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In
Nicaragua, Tensions Flare Amid Power Quest
By Tim Rogers
MANAGUA - The scene outside the U.S. Embassy
last week illustrated fraying tensions in
this capital where the Sandinista government
has been maneuvering for reelection:
Agitated pro-government youths hurled
fireworks, rocks and eggs at the embassy
grounds and shouted ``Death to the Yankees!
Death to the empire!''
The following day, a Sandinista mob
surrounded a university campus where U.S.
Ambassador Robert Callahan was attending a
cultural festival, forcing him to flee with
the help of riot police. The Sandinistas
want Callahan's ouster, and went so far as
to declare him persona non grata in a
theatrical ``popular assembly'' held in
front of the embassy Thursday evening.
The United States has been increasingly
voicing concerns about the state of
Nicaraguan democracy under President Daniel
Ortega, and the opposition is complaining
that the president is undermining
Nicaragua's democracy in his quest to remain
in power.
The reason? On Oct. 19, six Sandinistas on
Nicaragua's Supreme Court scrapped a
constitutional term limit, a move that would
allow the president to run for office in
2011 elections. The seven opposition judges
insist they were not consulted before the
Sandinista jurists ruled.
The opposition magistrates -- including
court president Manuel Martínez -- issued an
official Supreme Court declaration Oct. 28
accusing the Sandinista judges of illegally
conspiring against the country's democratic
and institutional order.
The declaration said the Supreme Court does
not have the authority to tinker with the
constitution, a task which only the National
Assembly is authorized to do.
`WE ARE WORRIED'
``From our point of view, the Supreme Court
acted improperly and with unusual speed, in
secret, with the participation of judges
from only one political movement and without
any public debate or discussion,'' Callahan
told the Nicaraguan-American Chamber of
Commerce during a luncheon last week. ``We
are worried.''
Sandinistas argue that nonconsecutive term
limits prejudiced the people's right to
elect whomever they want.
``The power is in the hands of the people,
and that is not something that the
oligarchs, the traitors and the imperialists
like,'' Ortega said during a nationally
televised address Oct. 20. He cast his
political opponents as ``residual garbage''
who should be thrown in jail.
For Sandinistas here, the comments by the
U.S. ambassador are part of the United
States' legacy of continual interventionist
policies toward Nicaragua.
During the first Sandinista government of
the 1980s, the United States funneled money
to the contras, who fought to overthrow the
leftist regime.
Callahan told business leaders that
Sandinista magistrates' decision to overturn
the constitutional ban on consecutive
presidential reelection cast doubts on
Nicaragua's democratic procedure.
He would not speculate what, if any,
measures Washington would take in response
to the judicial power play, or to the
vandalism of embassy property. Earlier this
year, the U.S. government suspended $64
million in development aid to Nicaragua for
similar concerns over the Sandinistas'
commitment to democracy.
In Washington, Massachusetts Sen. John
Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee, echoed the concerns. He
said Ortega's ``manipulation'' of the
Supreme Court ``reeks of the
authoritarianism of the past'' and that the
president appeared to be taking his cues
from ``the coup-plotters in Honduras.''
But Ortega remains steadfast. The ruling, he
said, is ``not appealable'' and ``written in
stone.''
Following Callahan's comments, the foreign
ministry released a statement calling the
ambassador's remarks ``meddlesome'' and
``unacceptable and destabilizing.''
While much of Latin America is grappling
with reelection reforms, the issue has also
emerged as a part of the leftist agenda
promoted by the Venezuelan-led Bolivarian
Alliance for the Americas (ALBA), of which
Nicaragua and Honduras are members.
Yet these two Central American countries
have also had the most difficulty following
in Venezuela's footsteps.
In Honduras, opponents ousted President
Manuel Zelaya precisely because they feared
he was trying to implement the ALBA agenda.
And in Nicaragua, Ortega lobbied for a year
but could get neither the National Assembly
votes nor the popular support for a
referendum to lift term limits.
So earlier this month, he shifted strategy
and turned to the Sandinista judges to upend
the term limit.
TERM LIMITS
Term limits prohibiting consecutive terms
were part of 1995 constitutional reforms
aimed at balancing power between government
branches.
After 43 years under the rule of the Somoza
family dynasty and another decade under the
Sandinistas, Nicaraguans were eager to
prevent abuses.
Ortega and 109 Sandinista mayors filed a
motion challenging term limits, and the
court's constitutional chamber ruled in
their favor. They ruled when opposing judges
had gone home for the afternoon, in a move
the full court's president called ``an
ambush.''
``This was totally illegal from all points
of view,'' said constitutional analyst
Carlos Tunnermann. ``The Supreme Court
cannot invalidate articles of the
constitution that are already in effect.''
Former Supreme Court president Alejandro
Serrano accused the Sandinista magistrates
of ``manipulating the constitution and the
rule of law in unthinkable ways.''
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