|
Nicaragua Institutionalization of the Revolution, 1984
Discussion over the date and procedures for the first
national postrevolutionary election began almost
immediately
after the revolution. The Fundamental Statue of the
Republic of
Nicaragua gave the junta the authority to call for
elections
"whenever the conditions of national reconstruction might
permit." In 1983 the Council of State passed an amended
Political
Parties Law that, among other things, defined a political
party
as a group "vying for power" (the original version
proposed by
the FSLN defined a political party as a group already
"participating in public administration"). Amendments to
the law
also promised all parties full access to the media.
In mid-1984, the Electoral Law was passed setting the
date
and conditions for the election. As was the case with the
Political Parties Law, much debate went into the law's
drafting.
The opposition parties favored the election of a two-year
interim
president and a six-year legislature that would draft a
new
constitution. The junta, citing foreign pressure to hold
elections early and the added cost of two elections in two
years,
prevailed with its proposal to simultaneously elect the
president
and members of the new legislature for six-year terms. The
opposition preferred a 1985 date for elections to give it
time to
prepare its campaign, but the FSLN set the election for
November
4, 1984 and the inauguration for January 10, 1985. The law
set
the voting age at sixteen, which the opposition complained
was an
attempt to capitalize on the FSLN's popularity with the
young.
The number of National Assembly seats would vary with each
election--ninety seats to be apportioned among each party
according to their share of the vote and an additional
seat for
each losing presidential candidate. The entire electoral
process
would be the responsibility of a new fourth branch of
government,
the Supreme Electoral Council. Parties that failed to
participate
in the election would lose their legal status.
By July 1984, eight parties or coalitions had announced
their
intention to field candidates: the FSLN with Daniel Ortega
as
presidential candidate; the Democratic Coordinator
(Coordinadora
Democrática--CD), a broad coalition of labor unions,
business
groups, and four centrist parties; and six other
parties--the
PLI, the PPSC, the Democratic Conservative Party (Partido
Conservador Demócratica--PCD), the communists, the
socialists,
and the Marxist-Leninist Popular Action Movement. Claiming
that
the Sandinistas were manipulating the electoral process,
the CD
refused to formally file its candidates and urged
Nicaraguans to
boycott the election. In October, Virgilio Godoy Reyes of
the PLI
also withdrew his candidacy, although most of the other
candidates for the National Assembly and the PLI's vice
presidential candidate remained on the ballot. Other
parties
reportedly were pressured to withdraw from the election
also.
On November 4 1984, about 75 percent of the registered
voters
went to the polls. The FSLN won 67 percent of the votes,
the
presidency, and sixty-one of the ninety-six seats in the
new
National Assembly. The three conservative parties that
remained
in the election garnered twenty-nine seats in the National
Assembly; the three parties on the left won a total of six
seats.
Foreign observers generally reported that the election was
fair.
Opposition groups, however, said that the FSLN domination
of
government organs, mass organizations groups, and much of
the
media created a climate of intimidation that precluded a
truly
open election. Inauguration came on January 10, 1985; the
date
was selected because it was the seventh anniversary of the
assassination of newspaper editor Chamorro. Attending
Ortega's
swearing in as president were the presidents of Yugoslavia
and
Cuba, the vice presidents of Argentina and the Soviet
Union, and
four foreign ministers from Latin America.
Data as of December 1993
|
