By Yader Lanuza
December 03,
202:
Information Clearing House
-- "Covert
Action"As
predicted by
multiple
polls, the Sandinistas, led by Daniel Ortega, won a
resounding
victory on the November 7th elections
in Nicaragua. The elections were a
referendum on the path that the Sandinista
government has taken the country, which is grounded
on large investments in social programs that have
benefited people, especially the most
disadvantaged, in every nook and cranny of the
national territory.
Support for the reelection of the Sandinista
government was astounding. Of the entire patron
electoral (eligible voters), about 65% came out
to vote and, of those, about
75.9% voted for the FLSN (Sandinista National
Liberation Front)
alliance ticket.
The victory of Sandinistas generated expected
attacks, which seek to delegitimize the newly
elected government in Nicaragua. The
U.S., Canada,
EU,
OAS and their proxies–cynically claiming to be
acting on behalf of the “Nicaraguan people”—seek to
cripple the Sandinista government’s ability to
provide for its population. The November 7th
elections revealed the will of the Nicaraguan
people; but because this will does not align with
U.S. preferences, the elections are marred as
“illegitimate,” a “sham,” and “authoritarian.”
Some in the Western imperial left, including
academics and journalists, have joined the U.S.
State Department in attempting to delegitimize the
will of the Nicaraguan electorate and to demonize
the Sandinista government—like with other left-wing
counterparts across Latin America.
These individuals legitimize the economic and
political attack against Nicaragua. The burden will
be heaviest for the working class. Importantly, the
mainstream media and the imperial left did not go
on-the-ground to speak to farmers, union members,
indigenous communities, or low-income Nicaraguans
about the electoral process, their preferences, and
the reason for those preferences. Worse yet, they
ignored the
multiple
outlets that did just that.
None of these individuals parroting imperial
propaganda decried the unjust
detention of Steve Sweeny, a journalist and
editor of the Morning Star Daily, Britain’s only
socialist newspaper, who was prevented by Mexico
from covering the Nicaraguan elections.
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Instead, these stenographers condemned the
electoral process from afar, portraying a dystopian
world inside Nicaragua despite not providing a shred
of on-the-ground evidence. A self-described “left”
outlet, for example, would rather talk to clowns
spewing right-wing imperialist talking points in
Costa Rica than to working class people in
Nicaragua, whose opinion they have ignored and
suppressed in their coverage.
Unlike these propagandists, I spoke to Nicaraguan
factory workers, domestic workers, stay-at-home
mothers, truck drivers, farmers, and community
leaders in the outskirts of the city of Estelí,
where international electoral companions
observed a free and fair election. I sought the
opinions of Sandinistas and those who do not
identify as such to understand electoral results.
Below, I document the reasons why the Sandinista
government enjoys support from the majority of the
electorate as well as grievances some sectors of the
population wish the government would address. The
platitude-, lie-, and interventionist-filled
propaganda from Western media, the imperial left,
and interventionist governments do not come close to
providing an accurate picture of Nicaragua, its
culture, or its popular will—or explaining the
resounding Sandinista electoral win.
Abstentions: The Case of Esteban
I spoke to Esteban (all names are pseudonyms) on
the eve of the elections. Esteban is not a
Sandinista—by a long shot. He is a sort of
jack-of-all trades handy-man. He is a blue-collar
worker who does not support the Sandinista
government. Esteban’s main grievance is, he argues,
that Nicaraguans pay too much taxes. This concern
was startling to me, because he does not pay into
the IR system—a 15% income tax.
He suggests that income taxes should be capped at
7%. When I asked him about government projects that
taxes help fund, he acknowledged them. He
acknowledged, too, that these projects are
beneficial to the population, but each time he
articulated something wrong with them. For example,
Esteban suggests that people who do not use public
services, like hospitals, should not pay for them.
He does not argue that Nicaraguans should not
have public hospitals. In fact, I was surprised at
his defense of a public system. Esteban argued we
should have a public system, but that it is
unfair for those who do not use it to pay for it. He
had an accident recently and had major surgery in
Nicaragua at no cost in a public hospital. His
perspective reminded me of the
“all-government-is-bad” opinion held by many sectors
of the rightwing in the United States. Importantly,
he did not vote.
