Democratic elections in a war economy
1977, then dropped to 450 million in 1980, and have not been able to grow since, amounting to only 415 million in 1983; stated a report on state management from the Ministry for Agricultural Development and Agrarian Reform (MIDINRA). (3)
Nevertheless, the nationalised agricul-
The summer of 1984 clearly revealed the economic and political consequences of the imperialist attacks on the Nicaraguan revolution. Over the last few years we have seen a growing intensification of losses caused by the activities of the contras.
77 per cent of the losses incurred since 1981. This war of attrition has caused 7,000 deaths in Sandinista and civilian ranks since March 1982,
400 million US dollars worth of damage, and a drop of 35 per cent in exports since the beginning of 1984, in comparison with the same period in 1983. (1)
This aggression, openly aimed at undermining the basis of the country's development, has forced the revolutionary government to make an additional defence effort. The share of military spending in the budget has risen from 18 per cent in 1982 to 20 per cent in 1983, and the forecast for 1984 is around the 25 percent mark. (2)
At the economic level, as in other aspects of social life, Sandinista policy has had to be subordinated to the need of militarily defending the revolution and its gains. Comandante Jaime Wheelock expressed the or ientation when he announced on May 1, 1984, that a real "war economy'
In the context of this difficult economic situation, under fire from the contra attacks and lies in the international bourgeois press, the Sandinista revolution is continuing its advances.
1984, like the electoral campaign that preceded them, will have provided the opportunity for intense debate and politicisation for the Nicaraguan
The priority given to setting up an necessary to orient all productive capacity towards this end. The example most frequently given at the moment is that some textile factories in the country over the past period have devoted their capacities to producing clothing for the front-
• This policy has succeeded in encouraging the supply of basic products to the rural regions most affected by
The middle classes, with an aggression.
income above the national average, are thus those whose standard of living is most affected by the restrictions on consumption that this policy has brought about.
The adoption of these policies is also linked to the problems of the present difficult economic situation in Nicaragua.
The revolution inherited a capitalist economy of very limited development, mainly dependent on agro-exports for external revenue. Beyond the 50,000 deaths, the hundred thousand wounded, the almost total absence of currency reserves and the huge foreign debts, we should also note other aspects of the heritage left by the
Somoza regime and the civil war: a significant drop in the area of land cultivated, from 630,000 hectares to 275,000 between 1977 and 1979; a drop of 33 per cent in the Gross Domestic Product in the same period; damages estimated at
6
War losses in 1983 alone amounted to
The elections on November 4 .5 billion dollars; and a devastated econ-
The government's assumption of consection of the economy; a relative increase in investment, the total of which, as a percentage of GDP, shows a rise of 3 per cent for 1980-83 by comparison with the years 1975-77; and the agrarian reform, led to an increase in agricultural production, as well as a fundamental change in the structure of propbalance of production. Thus, there was an increase in the cultivation of basic products such as beans, sor-
But the extension and transformation of the structure of solvent demand on the one hand and, on the other, the depreciation in the value of exports on the international market, 33 per cent in fixed prices between 1978 and 1979, have produced a contradictory
While there have been increases in production in many agricultural sectors, with that of some products sometimes even reaching levels above that of 1977, for example in sugar, pasta, oil, milk, soap, coffee; for others there has been a stagnation of production: maize, cotton, livestock. At the same time, the relative dearth of these foodstuffs is feeding the growth of the black market and speculation, since the rate of progress in production has remained below that of the increase of solvent demand.
tural sector of the Public Property Zone (APP) has, since 1979, increased its production in most areas, as have the small and medium peasants, except for the production of maize and cotton. This is the great success of the agrarian reform, that it could succeed in bringing about both a change in ownership and an increase in production. On the other hand, the big private sector, which represents about 32 per cent of the total value of agricultural production, has still, according to the MIDINRA "adopted a distrust-
For example, the private coffee plantations have been retained, without any significant improvement in cultivation methods or increase in the area cultivated — a clear indication of a refusal to invest. There is an identical phenomenon in the behaviour of the private industrial sector. At least part of the aid given by the state to the private sector is not being reinvested in the productive cycle.
