NICARAGUAN ELECTIONS REGIONAL REPORTING: JINOTEGA

C O N F I D E N T I A L MANAGUA 000124 SIPDIS SIPDIS DEPT FOR WHA/CEN E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/16/2016 TAGS: PGOV KDEM SOCI NU SUBJECT: NICARAGUAN ELECTIONS REGIONAL REPORTING: JINOTEGA Classified By: Ambassador Paul Trivelli for reasons 1.4 (b and d) ¶1. (C) Summary: Conversations with political, religious, and economic leaders in Jinotega department reveal an affinity across the Liberal spectrum for dissident presidential candidate Eduardo Montealegre, although Liberal leaders acknowledged that local campesinos -- the majority of the population -- are largely Arnoldista. On the other hand, PLC pre-candidate and native son Jose Rizo appears to have completely alienated the vast majority of Jinotegan Liberals, even friends and family, by failing to "bring home the bacon" while vice president. Other dissident candidates Jose Antonio Alvarado (Liberal) and Herty Lewites (Sandinista) do not appear to have much support in Jinotega. Virtually everyone accuses the local and national Electoral Councils of Sandinista partisanship, specifically claiming that the electoral authorities are denying national ID/voting cards to Liberals. End Summary. ¶2. (C) On January 11 and 12, Poloff and Political Assistant traveled to the northern Nicaraguan department of Jinotega to meet with the local leaders of the Liberal Constitutional Party (PLC),Alliance for the Republic (APRE),"Vamos con Eduardo," "Herty 2006" and the six PLC mayors. We also discussed politics and other issues with the Jinotega Chamber of Commerce, the Coffee Growers Association, and other businessmen and religious leaders. The following is a compilation of the information gathered on specific candidates and organizations involved in the 2006 elections. Friends and Family Reject Jose Rizo - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ¶3. (C) The leading PLC pre-candidate and ex-vice president under Bolanos is a coffee farmer and native of Jinotega. One might therefore assume that Jinotegans would support Rizo, but virtually everyone expressed anger and resentment towards the candidate. The consensus, even among Rizo,s close friends and relatives, is that Rizo "abandoned" the department and failed to use his influence in Managua to improve conditions in Jinotega, e.g. by repairing the tortuous roads that connect the city of Jinotega to Matagalpa and the Pan-American Highway, the lifelines of the coffee producers. Eduardo Rizo Lopez, president of the coffee growers association and a cousin of Jose Rizo, declared him "persona no grata" in Jinotega and predicted that Rizo would attract "less than two percent of the vote" in the department. ¶4. (C) Even the PLC departmental leadership and PLC mayors reject Rizo's candidacy. Youth leader Roberto Herrera claimed that Rizo had informed them privately that he is Arnoldo Aleman's choice as the candidate, and PLC departmental president Alcala Blandon said they had rejected the "dedazo" (personal choice of Aleman) as a legitimate means to select a candidate. The six PLC mayors were open to Liberal dissidents Eduardo Montealegre and Jose Antonio Alvarado, but snickered when Jose Rizo's name was mentioned. If Not Rizo, Then Who? - - - - - - - - - - - - ¶5. (C) The Jinotegan PLC members repeatedly emphasized that their party enjoys the best organization in the department, but were largely at a loss to name a viable alternative candidate to Jose Rizo. The departmental officers mentioned Francisco Aguirre Sacasa and Ramiro Sacasa as having potential as PLC candidates, but the PLC mayors said that, other than the infamous Rizo, none of the other pre-candidates is known or has any influence in Jinotega ) they instead seemed to favor Montealegre. Coffee grower and PLC convention delegate Mario Lopez Rizo claimed that the other pre-candidates have no support. "Vamos con Eduardo" director and former PLC candidate for mayor of Jinotega Ruby Zeledon disputed the PLC's claims to having an indispensable party organization, asserting that during her run for mayor she witnessed considerable disorganization within the party and was forced to raise funds from friends and family. ¶6. (C) All local PLC leaders lamented the lack of support from their national representatives, naming Jinotega the "orphan department." They claimed that, along with Jose Rizo, Liberal departmental deputies Fremio Altamirano and Carlos Noguera had also abandoned the department. Members of all organizations interviewed emphatically agreed that the departmental deputies should be directly elected, not placed on a party list created by the national leadership. Eduardo Montealegre Draws