What Can We Learn from Esteban? Myths
and Reality about Abstentions
I begin with Esteban because one of the attacks
against the legitimacy of the Sandinista electoral
victory is that there was massive abstention due to
political repression. This is demonstrably
false. Esteban did not tell me that he feared
political repression for his views, which he
articulated loudly and proudly; political repression
did not figure in his decision not to vote.
His abstention stemmed from his worldview about
governments more generally, especially one whose
politics prioritize investment in the public sphere
for which communal sacrifices are shared.
Furthermore, abstention in this election cycle
was not widespread, as the U.S.-backed opposition
had hoped and called for. In the figure below, I
chart election participation history in Nicaragua
since 1984, including the percentage of those who
ended up voting (% participation), and, out of those
who participated, the percentage who voted for the
FSLN. Voter participation is rather stable since the
FSLN returned to power in 2006—between a low of 61%
(in 2006) and a high of 73% (in 2011)—after a steady
decline in participation during the neoliberal
period (1990-2006).
In this election cycle, the percentage
participating was 65%. The chart also shows that
percentage support for the FSLN has been increasing
since their return to
power.
The 80% abstention rate that some in the
mainstream media and imperial left are repeating is
a baseless
lie. Ben Norton looked into the one
organization that has made up the “80%” abstention
statistic:
Urnas Abiertas. He thoroughly documents
its unseriousness, but, more importantly, its links
to the U.S.-funded opposition, part of a larger
regime-change effort against the FSLN.
For example, he documents that the only two
people who have been publicly identified with this
organization are “both partisan right-wing activists
who work in the Western government-funded
nonprofit-industrial complex, without any technical
background or experience in election monitoring.”
Organizations like this pop up to provide their
regime-change operations a veneer of independence
and credibility.
“Soft” Support for the Sandinista
Government
Carlos is a driver by trade. Yuniel and Joel are
factory workers. Before my conversation about the
elections with them, I rarely heard them say much
about politics. The few things that I had heard were
criticisms. I really wanted to understand their
perspective because I thought they would be in favor
of the opposition.
I was wrong.
Yuniel is primarily concerned with taxes. He
informs me that his salary is not enough; therefore,
he is upset that he has to pay income taxes from it.
He deems it unfair having to pay more taxes if he
earns more (in absolute terms, because the rate is
fixed). It seemed to me that Yuniel was unclear as
to what the taxes are used for, which many explain
part of his frustration. Carlos says he mostly keeps
his opinions to himself because he works with
different kinds of people with varying political
views. Carlos is a sub-contractor for a
government-funded infrastructure project. He stated
that the Sandinista government has done both good
things and things he disagreed with.
He describes his job and pay as good, a
consequence of infrastructure investments from the
government. He is afraid that a new (opposition)
president would not invest as much in
infrastructure, which would decrease jobs and other
economic activities. Joel, finally, does not say
much. On the eve of the election, Joel said that the
president had done good things. He said it as if to
say, we have to admit it. As with Carlos,
he also said that if another person wins the
presidency, this new president will invest less.
Yuniel, Carlos, and Joel, despite disagreements
with the Sandinista government, support the
re-election of Daniel Ortega because any other
individual—from an opposition party—will not invest
as much in the country.
“Soft” Support for Sandinismo and Its
Dynamics Across Nicaragua
Yuniel, Carlos and Joel exemplify what some
characterize as “soft support” for the FSLN. The
opposition (inside and outside the country) hopes to
remove Ortega to decapitate and neutralized
Sandinismo. To do so, they demonize Daniel
Ortega—and his family.
This strategy has not been successful. Yuniel,
Carlos, and Joel acknowledge that the Sandinista
government has invested in broad-reaching social
programs and public infrastructure. President
Ortega, they say, has accomplished “good things,”
whereas a new president will steal without investing
in the country. Government projects will not
occur with an opposition-led administration. The
support for public health, in particular, is
palpable. I asked Carlos what would happen if any
government tried to privatized the hospital system.
Immediately, he replied: It would not happen;
Nicaraguans would rise up in defiance against such a
move. In short, despite vague criticism, all three
supported the re-election of Daniel Ortega and the
Sandinista government.
Although it was my impression that Yuniel was the
least likely to vote for the continuation of the
Sandinista government (if voting at all), on
election day, he revealed that he voted for the FSLN
alliance ticket.