This not only poses problems for reorganising the trading circuit, in view of the relative scarcity of certain products. It also creates problems for state control over the surplus arising from the profits of the private sector. Moreover, it gives rise to the difficulties encountered in planning the activity of the small- and Economic problems
In addition, the Sandinista government has always stressed to the workers the importance of thinking in terms of an effective wage that takes into account all the social gains for the working population.
impossibility of continuing ensure all these social gains, because of the effects of imperialist aggression and commercial speculation, necessitated a vigorous intervention in this field. This is what the government has done, by proposing measures that primarily conflict with the interests of the social layers linked to the bourgeoisie, whose standard of living mainly rests on the consumption of imported manufactured products, and by organising a mobilisation of the masses around these objectives, in the context of what is called the war economy. 1. Le Monde, Paris, October 4, 1984
Pensamiento Propio, Managua, July 15, 1984. 3 Revolucion y Desarrollo, review of the Ministry tor Agricultural Development and Agrarian Reform (MIDINRA), Managua, No 1, April/May /June 1984.
International Viewpoint 29 October 1984
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NICARAGUA.
Insofar as there exists, on the one hand, a scarcity of all products other than basic necessities, and, on the other, social layers who still have an income making it possible for them to consume more than the minimum national average, there is room for speculation. In addition to its harmful effects on the masses' standard of living, this contributes to an influx into the capital and the informal small trading sector and the black market. Above and beyond the social problems caused by this rural exodus, which arise even while there is a lack of skilled and unskilled (for harvests) workforce in productive activity, this phenomenon also indicates that there exists a clandestine labour market that the state has not been able to get under control.
The implementation of the recent economie decisions has led the Nicaraguan authorities to deal directly with those involved in speculation, the social base of the 'internal front' of the counterrevolution. War economy and consumer defence law
The defence of the revolution today thus involves a combined struggle by the government and the Nicaraguan masses against speculators. This is also the purpose of the Consumer Defence Law promulgated on August 1, 1984. According to the provisions of this law, the distribution of eight basic products oil, sugar, soap, rice, sorghum, maize, beans, salt - is under public control, in order to guarantee supplies for the whole population at a constant price, wherever
Up until now, sale of these products went through two networks, one private and the other public. The former continued to prosper, mainly in Managua.
wholesalers, who have the means to stock up with goods and provoke artificial shortages, to the thousands this private commercial sector remained more or less untouched establishment of nationalised distribution points where these products could be had at a subsidised price.
At every level, from the agricultural production centres to the selling points, the goods were misappropriated in order to swell the private distribution circuits. This situation is made worse by the fact that the private sector controls all road
The government's policy of subsidies for basic products succeeded in making official selling prices lower than those paid to agricultural producers. gave those parasitic trading opportunity to enrich themsleves illegally at the expense of the consumers.
Private shopkeepers have had no hesitation, in fact, in getting their supplies from the national shops at low prices, to stock up and create a shortage, so that they could then resell at a higher price.
Public control over the selling and distribution of the eight basic products International Viewpoint 29 October 1984 will now be implemented through fixing selling prices applicable throughout the country, sales through the public networks alone or in agreed selling points, a ban on linking the purchase of a taxed produet to that of a non-taxed one, and a special for goods-transport vehicles. The mechanism for agreeing on selling points is linked to the agreement given by the Sandinista Defence Committees (CDS). In exchange for their commitment to respect the prices, the retailers will be supplied by the national marketing enterprises.
It is clear that the employees in the Ministry of Internal Commerce (MICOIN) have not sufficient means at their disposal to see to it that the provisions in the Consumer Defence Law are respected. corner stone of this measure rests on the ability of the CDS to mobilise at the grass roots in order to promote a real price control and an effective struggle against
On Friday August 3, Comandante Daniel Ortega, tional Liberation Front (FSLN) presidential candidate, in a radio broadcast entitled Face the People, stressed the fact that, 'the organised people are the fundamental force for the application of the Consumer Defence Law'.
