"There is an elephant in the room, and that elephant is poverty," said University of Massachusetts-Boston professor Jack Spence at yesterday's panel on the current political situation in Nicaragua.
The small Central American country's economy is ranked at 125 out of 180--so it should come at no surprise to some that 80 percent of Nicaraguans live on less than $2 a day.
"Nicaragua Posible," a conference hosted in Nicaragua last month, sought to address the nation's socioeconomic development. Four Tufts students and one Fletcher student attended the conference, and as part of a follow-up component of their project to educate the rest of the Tufts community, the five organized a panel addressing the comeback of President Daniel Ortega and his impact on the international community.
Ortega, the Sandinista candidate in the Nov. 5 presidential elections, served a term in the 1980's. As a member of the Sandinista National Liberation Front, a Marxist revolutionary movement, Ortega was despised by the Reagan administration-which, in response, funded the Iran Contra Affair to confront the perceived threat.
Ortega ran in every successive election and consistently lost until this year, when he won 37.99 percent of the vote. Although Ortega has vowed to pursue a more moderate platform, the international community remains wary of his old ways.
Accompanying Spence was University of Texas Professor Kent Norsworthy. Both have done extensive research on Nicaragua and Latin America as a whole.
Norsworthy spoke first, addressing the assumption of the new Latin American left.
"Although leftism - particularly in Latin America - certainly merits more attention than it has been getting, it is not a universal phenomenon," Norsworthy said, using Mexico, Peru, and Ecuador as examples where Pro-Chavez candidates were defeated in recent elections.
"The 'pink tide' of leftism certainly values social reform and anti-poverty policies, but it is also somewhat pro-business," he said, and later added that for this reason, it is unlikely that Ortega will seek to change the existing economic structure in Nicaragua.
"A national alternative, which is what Nicaragua needs, requires difficult choices that are not necessarily popular. Ortega is not willing to make those choices," he continued, citing a number of statistics showing that Ortega is not invincibly popular.
Spence agreed that in the coming months and years, there will more likely be more continuity than change in Nicaragua.
"It is unlikely that Ortega will significantly improve health care or education," he said. "However, Nicaragua is moving towards democratization for the first time in years, and this is not insignificant."
Arguing that democracy must have competition, Spence said that with the emergence of two new political parties, there should be innovation and development in politics.
Both professors agreed that although it was likely that Ortega would try to legalize second presidential terms, he would probably not win again.
Sophomore Marcelo Norsworthy, who attended Nicaragua Posible, helped organize the panel, and invited his father to speak, was glad to hear their predictions.
"I'm not thrilled Ortega's back in power - I think he values his personal interests over those of the country," he said.
Norsworthy's opinion, while not uncommon at the panel, went unspoken at the conference in Nicaragua. "We tried to be non-partisan and speak more on ideas for peace than on the upcoming elections, but of course everything depended on who would become president," he said. "That was our elephant in the room."
Commenting on the importance of November's elections, "Nicaragua exemplifies the instant in the greater leftist movement," Senior Becky Hayes said.
Hayes is currently researching the rise of leftist regimes in South America, using Nicaragua as a case study. She spent a month last year backpacking around the country, concluding that "Nicaraguans are very opinionated and they love to talk."
Spence likewise related two anecdotes in which Nicaraguans made a number of jokes about the corrupt voting process in the United States.
"Although Nicaragua has its share of problems, it is far more democratic in its voting process than the U.S. is," he said. "There is a much higher voter turnout, and the electoral branch is the jewel of the government. The Nicaraguan political climate is changing. It is a totally new and open game."
Norsworthy agreed. "Ortega will have a profound impact on both Latin American and the international community in the coming months and years. We should give him a chance."
