NICARAGUAN ELECTIONS REGIONAL REPORTING: CARAZO

C O N F I D E N T I A L MANAGUA 000221

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

DEPARTMENT FOR WHA/CEN

E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/23/2016
TAGS: PGOV KDEM SOCI NU
SUBJECT: NICARAGUAN ELECTIONS REGIONAL REPORTING: CARAZO

REF: MANAGUA 124

Classified By: AMBASSADOR PAUL TRIVELLI. REASONS 1.4 (B,D).


1. (C) SUMMARY: Meetings with political, economic and
religious leaders in the Department of Carazo suggest that by
far the two most popular presidential candidates there are
Eduardo Montealegre and Herty Lewites. Montealegre has
successfully siphoned off elements of the PLC departmental
organization and enjoys significant urban and rural support,
while the candidacy of native-son Lewites has sharply divided
the FSLN, particularly in urban areas. The FSLN retains a
hard core of supporters and the PLC departmental organization
remains dogmatically loyal to Arnoldo Aleman, but none of the
would-be presidential candidates of either of the two
traditional parties have campaigned seriously in Carazo.
Most observers remain deeply concerned that a combination of
CSE incompetence and malfeasance could prevent free and fair
elections in November, citing local examples of CSE officials
facilitating issuance of voter identification cards for FSLN
supporters, while obstructing the efforts of others to obtain
the documents. The loyalty of rural voters who have
historically voted for the PLC remains a wild card in what
most observers describe as a "naturally" anti-Sandinista
department. END SUMMARY.


2. (C) On January 26, poloff and political FSN traveled to
the Department of Carazo, just south and east of Managua, and
met local leaders of "Vamos con Eduardo", the Alliance for
the Republic (APRE),the Liberal Constitutional Party (PLC),
and the one non-Sandinista mayor in the Department, the PLC
mayor of the tiny municipality of La Conquista. Embassy
officials also discussed politics, economics, and social
issues with leaders of the Carazo Chamber of Commerce and the
head of the Catholic Church's hierarchy in the department.
The departmental representative of the Supreme Electoral
Council, a Sandinista, refused a meeting, and referred
emboffs to the CSE magistrates in Managua. It was clear that
the real electoral campaign has yet to begin in Carazo, as
its cities, towns, and highways were largely empty of
electoral propaganda. The only visible posters, painted
signs, and billboards dated from the 2004 municipal electoral
campaign or earlier; most were for either the PLC or APRE.
This cable focuses on the political elements of the Carazo
trip. Post will report on social and economic issues septel.

MONTEALEGRE POPULAR AND CAMPAIGNING ACTIVELY, BUT STRENGTH OF
ORGANIZATION AND DEPTH OF RURAL SUPPORT STILL UNCLEAR
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3. (C) Except for the local PLC leaders, everyone emboffs met
reported that Eduardo Montealegre is taking large numbers of
party activists and supporters away from the PLC in both
urban and rural areas. Along with Lewites, Montealegre is
one of only two presidential candidates to have campaigned
seriously in Carazo, with regular visits that have included
even the smallest municipality. Most interlocutors believed
that the national opinion polls portraying Montealegre and
Lewites as the two most popular politicians in the country
are reflective of popular sentiment in Carazo.


4. (C) Chamber of Commerce leaders stated that most of the
current FSLN mayors in the department are performing poorly,
and that both the PLC and the FSLN were largely discredited
with all but their most die-hard supporters. They added that
Herty Lewites had drawn away a significant number of FSLN
supporters, especially in urban areas. Virtually all
business people, they claimed, support either Montealegre or
Lewites (primarily the former),hoping that one or both of
the two outsiders could bring the stability that Carazo and
Nicaragua need in order to develop. The business sector
opposed the disqualification, or "inhibition" of any
candidate, but feared that the FSLN and PLC would use their
control of the CSE and the judiciary in efforts to manipulate
the outcome of the elections.


5. (C) Wilber Lopez, the Carazo coordinator of "Vamos con
Eduardo", met emboffs along with representatives from
individual municipalities. Almost all were relatively young
(in their 30s),but with long local experience in Nicaragua's
turbulent politics, dating back to 1990 in most cases. Many
were former PLC youth leaders. All described themselves as
"100 percent Liberal" and stated that they still considered
themselves to be PLC members even though most have been
thrown out of the party for supporting Montealegre. Lopez
and his subordinates asserted that they are building a strong
departmental organization, going house to house to rally
support, and have garnered over 10,000 supporters in seven
months of work thus far. They claimed that even many of
those who remain in local PLC structures privately support
Montealegre as the most viable liberal candidate.


6. (C) In addition to training party activists to defend the
vote as "fiscales" on election day, the "Eduardo" movement is
also preparing a campaign to assist voters in obtaining the
required identity documents ("cedulas"). Although they
welcomed the idea of a broad center-right alliance free of
Aleman, they doubted whether such an alliance is possible,
asserting that if voter turnout is sufficiently high, they
could win in Carazo without such an alliance. While most
outside observers acknowledged Montealegre's popularity and
his regular campaigning in Carazo, many questioned the
movement's claims regarding the strength of its organization
and its ability to change the allegiance of die-hard rural
PLC voters.

