VHeadline.com guest commentarist Arthur Shaw writes: There is no finer or more winning gentleman than Daniel Ortega, secretary general of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) of Nicaragua, who happened to be in Havana Sunday to help the Cubans celebrate ... in the most glorious manner ... May Day.

Mr. Ortega shared a few observations with the press:

"The current situation in Nicaragua is even more explosive than in Ecuador, where people´s pressure ousted President Lucio Gutierrez last month, warned the secretary general of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) of Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega.

The Sandinista leader attended a massive May Day gathering here, and told Prensa Latina his organization has played an essential role in helping avoid a chaotic situation in the Central American country.

"We want this resistance against neoliberal policies implemented by Enrique Bolaņos´ government to be pursued in a way that will lead us to victory in the elections scheduled for November, 2006, and re-take power with the greatest legitimacy, he said.

Prensa Latina May 2, 2005

Nicaragua is definitely winnable.

But there may have be changes in the Sandinista electoral apparatus before a win happens.  The US National Endowment "for" Democracy (NED) is still there, itching for a good fight.

There seems to be three main parts of a win:

(1) Getting the most votes

(2) Blocking the theft of the election, and

(3) Keeping the international monitors honest.

GETTING THE MOST VOTES

NED, as everybody knows, uses millions of dollars to buy support.  But NED also uses millions of dollars to train ... in its notorious "Institutes" ... it supporters to wage electoral struggle.

This time NED will have thousands of well-trained operatives in each of the standard electoral specialties -- planning and budgeting, local fundraising, targeting, voter contact, free media, paid media, candidate activity, opposition research, "volunteers," and get-the-vote operations.

• During the last election, the Nicaraguan bourgeoisie and the imperialists did quite a number on Sandinista candidate Daniel Ortega with regard to "opposition research."

A law -- like the US law -- that makes it a felony to take money or anything else of value from a foreign national (individual, company, partnership, government, etc) in connection with a Nicaraguan election would sure be useful.

But that may be difficult to get under the present circumstances.

As everybody knows, the presence and proliferation of micro -- but vigorous -- political campaign committees which know what the are doing and do what they know is the key to a win.

The vigor of a micro-campaign committee is often enfeebled by the inclusion of anarchistic elements that suffer from a distaste for "bourgeois politics" and believe that virtue lies in either full-blown or closet abstention from the electoral struggle.

So, the democratic forces, this time, may want to organizationally separate robust electoral workers from pure and unadulterated "do gooders" who display a bovine sluggishness after they are dragged into an electoral struggle ... however well-trained they may be.

To be sure, NED will try to dispatch a good number of the bovines to the democratic forces.

BLOCKING THE THEFT OF ELECTION

• Stealing elections used to be the back-up plan of the GOPs who run the United States.

Now, it's their main plan. And the old-fashioned "getting the most votes" is conspicuously secondary.  Some believe ... and argue ... that stealing the election is the only plan of the GOPs.  The GOPs are sure to impart this fresh, brand new, and triumphant understanding to the electoral process to NED, the pimp of imperialism.  And NED, naturally, will pass on these "discoveries" to its Nicaraguan operatives.

Don't be surprised if Nicaragua in the coming months is overrun by Cuban-Americans connected with the Miami mafia.  These ladies and gentlemen truly excel all others in the art of stealing elections.

If this type of Cuban-American doesn't come to Nicaragua ... in large numbers, then NED, the panderer, will likely ship its Nicaraguan operatives to Miami for an "education" on how to steal ... cutting-edge style.

The gist of the GOP school of election fraud is cover all bases.

Every phase of the process will be defiled -- registration, documents, polling, polling place operation, and all levels of the vote counting will turned into a farce.  Or, more correctly, in the words of Lenin, into a pigsty.

KEEPING THE INTERNATIONAL MONITORS HONEST

This will be hard to do.

Exit pollsters and representatives of international organizations are the worse.  The big ado about the next general secretary of the OAS has a lot to do with the 2006 election in Nicaragua.

• I hope that Jose Miguel Insulza didn't cut a deal with the "ET" lookalike, Condoleezza Rice, to get the job. 

NED will not repeat the mistakes it made in Venezuela with the Sumate exit poll.  There are specialists out there who are skilled in countering each one of these tricks. Needless to say, the outcome will depend on the skill and vigor of the democratic forces of Nicaragua.

Arthur Shaw
belial4444@aol.com

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