The CBS were called on to wage a 'war to the death' against speculators. The emphasis put on the war against speculation this summer was also expressed at the social level in the struggle against the 'internal front' of reactionaries that are organising and profiting from it.
June 23, Comandante Borge stated that 'the internal front's project is to attempt to create a social base for the overall plans of the counterrevolution. It attempts to base itself on the discontent of certain sectors. This is not a question simply of economic sabotage and military attacks, but also using political and ideological weapons to attack the country" (4)
Eastern market in Managua (DR)
A political response on this terrain was delivered by the FSLN. An ideological campaign was organised to expose and criticise the errors and incompetence of some government employees. Daniel Nunez, FSLN candidate for the Constituent Assembly and president of the national Union of Farmers and Livestock Raisers (UNAG), publiely stated, according to the account published in Barricada on September 17, that 'the struggle is not only against Reagan, but also against certain government employees who are blocking the growth of productive activity in the country' The debate in this case focused on the fixing of a price, considered too low, for the purchase of beans from the producers.
Nicaragua has, nevertheless, despite its difficulties, been able to ensure minimum supplies for the whole population. Just to look at the health record and note the drop in infant mortality shows that the historic deficiencies, particularly in protein-rich foods, have been overcome. The importance of this fact should be registered, in order to better understand character of the rationing measures introduced now.
But severe blows are being struck at the Nicaraguan economy and the wellbeing of its inhabitants by the actions of the reactionary forces. blockade has led to a serious decline in the imports for consumption. Although not vital products for the survival of the population, shoes and clothing, for ex ample, are no less essential goods. There are now very steep price rises on such estimates agree in considering that the standard of living for the mass of the people has stabilised in the last few years, as far as the basic products that make up the 'shopping basket' are concerned. On the other hand, if a greater
Telex Envio, Managua, July 1984.
range of goods is taken into account, there has been a significant fall in the standard of living each year since 1982: by 12.9 per cent in 1982 and 25.4 per cent in 1983. (5) The price rises in the months before the Consumer Defence Law were particularly large, indicating a quicker rate than previously: per cent in 1982 and 30.9 per cent in
This aggravation of the problems in production and food supplies, under the impact of the imperialist blockade also reveals the contradictions inherent in the development of the mixed economy and state control over the economy and production. article in the review Pensamiento Propio noted in relation to this that, state that the country is experiencing the tion, where rationality and democratic planning are not always completely accepted; where laws of the market and value strongly dependent on the world capitalist economy still predominate
The evolving character of the situation of a mixed economy is clearly recognised by the FSLN. For example, Bayardo Arce, coordinator of the political commission of the FSLN national leadership, recalled that the FSLN had overestimated the weight of former dictator Somoza's property in the economy and his scope of control and were only going to nationalise his holdings.
Replying to a question on the development of the FSLN's original economic programme, Bayardo Arce 'When we conceived this [original FSLN] project we only had Somoza's statisties. We had incomplete information on the national reality...To give just one example, we thought that Somoza was the master of 50 per cent of Nicaragua. We thought that, with what we were going to confiscate, we would have enough to meet the needs of the population...We had to make readjustments. (7)
Thus, the Sandinista leadership had to take the necessary measures by nationalising the holdings of Somoza's accomplices, or of those capitalists who adopted a favourable attitude towards the counterrevolution or organised tax frauds. Despite that, the Sandinista leadership today still confronting difficult problem in planning the econ-
The organisation of agricultural production, an essential condition of directing the economy towards satisfying the needs of the mass of people, is not limited simply to controlling the big private sector that is still in operation. There are also the problems linked to the management of the APP sector (lack of trained personnel, of technical means, limited weight of the agricultural waged in the small. and medium-agricultural producers sector.
The situation of agriculture in Nicaragua is very complex. It is not reducible to simply the dichotomy between one sector of big private producers, specialising in export products that bring in foreign currency, and another sector of small and medium producers working for the local market.
