Nicaragua POLITICAL PARTIES
Political slogans painted on walls in Managua
Courtesy Nina Serafino
The National Opposition Union (UNO) Coalition
A loose coalition of political parties, UNO traces its
origins back to the Nicaraguan Democratic Coordinating
Group
(Coordinadora Democrática Nicaragüense--CDN), which was
formed in
1982 by opposition groups that had protested actions of
the
Sandinista government as early as November 1980. In 1980
these
groups had temporarily withdrawn their members from the
corporatist legislature set up by the Sandinista
government, the
Council of State, to protest the imposition of three
emergency
decrees that restricted civil liberties and to call for
municipal
elections that the Sandinistas had stated would be held
soon
after the revolution. The CDN coalition consisted of three
political parties and two factions of a fourth; two labor
unions,
the Confederation of Nicaraguan Workers (Confederación de
Trabajadores Nicaragüenses--CTN) and the Confederation for
Trade
Union Unity (Confederación de Unificación Sindical--CUS);
and the
Superior Council of Private Enterprise (Consejo Superior
de la
Empresa Privada--Cosep), an umbrella organization uniting
producer and commercial business groups along the lines of
the
United States Chamber of Commerce. These groups all formed
the
earliest opposition to the Sandinista government.
In the mid-1980s, as a result of Nicaragua's 1984
presidential and legislative elections, the opposition
broadened
with the incorporation of three political parties, which
up to
that point had cooperated closely with the government: the
Independent Liberal Party (Partido Liberal
Independiente--PLI),
the Popular Social Christian Party (Partido Popular Social
Cristiano--PPSC), and the Democratic Conservative Party
(Partido
Conservador Demócrata--PCD). In the late 1980s, while the
CDN
parties remained outside the legislative arena, the three
other
parties, which had run candidates in the elections, became
known
as the "parliamentary opposition." From inside and outside
the
legislature, opposition groups became increasingly vocal
against
the Sandinista government.
Their opposition to the Sandinistas, did not forge
these
groups into a firm coalition, however. Instead, the
parties were
known for personal rivalries and factionalism. There were
animosities and distrust among the leaders of each of the
groups,
stemming from the degree of cooperation and confrontation
each
had taken toward the Sandinista government. The groups
also held
conflicting and ambivalent attitudes toward the United
Statessupported Nicaraguan Resistance (Contra) forces that had
carried
out a war against the Sandinista government since early
1982.
Nevertheless, during the later years of the Contra war,
the
"civic opposition," as these political parties, unions,
and
business organizations came to be called, became of great
interest to the international community, which was
interested in
seeking a negotiated solution to the Contra war through
the
Central American peace process. The political parties
gained the
support of international groups such as the Christian
Democratic
International, the Conservative International, and the
Liberal
International organizations. Esquipulas II, the Central
American
peace agreement signed by the presidents of five countries
in
Central America (see Glossary)
on August 7, 1987, gave a
major
role to the Roman Catholic Church and the opposition
political
parties in negotiating the terms for national
reconciliation and
democratization in Nicaragua. Although the arrangements
specified
in this agreement were never implemented as planned, the
accord
itself was a major factor in stimulating the Sandinistas
to lift
various constraints on the civic opposition, creating the
opportunity for greater political activity. The accord
also
played a part in the Sandinista decision to advance the
election
from November to February 1990 and to allow an extensive
system
of United Nations (UN) and Organization of American States
(OAS)
monitors to observe the entire electoral process,
beginning
several months before the election.
By the time the various political parties coalesced
into an
electoral coalition in September 1989, the fourteen
political
parties that had evolved from the earlier opposition
parties were
committed enough to the goal of opposing the Sandinista
government that they united around a single candidate.
Violeta
Barrios de Chamorro, who had largely stayed outside party
politics during the 1980s, was chosen after two bitter
rounds of
voting eliminated the two other popular candidates.