the Most Support - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ¶7. (C) Jinotega, the front line during the 1980,s civil war, is a heavily Liberal department. Most of the Liberals we met with, including PLC mayors and the local APRE directorship, favored Montealegre as the consensus candidate of the &democratic forces.8 Isidro Leon York, departmental coordinator of the Liberal "Vamos con Eduardo" movement, claimed that volunteers from all backgrounds, not just disenchanted PLC members, have joined the movement, but he also admitted that they must do "a lot of work" to sell Montealegre in the countryside. Chamber of Commerce president Teresa Altamirano stated that Montealegre enjoys support in both urban and rural areas, claiming his rallies "filled the streets" in every location. Local APRE coordinator Jairo Fajardo, nominally allied with Montealegre rival Jose Antonio Alvarado, said that either Montealegre or Alvarado would be a good candidate for the Liberals. ¶8. (C) "Vamos con Eduardo" director and deputy alternate Ruby Zeledon shared that Montealegre's supporters have accepted the probability of entering the elections in competition with the PLC. She reported that the group's political allies, the Conservative and Resistance parties, had a wide presence throughout the department, but with relatively few activists in any given location. Eduardo Rizo Lopez alleged that the Resistance Party was previously strong in Jinotega given the high presence of ex-Contras, but claimed that the FSLN had eliminated the Resistance's "true leaders," costing the party strength and credibility. ¶9. (C) Although many PLC members agree that Montealegre is the strongest candidate, they insist that the campesinos in Jinotega (the majority of the population) are strictly pro-PLC Arnoldistas and that Eduardo will not possibly win if he does not run under the PLC banner. Departmental PLC president Alcala Blandon claimed that Montealegre's organization is weak and accused him of recruiting Sandinistas into his ranks. They admitted, however, that the eventual PLC candidate will not win either if Eduardo divides the Liberal votes. The PLC militants offered no suggestions on how to unite the Liberals, simply clamoring that &unity must be achieved8 and begging the Embassy so somehow make this happen. ¶10. (C) The six PLC mayors in Jinotega department are more openly pro-Montealegre than the local party leadership. Eric Castillo, the PLC mayor of El Cua, stated that Montealegre and Alvarado are both "excellent people" but should be united with the PLC. When Poloff pointed out that both candidates were prohibited from running within the party by the Central Committee (CEN),Castillo fumbled for words and finally admitted, "we know we have some bad leaders on the CEN." Lujerio Carazco, mayor of San Jose de Bocay, went further, admitting that the CEN should have let Montealegre run within the PLC, but acknowledged that the mayors are afraid to speak out against the CEN for fear that they will be "cut off." (Comment: We were surprised that all six PLC mayors traveled to Jinotega city, some for as long as six hours, to attend the meeting with Emboffs. End Comment.) Jose Antonio Alvarado - Splashy Billboards, but Little Support - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ¶11. (C) Of all the candidates, Alvarado has the only visible propaganda on the streets of Jinotega, with several large billboards in strategic locations. Actual support for his candidacy, however, was lukewarm even among his supposed allies. Local APRE leaders said that the "Amigos de Alvarado" had mounted the billboards and done all of the logistical work related to Alvarado,s earlier visit to the department, though APRE secretary Baltazar Jarquin accused the &Amigos8 of raiding APRE offices to obtain lists of party affiliates. They said they would support Alvarado when and if he is declared APRE,s official candidate, but were more enthusiastic about Montealegre. APRE coordinator Jairo Fajardo reported that they had organized a well-received meeting with their PLC counterparts last December to discuss Liberal unity in Jinotega, but apparently there has not been any substantive follow-up since then. Chamber of Commerce president Teresa Altamirano told us that Jinotegans appreciate what Alvarado accomplished while in government, but said that he lacks "traction" in the department and should join with Montealegre. ¶12. (C) When asked about the competing candidate for the APRE presidential nomination, Francisco Fiallos, Fajardo readily admitted that Fiallos has no support inside or outside of the party and does not even bother to attend APRE's conferences. Fajardo