Further “soft support” partly explains why the
FSLN achieved a remarkable 75.9% support among
Nicaraguan voters. The journalist William Grigsby
points out that there were municipalities in which
Daniel Ortega received
more votes than there are registered
Sandinistas. This dynamic occurred, for example, in
six out of eight municipalities of Caribe Sur,
including Paigua, La Desenbocadura de Rio Grande,
Corn Island, and Parlagu. Even non-Sandinistas,
Grisby shows, voted for Daniel Ortega across the
country.
Voto ideologico, on the other hand, is a
vote for the FSLN that is not only rooted in support
of the socialist-oriented policies of the Sandinista
government, but one that recognizes the importance
of the FSLN as a revolutionary project against
imperialism whose significance in and out of
Nicaragua lies in providing an alternative to the “savage”
capitalism that the U.S. wants to impose on the
country—and the world. In the
latest credible poll before the election, the
expected “voto suave” (soft vote) constituted 17.4%
support for the FSLN.
In addition to the soft vote, support from those
who “tend to vote” (4.5%) for the FSLN and those who
strongly support the FSLN (voto duro, 53.4%) add up
to the expected more than 70% support for the FSLN
in the elections. The FSLN eventually attained 75.9%
of the vote on Nov. 7th.
Yuniel, Carlos and Joel are part of the “soft”
support that materialized for the FSLN. Even those
who have disagreements with the government, cannot
deny—and, in fact, defend—socialist policies that
have benefited all of Nicaraguan society.
Falsehoods From the U.S.-backed
Opposition
To provide ammunition for those who seek to
delegitimize the Sandinista government, the
CID-Gallup (not part of the internationally known
Gallup) completed a poll on behalf of the opposition
that presented widely inaccurate predictions. Unlike
the M&R
Consultores, which had completed a number of
polls across Nicaragua in the months leading up to
the election, the one CID-Gallup poll stated that
only 19% of the population supported Daniel Ortega.
This poll ignores over 2 million card-carrying
Sandinistas in the country and votes from
individuals like Yuniel, Carlos and Joel. The
implausible CID-Gallup poll, which has been
criticized for its methodology, does not
accurately capture “hard” support and totally
ignores “soft” support.
None of the people I spoke to expressed support
for the U.S.-funded opposition members currently
detained. The U.S.-funded opposition are lionized by
the West outside of Nicaragua. Inside the country,
they are largely ignored.
Even if the U.S.-funded opposition had
participated in the elections, it wouldn’t have made
any difference in the outcome; this faction of the
opposition does not have much support in the
country, perhaps only among the (very tiny) upper
class.
Reporters have documented their political
irrelevance. None of my interviewees—not even
Esteban—told me they would have voted for any of the
people currently in jail whom the mainstream media
and imperial leftists—untethered from reality—call
“pre-presidential candidates,” “presidential
hopefuls,” or more recently “presidential
candidates.” No matter how many times this lie is
debunked, it re-appears like a regime-change
zombie.
Why Does the U.S.-backed Opposition Have
So Little Support?
To understand why the U.S.-funded opposition has
so little support, we have to remember at least two
things. First, the U.S.-funded opposition never
coalesced around a single candidate.
Hunger for power fueled infighting and prevented
a viable opposition coalition. They only share
hatred towards Sandinismo and reliance on U.S.
funding.
Frustrated, the U.S. (including its embassy in
Nicaragua) was working on getting everyone behind
Cristiana Chamorro (to the chagrin of others in the
opposition). She was being groomed to be the
Nicaraguan Guaidó.
Video of a meeting with U.S. officials and their
lackeys show how giddy regime changers were about
her placement (not election!) in power, repeatedly
calling her “President Chamorro.”
The Sandinista government dismantled this plan,
which unraveled after her corruption was
exposed and she was subsequently placed under
house arrest.
The second issue is even more important. The
U.S.-funded opposition in jail (and abroad) is
intimately associated with the 2018 deadly
barricades and subsequent havoc they wreaked on the
country. For this reason, even those who disagree
with some aspects of the Sandinista government are
not turning to the U.S.-funded opposition,
and do not care about their detention.
The U.S.-backed attempted
coup d’état in 2018 was detrimental for most
people in the country. There is no support for
another violent clash, as as it inflicted
economic, psychological, and social devastation
on most of the society, especially the most
disadvantaged.
For example, in total, the estimated economic
losses due to the coup is about
$24,000 million dollars, which include
$206.5 million dollars’ worth of damage to local
and national governmental institutions, the collapse
of
8,708 small businesses, and loss of 119,000
jobs.