Thus, the small and medium tillers produce 42 per cent of the total value of coffee production, 27 percent for that of cotton and 95 per cent for that of sesame [export crops]. On the other hand, the big entrepreneurs are also active in producing goods for the internal market, controlling 36 per cent of the total value of rice production and 34 per cent of that of sorghum. This is the reason why the Sandinista government has given very particular attention to the progress of the agrarian reform, and the organisation of the small and medium producers in cooperatives. Difficulties in planning
The problems of planning and management in the reformed agricultural sector are looked at in an article in the review Revolucion y Desarrollo, where, among the socio-political and institutional obstacles to the development of the agricultural sector, the following factors were insufficient development of management and the need for a greater definition of how to apply it, despite the growth of unionisation; the absence, among technicians, of a political consciousness in their professional work;...the lack of definition in concrete terms of the Workers and Peasants Alliance, particularly as regards income differentials, the guarantee of supplies for the peasants, the relationship between the price of manufactured that of foodstuffs, the socio-political activities that develop solidarity between the two sectors,...the difficulty for the revolution as a whole to take charge of sector, because of its dispersed nature, its technological precariousness and its ideological vulnerabiliity, which has a direct impact on our political work.' (8)
This approach denotes an acute apthe complex economic problems which the revolution has to face, and which come back to the inherent difficulties and slow progress inherent in any process of transition to socialism in a dominated economy that is, what is more, subject to imperialist aggression.
By continuing its march forward, the Nicaraguan revolution is nevertheless demonstrating what sort of solution it seeks to the difficulties that its faces. It is continuing with the agrarian reform at an increasing pace. It is directly confronting the speculators, that is, significant sectors of the bourgeoisie. among the masses, it is waging a political battle against the main bourgeois political parties, which are the transmission belts for the imperialist effensive within the country.
The progress made in the agrarian reform through the distribution of land to the peasants is a good example of the government's orientation, as the statistics
•from the beginning of 1984 testify. The poorest peasants, whose cultivated land is less than 7 hectares, owned 2 per cent of per cent, 1.8 per cent individually and 4 per cent in agricultural cooperatives. (9) Peasants with farms of less than 35 hectares have gone from 15 to 26 per cent of land surface cultivated, 8.6 per cent privately owned and 17.7 per cent in cooperatives.
Thus, the reformed agricultural sector represents in all 38 per cent of the land, 19.3 percent for the APP, 10 per cent in service cooperatives (CCS) and 8.7 in
Cooperatives (CAS). Property titles for 11 per cent of the agricultural land of the country have been given to 31,000 peasant families, a total of 26 per cent of small agricultura
During this period, the owners of holdings of more than 350 hectares, who did own more than 36.1 per cent of land, now hold less than 11.3 percent. of more than 150 hectares of worked land, who possessed more than 50 per cent of the land in 1978, now have no more than 23.8 percent.
The rate of the agrarian reform is also an interesting indicator, because it continues to accelerate. In the first fourteen months of the agrarian reform, the rate of granting property titles was 647 titles per month, and the area of land involved was on average 15 hectares per family.
During the first five months of 1984, more than 1,600 families received land, of around 30 hectares per family. plan is that at the end of the year, 60,000 families will have benefited agrarian reform and will be installed on a surface of 1.4 million hectares.
Access to credit and technical aid for the small- and medium-agricultural producers has also evolved, demonstrating the policy that the Sandinista government intends to follow in the control of the economy and bank loans. The small producers, who only had access to 4 percent of credit before the revolution, received in 1982, through their participation in CCS and CAS, 22.5 per cent of the total
This freed many families from exploitation by usurers and pawnbrokers of all sorts.
These measures have gone hand in hand with an increase in the organisation of agricultural workers and small and
Some 45 percent of fulltime agricultural workers are today organised in the unions of the Association of Rural Workers (ATC), and 54 per cent of agricultural producers are organised in cooperatives
In 1983 the UNAG organised 75,228 members, gathered in 1,756 groupings, including production, service and credit miento Propio, May/June 1984.