NATIVE-SON LEWITES POPULAR IN CARAZO TOWNS, BUT NOT MUCH
IMPACT IN COUNTRYSIDE
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7. (C) Although he was most recently mayor of Managua, Herty
Lewites is originally from Jinotepe, the departmental capital
of Carazo. His "Hertylandia" theme/waterpark is located in

the department, and when he was Minister of Tourism in the
1980s, he helped bring a variety of tourism-related
investments to Carazo. Lewites thus enjoys a reputation for
pragmatism and promotion of jobs and development in Carazo,
and has a natural base of support there. The mayor of
Jinotepe, who was elected on the FSLN ticket in 2004, is
actually from the Sandinista Renewal Movement (MRS),one of
the members of Lewites' electoral coalition, and is actively
supporting his campaign.


8. (C) Except for one FSLN town counselor from La Conquista
who "crashed" emboffs meeting with the PLC mayor there,
everyone else agreed that Lewites enjoys widespread support
in urban areas of Carazo, particularly with many small
business owners and educated public sector workers (teachers,
doctors, etc.). Some officials of other parties feared that
Lewites might draw as many urban votes from the center-right
parties as he would from the FSLN, and many questioned
whether the Herty/Daniel split is anything more than a
Sandinista tactic to divide the "democratic" vote. Most
interlocutors questioned the strength of Lewites' local
organization and doubted that his support extended into rural
areas. However, everyone acknowledged that Lewites is
campaigning actively and visibly throughout the department.

ALVARADO SUPPORTERS LEANING TOWARDS PLC, BUT CANDIDATE
INVISIBLE IN CARAZO
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9. (C) Although his local supporters claim otherwise, emboffs
saw and heard little to suggest that APRE pre-candidate Jose
Antonio Alvarado has much of a campaign organization in
Carazo, has campaigned in the department at all, or enjoys
any real degree of popular support there. Other than APRE
officials, no one even mentioned Alvarado in any context
until emboffs asked about him. When asked, virtually
everyone reported that, as far as they know, Alvarado is not
active in Carazo.


10. (C) Emboffs heard a very different story from APRE
Departmental President Erick Mendieta, who is also the
departmental president of the "Amigos de Alvarado."
Mendieta and a small group of APRE departmental officials met
emboffs in the town of Diriamba, in a building with a large
sign proclaiming it to be the local office of APRE National
Assembly deputy Miguel Lopez Baldizon. Mendieta proclaimed
APRE the "Third Force" in Carazo (after the PLC and FSLN),a
reference to its performance in the 2004 municipal elections
that does not take into account the subsequent fracturing and
desertions the party has suffered. In keeping with the
recent tentative rapprochement of APRE leaders Lopez and
Alvarado with Aleman's PLC, Mendieta asserted that APRE
maintains good relations with the PLC and Camino Cristiano in
Carazo and that a grand center-right alliance of all these
parties will be required to defeat the FSLN.


11. (C) In a refrain often used by Alvarado and his
supporters (as well as by the PLC),Mendieta dismissed as
inaccurate and flawed polls showing Montealegre and Lewites
to be the country's two most popular politicians. Mendieta
insisted that the polls do not represent sentiments in
Carazo, neglecting both Alvarado's support and the rural
strength of the PLC. Early in the meeting, Mendieta
dismissed Eduardo Montealegre's chances in Carazo, claiming
that while he might enjoy a certain popularity, h?Q8]practical people, the party's departmental
leaders were among the most unpleasant, intransigent PLC
officials emboffs have ever met. Such differences are not
uncommon (see reftel),as local PLC elected officials are
often more open and flexible than their counterparts in the
party structures. While Chavez and his councilors agreed
that the PLC needs to become more democratic and stated that
theQQBH3I]0g and that of the "Vamos con Eduardo" group were
striking. While Wilber Lopez of "Vamos con Eduardo" acted as
though he was leading a meeting of equals, and the other
"Vamos con Eduardo" officials present all spoke their minds
when they wished, it was obvious that Tapia was the local PLC
caudillo, and that no one could speak without his approval.
The PLC representatives, as a group, were also significantly
older than their "Vamos con Eduardo" counterparts, and did
not give the impression of being the sort of people who had
ever been out defending the vote on election day.


14. (C) In a wide-ranging, reality-defying diatribe, Tapia
insisted that in Carazo, the PLC organization and support are
as strong as ever, that Montealegre has no organization and
has met with "total rejection" in the department, that every
PLC member in Carazo agreed one hundred percent with every
decision ever taken by Aleman and his inner circle in
Managua, that Aleman was a "political prisoner" who had never
stolen a cent, and that no Aleman-Ortega "pact" had ever
existed. Tapia and his cohorts insisted that Aleman is the
"indispensable leader" of the PLC and that the party could
not change leadership in a time of "crisis." Tapia claimed
that the local PLC enjoys good relations with all of the
other local political forces on the right of the
spectrum--except for "Vamos con Eduardo", with which they
have no relations whatsoever. Tapia and company were
unwilling or unable to offer any commentary on the various
PLC presidential "pre-candidates", save to proclaim that
whichever one is ultimately selected will win the general
election. While some kind of rapprochement with Jose Antonio
Alvarado might be possible in Tapia's view, no accommodation
could possibly be reached with Montealegre, whom he derided
as rejecting primary elections now that the PLC had accepted
them.