The last thing Nicaraguans want is violence in
their communities, after having lived through the
barricades in 2018 that destroyed the household
economy for most Nicaraguans—regardless of political
leanings. I was in Nicaragua at the time. Only those
who lived through it can understand the coup’s
horror.
According to Danto, a campesino who works the
land for a living, only the upper class, especially
members of the COSEP (Nicaragua’s powerful chamber
of commerce), want another revuelta
(violent clash), because they are able to weather
its associated economic storm and will eventually
recoup losses (should they suffer any). COSEP loudly
supported the 2018 attempted coup d’état.
Had it succeeded, members of the COSEP would have
wielded more political and economic power, hoarding
even more wealth away from the Nicaraguan people.
[In an opposition newspaper in Nicaragua, which is
the voice of the upper-class opposition, there are
renewed calls for another revuelta.]
Rejection to violence was loud and clear across
the country on election day. As of this writing, not
a
single violent incident has been documented at
polling places on what turned out to be a
peaceful election day. Thus, it is not true that
Daniel Ortega won re-election because some members
of the U.S.-backed opposition currently detained did
not participate. Nicaraguans do not want what they
have to offer.
A Final Lesson from “Soft” Supporters of
the Sandinista Government
Yuniel, Carlos, Joel and Esteban all articulate
something else: Health care is a fundamental right
and should be provided for free. This idea is now
entrenched in Nicaragua society, after fourteen
years of the second phase of the Sandinista
revolution.
Nicaraguans have come to expect public
and free access to medical care. Support for the
idea that education should be a fundamental right is
also prevalent. Should anyone try to privatize these
services, they will find considerable resistance.
Privatization efforts, especially of public
services, will face stiff resistance, even among
non-Sandinistas. This is because public access to
these services benefits most of the society.
Nicaraguans do not spend anywhere near in health
care as they do in the U.S. Even some right-wing
Nicaraguans who have gained green cards or have been
naturalized in the United States and are doing well
economically take care of their medical needs in
free and public hospitals in Nicaragua, given how
expensive they are in the United States (while
railing against the Sandinista government that
provides it).
The “Hard Vote” and a Winning Strategy
Virna, Juliana, and Fanor are part of the “hard
vote” and the heart of the Sandinista revolution
victory at the polls. All three are active members
of the FSLN.
Virna, a domestic worker with kids, comes from a
family of Sandinistas. She sees her militancy as a
family legacy that must endure. She supports Daniel
Ortega and his government because, above all, he
looks out for the poor. Everyone whom I interviewed
who identified as Sandinista (whether or not they
were directly involved in politics) said this,
over and over again. The Sandinista government,
they repeated, cares about the most disadvantaged.
Virna explained to me that the FSLN had been
organizing and were prepared to win this election.
As a leader, part of her responsibilities included
finding people to help at the polls; she also made
sure they had what they needed (including coffee!)
and were safe, though she did not work the polls
(because she is a local leader for the FSLN—it is
against the rules).
She and her colleagues arranged transportation
for the elderly and disabled people who wanted to
vote but had no means of getting to the polls. Virna
was not worried about the FSLN losing the election,
because, as she argues, there have been so many
benefits for the population, including public
and free health care, that it is inconceivable for
most of the population to want to put a break on
those services. Fanor agreed.
Fanor, a younger local leader, told me that the
FSLN’s winning strategy was simple:
acompañamiento a las familias (to accompany
families) to help address their needs. For some time
now, the FSLN has been working to make sure that, as
he says, the Sandinista government has a strong and
constant presence within households, not just during
election time.
Fanor listed a range of services and programs
from the Sandinista government that he has helped
deliver, including helping elderly with wheelchairs,
providing food to those in need, Plan Techo
(giving roofing material for disadvantaged
households), community cleaning, cemetery upkeep,
defraying costs associated with funeral services,
disseminating information about vaccination,
building communal homes, providing access to clean
water, Bono Productivo (in which women are
given pigs, chickens, and cows to stimulate
household
food
sovereignty and economic subsistence), and
others.
These local activities, he argues, constitute one
type of help the FSLN provides to families. The FSLN,
he says, is working on a range of other projects to
spur economic growth and to build on food
sovereignty. He notes that the FSLN is not relying
on big business to spur economic growth. They are
working on economic self-sufficiency, prioritizing
small and medium businesses and enterprises. His
comments are supported by the data.
