OAS: "Nicaragua has deep divisions"

José Miguel Insulza, Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS), stated on June 20 that the situation in Nicaragua could degenerate into a profound crisis due to the lack of will to dialogue and compromise on the part of the government and the opposition. Insulza had been in Nicaragua for four days attempting to fulfill an OAS mandate to bring the parties--the administration of President Enrique Bolaños and the Liberals and the Sandinistas which dominate the legislature--back to a serious tri-partite national dialogue. Upon leaving Nicaragua, Insulza left open the possibility of his returning in the middle of the week to Managua to continue his efforts.

Insulza reminded Nicaraguans that "dialogue requires concessions; it means that one cedes something to get something else." He added that "If I believe that I have the absolute truth and the other side is in absolute error, it is very difficult to establish dialogue." He noted that on Saturday he almost had the parties sitting around the same table but, in the end, the meeting fell through because the President did not want to hold the meeting at the Catholic University (UNICA) saying that it had been the site of previous failed dialogue attempts. Insulza said that on June 21 he would present a report to the OAS on his efforts and would designate a special representative to follow closely the developments in Nicaragua.

Nicaraguan Foreign Minister Ernesto Leal admitted as Insulza prepared his departure that, "We Nicaraguans have been difficult."

Earlier in the week, President Bolaños reacted to the demand of the Comptrollers General of the Republic (three Liberals and two Sandinistas) that he resign by saying that there were no legal reasons for his resignation. At the same time, Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega said that he was not interested in shortening the term of the president and invited him to return to a dialogue. The Comptrollers had asked for the President's resignation because he had refused to allow newly appointed regulators of public utilities to enter the entities they were supposed to regulate under legislation recently passed by the National Assembly. President Bolaños maintained that the suspended national dialogue had established that National Assembly leaders were to consult with him about the new laws.

Also last week, La Prensa released the results of a poll carried out by M&R Consultores between May 27 and June 2 in urban and semi-urban areas of Nicaragua. According to the poll, 72.4% of Nicaraguans responding believed that "the country is a prisoner of the pact of 2000 between the FSLN and the PLC." Twenty-four percent disagreed and 3% had no opinion. Surprisingly, 66.5% of Sandinistas and 70.2% of Liberals supported that position. Sixty-seven percent of those polled agreed with the statement that this year's constitutional reforms had as their objective taking power away from the Executive branch and "creating instability and uncertainty." These questions, of course, might not pass muster in a course on scientific, unbiased survey design! Meanwhile, the poll also showed that only 22.3% approved of the way President Bolaños is governing the country, while 34.4% disapproved, a similar number neither approved nor disapproved and 5.8% had no opinion.