Revolucion y Desarrollo, No 1, MIDINRA report on state management
All the figures that follow are from the article in Revolucion y Desarrollo already cited.
which the Sandinista Youth played an was a big success for the FLN, which cooperatives, and also groups of 20 to 60 peasants called Unions of Producers at the Base. (10)
A document of the MIDINRA recognises, however, the delay in establishing forms of workers' control over the administration of state enterprises and on this point, made it clear: management in the administration of enterprises has advanced slowly.
reactivation assemblies and consultative councils, we have sueworkers' management in 40 percent of these APP enterprises and for 55 per cent of workers.' (11)
active role, mobilising its troops in favour of the vote at 16.
Representation will be proportional, allowing every party that gets more than 15,000 votes to have at least one representative in the National Constituent
All the parties standing have a right to the same subsidy, a sum which will make it possible for small parties to wage a naceiving funds from abroad is allowed for, the one condition that these come through the central bank.
Finally, it should be remembered that, in line with the legislation on parties even its most determined opponents, starting with the bourgeois daily newspaper La Prensa, were forced to recog-
It was then, at the point when parties presented their candidates, that the bourgeois pro-imperialist formations launched their campaign to discredit the electoral process in international public
The CIA and the right-wing parties did not need any elaborate opinion polls that these elections would show the more or less avowed supporters of imperialism to be very much
But the parties of the right, organised in the National Democratic Coordination Ramiro Sacasa (CDN) — the Social Christian Party, the Constitutional Liberal Party (PLC) and the Social Democratic Party (PSD) -had, up till July 1984, left it doubtful whether they would participate in the
In December 1983, with the blessing of the employers organisation COSEP, they published a platform of 9 points, in which they particularly demanded the opening of a national dialogue among all Nicaraguans, including the armed mercenaries of the contras and their leaders.
The CDN's other demands concerned the lifting of the state of emergency and a complete separation of the FSLN from political programme for the 'election campaign or as a precondition for participation in the elections was artfully left
Registering for elections and joining the peoples' militia go side by side (DR)
This speeding up of the agrarian reform, like the political battle for the next elections, takes place in the context of a radicalisation of the revolutionary pro-
There is a crucial political battle going on around the elections for a National Constituent Assembly of 90 members, a president and a vice-president. are candidates from seven political parties confronting each other. clude three bourgeois formations - the Conservative Democratic Party (PCD), the Social Christian People's Party (PPSC) and the Independent Liberal Party (PLI) -, two Stalinist parties — the Nicaraguan Socialist Party (PSN) and the Nicaraguan Communist Party (PCN) -, one organisa-
Maoist tradition, People's Action Movement (Marxist Leninist) (MAP-ML); and National Liberation Front (FSLN).
The timetable of measures planned to organise these elections has been entirely respected: adoption of the electoral law, Nicaraguan citizens registering on the electoral lists, presenting of candidates by parties taking part, and then the start of the election campaign itself.
It is not without importance to note that the electoral law adopted in by the Council of State guarantees more democratic rights than those granted in the 'Western democracies'. vote is given to all those of 16 or over, decided by the Council State following a debate in the Council in dating from August 1983, the freedom to constitute parties 'able to claim political power' is recognised, on the simple condition that they do not take up arms
The FSLN has thus, in a country at war, decided to implement legislation that guarantees, organises and stimulates political pluralism in a context of waging a political battle to mobilise the masses, as the present course of the electoral campaign illustrates.
Registering on the electoral rolls, which took place between July 27 and 30, was one of the first highpoints in the FSLN's capacity to mobilise the immense majority of the Nicaraguan masses. In a country that had never before in its history had either a census or previous registering on the voter rolls for the elections staged by Somoza, almost the whole population of voting age (94.8 per cent) has registered. The total figure of 1,380,000 was reached, while the Sandinistas target was 1,250,000 citizens. There were 4,150 registration offices in the country as a whole.