The Sandinista government’s incentives for a “people’s
economy”—one that primarily relies on production
from families, communities, cooperatives and
associations (small and medium
producers/enterprises)—have grown dramatically since
the 2018 coup d’état. Although the Sandinista
government had been supporting a people’s economy
prior to the attempted 2018 coup, the reliance on
the capitalist class for wealth generation was
higher prior to 2018 than it was subsequently.
Fanor also explained to me that home visits are
key to their strategy because community members
often do not air all of their grievances in public
forums. But in the privacy of their homes, they are
more forthcoming about issues they would like
addressed in their communities.
As such, he and other people serve as conduits
between community members—of all political
stripes—and their local FSLN governments.
Importantly, the services that Fanor and his
associates help deliver are distributed Parejo—to
everyone, irrespective of political affiliation.
Juliana, a stay-at-home mother and FSLN community
leader, underscored this point.
Juliana, who takes care of a family member, told
me that, as a FSLN community leader, she sees her
work as providing for her community and delivering
government assistance to all who need it, regardless
of political leaning. She started working with the
FSLN after being inspired by the Sandinista triumph
in Managua in 1979.
Her mother also has a long history of supporting
Sandinistas. Juliana reached her leadership position
due to internationally
recognized
gender equality efforts from the FSLN, for which
Nicaragua ranks, in 2021, #1 in the Americas. She
notes that before the FSLN returned to power, there
were few, if any, benefits from the government.
Since 2007, she has worked on helping deliver a
range of projects to her community. Recently, she
helped shepherd an electricity project for her town.
Sandinistas and non-Sandinistas benefited from this
and other projects in which she has been involved,
including Plan Techo. She notes that even
liberals—a term used for people who support
some faction of the opposition—can see what the
government has accomplished for them. She even notes
that some Sandinistas get upset because
liberales are given jobs at governmental
institutions and use these posts to rail against—and
undermine—the revolutionary Sandinista project.
All three expected the FSLN to win, describing
free and fair elections in peace in their respective
communities. Juliana told me that most people in her
community came out to vote in the afternoon after
church. She informed me that because a faction of
the opposition had called for a no vote, at least
one bus company who supported the opposition did not
offer its services that Sunday. This had a
negligible impact on participation because voting
locations were widely available. People drove,
walked, or got rides to their voting center.
Rank-and-file Sandinistas
I also spoke to Helena, Danto, and Tamo. These
individuals support Sandinistas and Helena and Danto
identify as such. I did not ask Tamo if he did as
well, though it would be surprising if he didn’t
identify as Sandinista. All three noted the
importance of voting.
Danto recalled that during the Somoza
dictatorship, in his town, the vote was bought and
paid for with 5 córdobas, a nacatamal (a local
dish), and un trago (alcohol). Sandinistas changed
all of that, he said. Sandinistas supported the most
vulnerable citizens with literacy campaigns, social
rights, a legitimate legal authority, and the
reduction of corruption in government.
He noted, with confidence, that because
Sandinismo advocates for the poor and Sandinistas
are well organized, it will be hard to topple the
Sandinista government. Helena, along similar lines,
argues that the Sandinista government has provided
hospitals, schools,
housing, and social security benefits to
Nicaraguans. In the neoliberal years, she said, they
did not get any of that.
A family member of hers received the Bono
Productivo and has been trained to work the
land to support household economic independence and
food sovereignty. She told me that Sandinistas will
be in power as long as they have popular support.
Ana, an elderly woman, told me that Sandinistas are
people of good conscience. Daniel Ortega, in
particular, is a good man, she says, who helps those
most in need. Reverence for El Comandante
(Ortega) has been documented
elsewhere. During the Somoza dictatorship, she
did not vote, but has voted Sandinista ever since
the triumph of the revolution.
Of all the people I spoke to, I gathered Tamo had
the least material resources. He works as a
cuidandero, or someone who is hired to live in
someone else’s land to work it and protect it so
that its harvest is not stolen from its owner. Tamo
is shy, but agreed to speak with me about the
forthcoming elections. He had never been interviewed
before (like on TV, he said).
He mentioned the new hospitals, but spent more
time talking about the
roads that the Sandinista government has
built and fixed over the last 14 years in the
town he hails from—far away from where he works. The
roads, he says, have made a big difference to people
in his town, who can now move their “commodities”
with ease and sell them elsewhere.
