I believe firmly that Daniel Ortega, the leader of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN), will win in Nicaragua's November 6 elections. There are two triumphs – in the 1984 and the 2006 elections – on Ortega's record, and recent polls give him around 50% of the vote this year, with the scores of his rivals combined measuring under 40%.
Sketchily, Ortega's agenda reads as a synthesis of national solidarity, Christian values, and socialism. Thanks to serious Chavez-style welfare programs aimed at making affordable housing plus free education and medical care available to the population, Ortega clearly enjoys the support of the poorest Nicaraguans. It also factors into the situation that as of today the Nicaraguan leader has far stronger media backing than any of the Latin American “populist” presidents: three TV channels, one of them run by Ortega's children Luciana, Camila and Maurice, are at work 24 hours propping up Ortega's image.
Nicaragua's liberal elite is predictably concerned that Ortega will manage to retain presidency in the coming elections. At least until recently, a prominent role in the ranks of Ortega's opponents was played by US ambassador R. Callahan whose career trajectory seems to indicate that he belongs to the world of intelligence services much more than to that of diplomacy. In the epoch of the conflict between Nicaragua's Sandinistas and Contras, Callahan served in Honduras in the team of John Negroponte, then US ambassador and a key coordinator of the immoral anti-FSLN campaign. Callahan continued working as Negroponte's PR henchman when the US was fighting a war against Iraq, and later surfaced as a high-ranking figure at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence in Washington.
Callahan made huge efforts to prevent Sandinistas from legitimizing Ortega's (and, in a hypothetic future, somebody else's) re-election bid. To this end, the US embassy orchestrated a campaign in partnership with the parliamentary opposition, pro-US media, schismatic groups in the Nicaraguan administration, NGOs, and dissenting student groups. When the Nicaraguan supreme court issued the verdict that the constitution article banning the incumbent president's entry into competition for a new term was inapplicable, Callahan slammed the court in an emotional outpouring he obviously failed to withhold. The court ruling in favor of Sandinistas dealt a blow to the anti-Ortega plans devised by the US Department of State and the CIA.
The US ambassador in Nicaragua is constantly seeking out opportunities to ignite conflicts between the US and his country of stay. In a stark example, he interfered in Nigaragua's municipal elections and later alleged ballot rigging as a reaction to the Sandinistas' convincing victory. Callahan attempted to debar Leon mayor, a FSLN member, from taking part in the inauguration of an expressway constructed with USAID support and was in return declared persona non grata by the local administration. Hurt by questions about US responsibility for the civilian death toll in Libya, Callahan lashed out at the journalist who persistently asked them and went on to charge that the individual had nothing to do with the media and was tasked with staging a provocation by the Sandinistas government. Occasionally, police and security have to help the US ambassador leave unharmed after his encounters with the Nicaraguan audiences.
On the date celebrated in Nicaragua as the armed forces day, Ortega touched upon the US intelligence agencies' subversive activities in Bolivia, Ecuador, Venezuela, and Cuba. He said the US was implementing a strategy of hate and expressed hope that the Nicaraguan army tested both by war and by peace would prove immune to offers to join US-led conspiracies. Callahan walked out as the statement was being delivered. As a rule, his post-factum defense was based on threats to cut off the US military and economic assistance to Nicaragua which, if Callahan can be trusted on that, currently reaches $60m annually.
For the US, displacing Ortega and installing a loyal leader in Managua are strategic objectives. Presidents of other Central American republics – Salvadore's M. Funes, Guatemala's A. Colom, Honduras' P. Lobo, Costa Rica's L. Chinchilla, and Panama's R. Martinelli – show no signs of defiance in the relations with Washington and are accordingly insulated from criticism, Ortega seeming to be the last obstacle on the way of PAX AMERICANA in Central America.
Facing the pressure internationally, Ortega sticks to his independent policies and strengthens ties with Venezuela, Cuba, Ecuador, and the ALBA bloc. ALBA is openly anti-imperialistic, the idea being that cooperation should boost the ability of member-countries to resist US dominance and to neutralize covert activities and provocations. Even in the populist camp, Ortega leaves an impression of a markedly decisive politician always ready to defy Washington's ire. Recently he unveiled a plan to launch a referendum on demanding $17b in compensations from the US for unleashing the past war in Nicaragua. The compensations – albeit of unspecified proportions – were in fact imposed on Washington by the Hague International Court back in 1986, but since the time several US Administrations ignored the ruling.
Ortega mercilessly criticizes the US tendency to spread capitalism by force across the world, Washington's “wasteful spendings” on wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya, and the US blockade of Cuba which already counts over four decades. Ortega, by the way, says that the US plans to turn NATO might against Russia and warns that the network of NATO bases around Russia is being created to induce the country's partition similar to the demise of the USSR… Ortega holds that today's world needs a strong, influential, and fair Russia which nowadays brings light to the world as the Soviet Union used to. The Nicaraguan leader visited Moscow on December 18, 2008. His talks with Russian president D. Medvedev produced important bilateral deals in the spheres of energy, agriculture, research, space exploration, education, and innovations.
Ortega sided with Russia when it intervened in the conflict between South Ossetia and Pentagon's pet Georgia. Nicaragua recognized the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia in September, 2008, with Ortega stressing that Georgia's being a permanent threat forced Moscow to act. Ortega said he would some day tour the two newly independent republics, and hopefully the plan will materialize during Ortega's third term in office.
Jonathan Farrar, formerly Chief of Mission of the United States Interests Section in Havana, Cuba, succeeded Callahan as the US ambassador to Nicaragua. It has to be taken into account that the US Mission in Cuba is a traditional epicenter of subversive activities meant to undermine Cuba's socialism and to set in motion a color revolution in the country. Young operatives from the CIA and other US intelligence agencies typically gain their first field experiences in Cuba. The appointment of Farrar to Nicaragua shows that the CIA, the US Defense Intelligence Agency, DEA, and likewise institutions are growing unprecedentedly combative in Nicaragua as the country's elections are drawing closer. Currently, Ortega is facing new rounds of traditional allegations concerning his private life along with accusations of pursuing personal material interests, infusing drug money into his campaign, and betraying the ideals of Sandinistas. Fresh ideas are also being thrown in: at the moment hints are dropped that Ortega is wrestling for control over ALBA as allegedly incurable health problems leave Chavez no chance. The campaign of allegations and smear against Ortega is gaining momentum, but the legendary former guerrilla commander must have got used to the rules of the game and knows how not to crack under pressure.
