the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Meanwhile, a few months ago Daniel had even proposed a referendum to ask Washington for millionaire damages for the old Contras issue, dusting out the sentence issued in 1984 against the U.S. by the International Court of Justice. Then, after closing the alliance with the rightists, nothing more was done about it because what is most striking about Ortega is his pragmatism.

He is a Sandinista yes, but he is also at odds with practically all of the original founders of the "Frente", the re-elected president maintains good relations with both the International Monetary Fund and with Taiwan, the bete noire of the emerging China, which opened to the market but is still Communist. Certainly Ortega’s triumph was favored by the two billion dollars that President Chavez slipped into his pocket - something like 7.6% of GDP in Nicaragua, where 78% of the population lives on two dollars a day - between 2007 and today, in other words during his last presidency. The fear of defeat and the closure of the Venezuelan tap certainly influenced voters, who benefit from Ortega’s welfare projects, including the hundreds of cows that his government donated to poor farmers in Nicaragua.

However, Ortega proved his pragmatism on the domestic front, in particular, where he had "his" Sandinista Frente form an alliance with anyone willing to govern with him, regardless of their ideology. From dissident groups of liberals to conservatives, going for a Christian Democrat party to an evangelical one, even a fraction of his enemies par excellence, the Contras, supported him in the end.

The other decisive element for his reappointment was the alliance with the local Catholic Church, as was confirmed within hours of the vote, by an appeal made during the mass by Cardinal Miguel Obando to all the faithful to vote in favor of the "anti-abortion" candidate, in other words Ortega. The Nicaragua of the Sandinista Ortega is now the country with the toughest anti-abortion laws in the world, with penalties of up to six years in prison for women who interrupt their pregnancy and eight years for doctors who assist them. Medical abortions, in cases where the mother risks death, which is common practice in 98% of UN member States, in the Nicaragua governed by the former Sandinista guerrilla, it is prohibited.

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