He had been planning to go back to his hometown
to vote, but, due to his job, he was not
able to vote. In addition to Danto, Sandinistas who
left for the U.S. were not able to vote during this
election cycle. As Juliana notes, support for the
re-election of Daniel Ortega and the Sandinista
government would have been higher had all those
people been able to vote.
The Attempted U.S.-backed Coup D’état in
2108: Its Role in the Electoral Win of the FSLN
Alliance Ticket
Virna, Juliana, and Fanor all agree that the FSLN
is more organized now than it was prior to the
attempted U.S.-backed coup d’état in 2018, which,
for each of them, was quite difficult to live
through. Fanor noted that he was targeted through
social media.
Although Fanor was disappointed by some young
people in his generation who initially bought the
U.S.-backed propaganda, he and others worked with
families during the attempted coup to make sure
their family members did not join the deadly
barricades so as to avoid a tragedy, which would
have divided the community. Not a lot of people in
his community, he says, got involved in the coup.
During the attempted coup and after, he and his
comrades worked to debunk the various lies from the
U.S.-funded opposition.
Fanor tells me that he knew that the coup was not
going to work because he saw, first hand, how much
families were suffering economically as a result of
the revuelta, which prevented them from
getting to and from work, from reaching hospitals,
or from completing other necessary tasks. Thousands
of small family business
collapsed. Fanor saw how angry community members
were about the devastation.
Virna was the subject of attacks and insults from
her neighbors. She was surprised because she had
been working in her community by providing help and
shepherding projects for everyone, regardless of
political affiliation. There was a point at the
height of the violence that she thought about
resigning from her post as FSLN community leader,
but she decided to remain steadfast in her work.
Compañeros protected and took care of
her, because she is well known in her community.
They were afraid that she was being targeted for an
attack, which were rampant against Sandinistas all
over the country.
Sandinistas were
subjected to insults, beating, torture,
burnings, and killings; some had their property
vandalized or destroyed. Virna spoke heartbreakingly
about how difficult it was to endure during the 2018
coup attempt. She used to cry, she says, every time
someone was killed, including a young man from her
community who was shot in the back by opposition
mercenaries. Her story underscores the importance of
women in the resistance to the attempted 2018 coup
d’état.
Juliana relayed similar fears during the coup due
to her leadership in the community. She did not go
to the city because she feared the barricades.
Juliana was afraid she would be recognized as
Sandinista and targeted. She was petrified of
walking to her job because opposition mercenaries
manning the barricades would sometimes pass by on
her way to work.
Working hard to assure an FSLN electoral win is
one way, Juliana and others argue, to prevent the
rise of new violent coup attempt.
Despite a
mountain of evidence that the 2018 violence was
a consequence of a U.S.-backed coup attempt, Western
media and imperial left refuse to recognize it. In
doing so, they obscure, ignore, and erase the
suffering and targeting of Sandinistas, who were the
victims of U.S. aggression through local proxies.
Anyone who refuses to acknowledge this fact will not
understand FSLN’s subsequent organization,
priorities, and eventual win at the ballot box.
Conclusion
In speaking to regular working people across
Nicaragua, I found overwhelming commitment to the
second phase of the Sandinista revolution, even
among those who expressed some disagreements with
the Sandinista government and constantly consume
anti-Sandinista propaganda through social and other
opposition media.
For Sandinistas and non-Sandinistas alike, the
achievements of the Sandinista government since
returning to power in 2007
cannot be denied. Moreover, the second phase of
the Sandinista revolution has helped change
Nicaraguan society, such that people across the
political spectrum think of their public services as
a right that should not be privatized—a right they
are prepared to defend.
This is particularly important when it comes to
healthcare. Investments in health, including
infrastructure and programming, have garnered
plenty of support for the Sandinista government.
Recently, the Ministry of Health started vaccinating
people for Covid-19
at home who, for whatever reason, are
unable to attend a health center but would like to
be vaccinated.
Western mainstream media and
imperial leftists ignore the voices and
perspectives of working-class people, like those I
interviewed, because they do not conform to U.S. and
their proxies’ narratives. Importantly, my
respondents’ views do not conform to the narratives
that members of the now-defunct MRS feeds the
imperial left in the U.S.