The intimidation operations organised by the contras on this occasion did not detract from the success of the initiative
This would be enough to testify to the vitality of the revolutionary process in Nicaragua, and the difficulties encountered by the contras in launching offensives coordinated on a large
This first stage of the electoral process
The CDN's intentions were left all the more vague inasmuch as its component parties were themselves uncertain and divided about the line of conduct to follow. A boycott of the elections, strongly advised by Washington, involved identifying the CDN with the armed counterrevolution and grave risks for these parties. For the mini-apparatuses of these dwarf parties, active primarily in the towns, this was a difficult choice, insofar as it could mean a break with the slender advantages that the black market still affords the bourgeois and petty bourgeois layers represented in them.
Moreover, this situation explains why the imperialists imposed figurehead onto these parties, in the person of Arturo Cruz, former member of the governmental junta in 1980 and 1981, Nicaraguan ambassador to Washing ton in 1982 and, since then, once again an employee of an international bank in
Arturo Cruz was not slow to announce candidature by telephoning from Washington to his friends in the CDN. Arriving at Managua airport, he openly outlined his policies: the 9-point plat•form of the Coordination constituted a precondition for the elections. In short, Arturo Cruz was acting as a provocateur, whose objective was not to win influence among a significant section of Nicaraguan 10. Pensamiento Propio, July/ August 1983. MIDINRA, in Revolucion y Desarrollo already
9
opinion, but to make a direct appeal to international public opinion.
Faced with these demands, the Sandinistas once more pointed out that the idea of dialogue with the contras was inacceptable and non-negotiable, although they decided to put back the deadline for the registering of candidates, from July 25 to August 5, and then to September 30. In doing this they helped to sow divisions among their opponents. One faction of the Centre for Trade-Union Unity (UCS), a member of the the boycott and calling on the CUS to break its links with COSEP. Christian Party, which has a certain social base, is riven with debates
It is of course of prime importance for the American imperialists to do all they can to discredit the Nicaraguan elections, but the sympathetic coverage given.to the Cruz operation by the big Western press is out of all proportion to its impact on Nicaraguan reality, even among bourgeois and petty bourgeois layers. electoral campaign among the seven parties that have entered the lists is not a fake debate. On the contrary, it is a real political battle between formations that represent distinct and sometimes tradictory social interest, and which have drawn up conflicting programmes. Broad political battle
The election campaign has made posbroader scale among the popular masses, which is undeniably a factor in the advance of the revolutionary process. Over the last few months there have been increased possibilities for expression and therefore, increased opportunities for the FSLN to consolidate and politicise its social base, to combat the arguments of the bourgeois opposition, which openly appeared as allied with the contras from the point at which it refused to participate in the elections. But the electoral debate has also been the occasion for a confrontation with the arguments of the bourgeois parties that are standing in the elections and have experienced a rightwards radicalisation in their positions.
The complete absence of the member organisations of the CDN from the electoral terrain has in fact left the field open to the authentic bourgeois parties, the PCD - a split from the old Conservative Party tradition, which generated a few anti-Somozists -, the PPSC and the PLI. The leader of this latter party, a member of the Patriotic Revolutionary Front (FPR) until 1983, a grouping of organisations that support the revolutionary process, was minister of labour up till
His distancing from, if not his break with, the FSLN, is therefore recent. In an interview published in April exists today should be broken.?
The dynamic of the confrontation with the programme of the FSLN, and the desire to capture the votes that would have gone to the CDN, has now led the PLI to shift to the right. In particular it has issued openly anti-communist
For its part, the PPSC, taking advantage of the political platform that the elections offer, has also put forward proposals that would completely strip the CDS of any funetion of self-organisation of the masses and make them formal but powerless structures at
The FSLN reacted vigorously by calling on the CDS to be more active in the ideological debate in the electoral cam-
The revolutionary comandante Carlos Nunez, for example, stated that, *with the parties involved in the electoral process, a political and ideological struggle is on the agenda, and the CDS are not excused from this battle.