predicted that Fiallos is waiting to be promised a National Assembly deputy position before renouncing his candidacy. Herty Lewites ) a Long Way to Go - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ¶13. (C) Lewites, local campaign manager, Ali Zeas, is a Sandinista coffee grower who does not even have his own phone number (we had to call a relative to meet him). Zeas admitted that Herty has &a lot of work to do8 in a traditionally Liberal department, and said that Lewites is planning a campaign tour in Jinotega following the Atlantic Coast elections in March. Many Sandinistas will not publicly support Lewites for fear of losing their job with the municipality or some other form of reprisal, but have privately confided that Lewites has their vote, he claimed. Zeas reported that he had received some financing from coffee growers supportive of Lewites, but nothing from the national campaign -- he also said that many independent voters sympathetic to Lewites were reluctant to donate funds because they are still suspicious that Lewites may return to the FSLN fold. He testily remarked that he had to pay off journalists to report on Lewites' campaign activities. ¶14. (C) The Liberals seemed to approve of Herty,s campaign in so much as he is causing problems for Ortega, but most did not think he would have a major impact in Jinotega or nationally. "Vamos con Eduardo" director Noel Blandon commented that Lewites is taking votes from Ortega, but wondered "how much of it is real?" Coffee association president Eduardo Rizo Lopez predicted that "at the end of the day" the Sandinistas will not abandon Ortega for Lewites. On a less cynical note, small business owner Lidia Fonseca said that Lewites enjoys an "image of transparency" and the perception that he can work with private industry, unlike Ortega. Everyone Suspicious of Electoral Council - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ¶15. (C) All of the Liberals (Montealegre's group, the PLC, APRE, etc.) claimed that the local and national electoral councils are in thrall of the FSLN. They are worried that the Departmental Electoral Council (CED) will perpetrate another "raton loco" (random switching of voting stations to discourage citizens, presumably Liberals, from voting) and complained that the CED is not issuing national ID/voting cards (cedulas) to Liberals, only Sandinistas. Ali Zeas also complained that many of Lewites' known supporters are unable to obtain cedulas. Lidia Fonseca stated that the business community has no confidence in the electoral authority because "the magistrates manipulate everything." Even Bishop Herrera acknowledged that "there have been irregularities with the issuance of cedulas." ¶16. (C) Aside from the issue of electoral council fraud, PLC mayor of Yali, Noel Moreno, noted that a large number of campesinos lack their cedula simply because they cannot afford to take all of the bureaucratic steps necessary to obtain one. He explained that many do not even possess a birth certificate, a prerequisite, because their parents did not/could not travel to the departmental capital to register the birth. Of the campesinos who managed to obtain a birth certificate, many are illiterate and become frustrated with all of the bureaucratic steps necessary to apply for the cedula. (Comment: Post is investigating the possibility of supporting a FIBRAS project that proposes to set up cedulation booths in poor areas to help people complete all of the documentation, take photos, etc. End Comment.) Jinotega: Demographics and Voting Profile - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ¶17. (U) Total Population (2005 est.): 297,270 Total Urban Population: 81,887 Total Rural Population: 215,383 Votes Received by Party, 2004 Municipal Elections PLC: 38,792 FSLN: 33,626 PRN: 9,434 APRE: 5,786 Others: 2,834 COMMENT: Divided We Fall - - - - - - - - - - - - - ¶18. (C) Jinotega is one of the most heavily Liberal departments in Nicaragua. Nevertheless, the FSLN won two of the eight municipalities in the department in 2004, including Jinotega city, because of Liberal division. Liberal leaders from the PLC, APRE, and "Vamos con Eduardo" all expressed concern that the same fate would befall them in the presidential elections, but none seem ready to make substantive concessions to their rivals; rather, they want the USG to impose a solution so they cannot be blamed for failure. On a more positive note, the local PLC leaders were not as dogmatic as the national directorship regarding "dissidents" such as Montealegre and were even cautiously critical of the PLC CEN, sentiments Montealegre may be able to exploit if he continues to gain strength. TRIVELLI