U.S. State Department cables published by
Wikileaks show leaders of the MRS are
U.S. informants. They have publicly lobbied for
economic warfare against their own country. Yet
these individuals present themselves as leftists to
an international audience obscuring their support
for the Nicaraguan rightwing and the goals of U.S.
empire in Nicaragua.
Disturbingly, the imperial left takes the vitriol
of the MRS members as the voice of the
Nicaraguan people, and
ignore the perspectives of people like those I
highlight here. When imperial leftists write and
speak on behalf of the “Nicaraguan people,” they
mean to say of “my friends from the MRS and other
members of the Nicaraguan upper class.”
The importance of the social class dimension in
understanding the Sandinista win at the ballot box
cannot be overstated. The FSLN won because it has
the support of the working class.
Although they are the majority, their perspective
is largely ignored by the Western mainstream media
and the imperial left. By contrast, the perspective
of the Nicaraguan upper class—especially its elites
who live off of U.S. funds, which largely pay for
anti-Sandinista propaganda—is magnified and
prioritized the Western world over. For this reason,
I did not speak to members of the Nicaraguan upper
class.
Note on the Term Imperial Left
I use the term “imperial left” following Vijay
Prashad’s retort to David Harvey:
You live on the other side of imperialism!
I say the same thing to leftists in the imperial
core, who, whatever their intentions, refuse to
acknowledge Nicaraguan sovereignty and have bent
themselves into a pretzel trying to
justify their alignment with U.S. State
Department’s
regime-change efforts. Instead of listening to
working-class Nicaraguans as I have done here, they
pontificate, presuming to speak on behalf of
Nicaraguans, judging what they don’t know, including
how socialist the socialist-oriented Sandinista
government really is.
This an old
habit of the imperial left. Why can’t they
understand that only Nicaraguans get to decide
whether the Sandinista government is committed to
the revolutionary aspirations, whether it’s
socialist enough, and whether it is worth
supporting? It is easy to point the finger at a
developing country for its
imperfect revolution. It would be much harder to
oppose empire and work on building a
socialist-oriented project in the United States by
listening to and learning from
working-class Nicaraguans who engage in building
this political project every day.
Do not believe them when they tell you the left
is divided. There is no division. The
(anti-imperialist) Left is standing with the
Sandinista victory in Nicaragua. The rest are either
confused or
advocating an imperialist political project.
I urge the imperial left to join calls that
reject any and all U.S.
intervention in Nicaraguan society, even if
their Nicaraguan friends want otherwise. The
imperial left will not suffer the
consequences of U.S, EU, and OAS aggression, which
will only generate economic suffering and political
conflict for and among Nicaraguans, especially the
most vulnerable. Esteban, Carlos, Yuniel, Joel,
Fanor, Danto, Juliana, Virna, and Helena will suffer
U.S. aggression, not you.
U.S. unilateral coercive measures against
Nicaragua will increase its population’s economic
pain, and will force more people to migrate to the
U.S. in search of economic sustenance. The
histrionic response from the U.S. to the
Sandinista electoral victory has led some
Nicaraguans to believe that the United States will
accept all Nicaraguan migrants. Political aggression
from the U.S. coupled with economic difficulties
that stem from sanctions will increase Nicaraguan
migration to the United States. Migration is the
harvest of
empire.
The 232
international
companions from 27 countries observed peaceful,
fair, and democratic elections in Nicaragua.
Celebrations
erupted all over the country when the results
were announced.
The FSLN will
visit with communities to hear their grievances,
needs, and desires. Elected members of the National
Assembly will participate in this effort, which is
meant to bolster the FSLN’s
bold plan to reduce poverty and increase
well-being for all Nicaraguans. As William Grigsby
argues, in the next few years Nicaragua will begin
to reap what the Sandinista government has been
sowing for 14 years—a great leap forward is coming.
Sandinistas are far from done with their
revolutionary project.
One of my respondents, Fanor (see below),
referred to this phenomenon as voto progreso—a
vote that recognizes the social progress that the
Sandinista government has accomplished for Nicaragua
and signals desire for its continuation.
Yader Lanuza is a professor of sociology
at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Dr. Lanuza’s research examines the causes and
consequences of social inequality in three
domains: education, family and the criminal
justice system.
He focuses largely, though not exclusively, on
the experiences of immigrants and their
offspring from Latin America and Asia.
Yader can be reached at: yaders@gmail.com.
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