15. (C) While the PLC organization in Carazo is a shadow of
its former self and while no PLC presidential pre-candidate
enjoys any significant support there, Tapia and his followers
were not the only ones to claim that uneducated rural voters
accustomed to voting for the PLC slot on the ballot
("casilla") would unthinkingly punch the same ticket as
usual, effectively making the PLC an indispensable part of
any strategy to win the rural areas. Such claims are
difficult to evaluate, but anti-Sandinista rural voters in
Nicaragua have a history of voting for whichever force they
believe is most likely to prevent an Ortega victory.

FSLN DIVIDED BY LEWITES, BUT RETAINS ITS HARD CORE
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16. (C) Carazo has been strongly anti-Sandinista since the
inception of democracy in Nicaragua in 1990, and the current
predominance of FSLN mayors in the department is largely a
result of high voter abstention in 2004 and the sharp
divisions amongst the "democratic" parties that year (see
paragraph 18). Virtually all of emboffs' interlocutors
agreed that the Sandinista vote in Carazo tops out at 30
percent of the electorate. Only disillusionment with
politics and corresponding high abstention, shenanigans by
the Supreme Electoral Council (CSE),and divisions among the
"democratic forces" allowed the FSLN to make significant
inroads in Carazo in the 2004 municipal elections. With
Lewites apparently drawing off a significant portion of these
voters, at least in urban areas, numerous observers
characterized the FSLN as "badly divided" in Carazo. Given
these circumstances, only a Lewites return to the FSLN fold,
high voter abstention (which is not common in Nicaraguan
presidential/legislative elections),or new CSE machinations
could enable an FSLN breakthrough in Carazo. Perhaps in part
as a result of these realities, Daniel Ortega has yet to
campaign in any serious way in the department.

EVERYONE WORRIED ABOUT CSE INCOMPETENCE AND PRO-FSLN BIAS
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17. Everyone emboffs met expressed concern on the ability and
the desire of the CSE to carry out free and fair elections in
November. All of the representatives of the center-right
parties stated that they are planning and implementing
projects to obtain cedulas for their voters, as the local CSE
official actively obstructed the efforts of their voters
while facilitating the applications of FSLN militants and the
delivery of their cedulas. This was particularly a problem
for non-FSLN rural voters, who must travel to Jinotepe to
apply for and obtain cedulas. Sandinista voters do not
suffer such difficulties, as their cedulas are delivered to
them by CSE officials. Emboffs also heard regular complaints
that the CSE is issuing cedulas to underage FSLN
sympathizers. Aside from such biases, numerous party
officials also complained that the CSE has never made any
kind of effort to update the electoral register or issue
cedulas until a few months before each election.

CARAZO: DEMOGRAPHICS AND VOTING PROFILE
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18. (U) Total Population (2003 est.): 178,818
Total Urban Population: 109,614
Total Rural Population: 69,204

Votes Received by Party, 2004 Municipal Elections

PLC: 17,080
FSLN: 25,167
APRE: 8,459
CCN: 1,014
PLI: 600
AC: 488
PLN: 390
PRN: 307
MSL: 120


COMMENT
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19. (C) Since 1990, Carazo has been a strongly
anti-Sandinista department. When the non-Sandinista parties
were more united, they won six out of eight municipalities in
the 2000 municipal elections. But when they were sharply
divided in the 2004 municipal elections, and their voters
disillusioned with the direction of national politics,
abstention was over 50 percent and the FSLN took seven out of
eight municipalities. However, even with historically high
abstention in 2004, the combined votes of anti-FSLN parties
were larger than the Sandinista tally in all but two of the
eight municipalities. Particularly if Herty Lewites remains
in the race and divides the FSLN vote, Carazo is a department
that the center-right forces should win--if they can overcome
their differences. Herty Lewites and Eduardo Montealegre
have started their campaigns with the advantage of widespread
popularity, but the depth of their organizational strength
remains in doubt, as well as their ability to change
ingrained rural voting preferences. However, despite PLC and
APRE claims that poor campesinos are blindly loyal to Aleman
and the PLC, they and other anti-FSLN voters have
demonstrated considerable electoral savvy in the past,
casting their ballots for whatever force seemed most capable
of defeating Daniel Ortega. If Montealegre can build a solid
organization and convince people that his movement has
eclipsed the PLC, he stands a good chance of persuading rural
voters in Carazo and elsewhere not to "waste" their ballots
by casting them for the PLC.
TRIVELLI