Virgilio
Reyes Godoy (who became vice president) and Enrique
Bolanos Geyer
of Cosep. Both had been active in internal politics
throughout
the 1980s. At the time of the elections, of the UNO
coalition's
fourteen political parties, four were considered
conservative,
seven fell under a broad definition of centrist parties,
and
three had traditionally been on the far left of the
political
spectrum (see
table 10, Appendix A).
Of all the parties, the largest of the centrist group
were
the Democratic Party of National Confidence (Partido
Demócrata de
Confianza Nacional--PDCN), which was one of several
breakaway
factions of the Nicaraguan Social Christian Party (Partido
Social
Cristiano Nicaragüense--PSCN), and the PLI of Virgilio
Godoy.
Among the conservative factions, viewed as the most
important was
the Conservative Popular Alliance (Alianza Popular
Conservadora--
APC) of Míriam Argüello Morales, a leading figure in
conservative
politics since the 1970s. All the other parties were seen
as
small groups. In the centrist camp, these were the Liberal
Party
(Partido Liberal--PL), the National Action Party (Partido
de
Acción Nacional--PAN), the Popular Social Christian Party
(Partido Popular Social Cristiano--PPSC, another faction
of the
PSCN), and the Nicaraguan Democratic Movement (Movimiento
Democrático Nicaragüense--MDN). In the conservative arena,
the
smaller groups were the Conservative National Action Party
(Partido de Acción Nacional Conservadora--PANC), the
Liberal
Constitutionalist Party (Partido Liberal
Constitucionalista--
PLC), and the National Conservative Party (Partido
Conservador
Nacional--PCN).
Two years after the inauguration, however, the UNO was
still
viewed as having a narrow political base. Only three of
the
fourteen parties, among them the PLI, whose leader was
Vice
President Virgilio Godoy Reyes, had done local-level
political
organizing across the country. Although some trade union
organizations supported the UNO coalition, the UNO parties
did
not have the type of widespread organizations of labor,
peasant,
and women's groups that had provided support for the FSLN.
Friction between the executive branch circle, named
the Las
Palmas group after the neighborhood in which President
Chamorro
lived, and the UNO legislators was first apparent in the
contest
for the presidency of the National Assembly. Held days
before the
president's inauguration, the struggle for leadership of
the
National Assembly was one of the first tests of power
between the
Political Council, composed of the leaders of the fourteen
political parties, and Chamorro's advisers, whom many of
the
traditional political party leaders viewed as interlopers.
One of
Chamorro's closest advisers, Alfredo César Aguirre, was
defeated
for an UNO position by the Political Council's candidate,
Míriam
Argüello Morales, a leader of the APC. During this and
subsequent
debates, Vice President Godoy sided with the Political
Council.
Frictions between the Las Palmas group and the UNO were
further
exacerbated by President Chamorro's cabinet selections.
All were
members of her inner circle; none was a leader of a
traditional
political party.
The dynamic changed slightly with a shift of
characters when
César was elected leader of the National Assembly for the
1992
legislative session. Within months of his election,
however, he
had taken a leadership role on the volatile issues of
Sandinista
property rights and presence in government, this time
against the
government. The UNO bloc in the assembly seemed to be
reuniting
on the same issues, but this time under a younger
generation of
leaders.
Despite the importance of the National Assembly in
shaping
national policy, much of the nation's future was
increasingly
shaped by the evolving politics of the municipalities. The
1990
elections established a new class of political leaders.
The UNO
parties were weak in organization at the grassroots level,
and
the creation of new political posts at the municipal level
offered opportunities and incentives for the development
of a
broad base of popular support for the UNO. Because of the
UNO
parties' weaknesses at the national level, however, the
leading
UNO mayors viewed themselves as enjoying a far greater
level of
popular support and legitimacy than the national UNO
authorities.
The local UNO officials, who had power in about 100 of the
country's municipal governments, have at times taken
united
stands challenging the Chamorro government. In general,
the UNO
municipal authorities, the most visible of whom is
Managua's
mayor, Arnoldo Alemán, are more conservative than the Las
Palmas
group and have taken positions similar to that of the
Godoy group
and later the César group, at the national level.
Data as of December 1993
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