In the same speech Nunez called on the CDS to be 'more combative in order to ensure that the state be more determined to break with bureaucratic practices and that government employees are closer to the people'. (12) the space of a few months, the test of these elections has served to bring out the political positions on all sides.
On the side of the organisations identifying themselves as socialist; the PSN has presented its own candidates, given the refusal of the FSLN to present common lists with it. According to its presidential candidate Domingo Sanchez, his immediate programme is for the demoanti-imperialist and the objective of establishing socialism being for another stage of the from this orientation is a critique of the FSLN, and a search for tactical alliances with openly bourgeois formations in the name of defending democratic rights.
the discussions on the electoral law. And it is the case now in protesting the energetic activity of the base units of the FSLN in the campaign.
As for the PCN, which considers the FSLN to be outside the workers' movement, it goes even further in its attempts to form a common front for 'democratic
The MAP-ML, which seems to have broken with the conception of revolution by stages, publicly denounces the concessions made to the bourgeois parties. Its present policy is defined as aiming to speed up the revolutionary process, by an appeal to 'transform the electoral struggle into a victorious class struggle of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie, imperialism and revisionisni. (14)
Even though these three organisations are numerically very weak, they are representative as currents with a history and a real influence in limited sections of the working class, particularly through their three union confederations which, with the Sandinista confederation (CST) are part of the National Trade-Union Coopen differences between these currents whose programme refers to socialism cannot be reduced to simply a decorative
To the question asking if the ideolog ical debate was going to 'include the mass organisations and the parties to the left of the Sandinista Front such as the Communist Party and the People's Action Movement', the secretary of the Council of State replied: "Yes, of course. space should be opened up. We, in the Sandinista Front, think that our positions are correct, and we have to discuss them with the people to see if they also think they are correct. Our organisations must use this occasion to increase the number of members and militants, and also to grow ideologically.' (15) Vanguard role of FSLN
The electoral campaign has also been the occasion for the FSLN activists to relaunch the battle for the organisation of the masses and to increase their contacts with the people, having their candidates do door-to-door convassing for example. The activists and organisers of the FSLN have had to confront politically the ques tions and criticisms of the population, and the arguments of the other political parties, and give, at a mass level, answers to the many difficulties of the present
Carlos Nunez summarised the FSLN's attitude in this ideological battle in stating: 'We explain our battle plan by discussing the problems, and not simply demanding that people vote for us.' (16)
The formal equality of democratic rights granted to all parties does not detract from the specific character of the FSLN as the recognised vanguard of the victorious struggle against Somoza, and of the revolutionary process that has been unfolding in Nicaragua for the last five
This characteristic alone would be enough to distinguish the FSLN from every other electoral current.
But it should also be borne in mind that political parties in Nicaragua struc ture only a very small part of political mations are mainly the successors to rump parties, whose organisation revolved more around questions of family and clan than clearly-defined political projects. As for the small organisations of the workers' movement, they had to exist for decades under the dictatorship of the
The FSLN, as it led the mass movement that overthrew Somoza, occupies a political space that no other political current can claim. The fact that the FSLN has for five years stimulated the advance of the revolutionary process has led to the birth of a powerful mass movement through a network of organisations identifying themselves as Sandinista
Barricada, September 15, 1984. Nuevo Diario, August 2, 1984. Propio, February/March 16. Barricada, September 10, 1984.
International Viewpoint 29 October 1984
Political and social life is not reducible to the recognised parties. The existence of a mass movement, almost completely led by the FSLN, and through which the process of self-organisation of the toiling masses is being expressed, should also be taken into account.
The national leadership of the FSLN is using the elections that it decided to hold to raise the level of political consciousness among the masses still more. It is not simply making Yankee imperialism the target, but also deliberately seeking a political confrontation with all the in particular those that want to block the revolutionary process by trying to turn the clock back towards the bourgeois order. The elections should make it possible to institutionalise the revolutionary process, which is their according to the national FLN
This is not to say that the forms of representation and the participation of the people will be fixed for once and all by the assembly elected on November 4.