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A Tale of Two Elections: El Salvador, Nicaragua

By Barry Romo

Now that the much touted "free" election in El Salvador is over, it's worthwhile to put it in some kind of perspective.

First, there is no doubt but that a lot of people lined up to vote. Initially, the U.S. media tried to paint a picture of freedom-loving peasants braving fierce guerrilla intimidation in order to cast their ballot. The facts, however, seem to point in another direction. In El Salvador it is illegal not to vote. Everyone also must carry an internal passport which is stamped when a person votes. Guerillas told people not to vote; the military and the government and the death squads told people to vote or else. It came down to who were the people more afraid of?

It shouldn't come as much of a surprise that the people are more scared of the death squads. In a country where some 20,000 people are killed each year, the government and the death squads account for about 18,000 of that number. Even murders and rapists of American nuns are released by the central government, a fact not lost on the people of El Salvador. If the military can kill and rape American nuns and still get a quarter of a billion dollars in aid from the U.S. How much is the life of a peasant worth?

It also seems like the CIA spent somewhere around 1 million dollars to defeat the leader of the death squads, Major D'Aubuisson. It's not because D'Aubuisson is a murderer and thug that bothers Reagan & Co—hell, they helped pay, train and supply these same death squads. It was the bad publicity generated. With the victory of Duarte (well publicized as the 'good guy" in the election) Congress approved big bucks to El Salvador without any human rights or anti-death squad legislation attached. If Duarte's hands are so clean, why should there be any problem with such additions to the legislation? In fact if, as he says, Duarte were planning to clean up El Salvador, restrictions might have helped to use a club to hunt down the death squads. But no; there will be nothing frightening to the military—even a fascist military—and no budget cuts for El Salvador.

While the U.S press focused on the "free" election in El Salvador, the same press has conveniently ignored and over looked the upcoming elections in Nicaragua.

President Reagan used the fact that Nicaragua had not organized elections to attack the legitimacy of the Sandinista regime. Now, elections are planned to take place a couple of days before our own elections in November; they will probably be as democratic as any in the hemisphere. And, of course now Reagan and Congress ignore them.

Nicaraguan elections guarantee the minority parties equal access to media, and give them legal status. State-run television and radio, as well as private media, must set aside equal time daily for every party (there are seven including the Sandinista movement); the time can be used on a daily basis or accumulated to be used in one lump time block. This gives the smaller right-wing parties and equal ability to reach the population regardless of actual party membership of influence. These parties are even allowed to accept financial aid from outside the country for elections.

Originally a party only needed 5000 signatures to qualify, and then had to poll 3% of the vote to remain legal. At the request of the small parties, this requirement was dropped. Now, their ideas have equal access with those of the much larger Sandinista party. Compare this system to the requirements in the U.S. and the vary real democratic nature of the Nicaraguan regime comes through. Compare this to the death squad "elections" in El Salvador, and the U.S. sponsored joke is seen as the propaganda it was.

The Nicaraguan ambassador to the U.S. took notice of the fact that it took the U.S. 9 years after the American Revolution to hold an election—and that was without having to fight off foreign attacks and interface. Nicaragua took only 5 years to organize these elections even with the CIA running amok. The question now is what excuse will Reagan use for interference now that he legitimacy of the Sandinista government and the democratic nature of its elections are becoming apparent.

Barry Romo
VVAW National Office