Netherlands Institute for Multiparty Democracy

The government seemed to have entered a phase of political disclosure and modest reestablishment of dialogue with national and international actors. NIMD considered this disclosure as something to be actively stimulated.

Pragmatic approach

A more pragmatic approach by international actors towards the new structures for the citizens political participation created by the government – the so-called CPC’s - was also adopted as a manner to help the CPC’s to become an asset for voice and accountability instead of becoming an obstacle to it. In reality the phase of political disclosure and reestablishment of dialogue with actors outside the ruling party / government soon turned for the worse again in the course of 2008.

The CPC’s became militant partisans at the service of the ruling party FSLN. The relations between the government and the non-ruling parties were strongly limited to new bargains and agreements –pacts – between the FSLN and the PLC. 2008 progressively developed into a year of strongly polarized political relations, open attacks by the government against civil society organizations and their international partners. Finally, repression and tensions affected the municipal electoral process towards November 2008.

Future debate

Two parties, MRS and PC were banned early in the process from participation and during the elections allegations about abuse by the FSLN and fraud dominated. FSLN won the elections, thereby giving free way to President Ortega to pursue his political project, but with the suspicion of serious election fraud. Part of the international donor community, i.e. the Embassy of the Netherlands (RNE), reacted by freezing donor funds. In this situation the NIMD programme, in collaboration with RNW-RNTC, UNDP and RNE, provided at least some space for debate and interaction between different political forces and civil society, especially through the organisation of national debates and radio-broadcasting.

On the other hand, the establishment of a Centre for Multiparty Democracy remained on the agenda of UNDP and still remains a potentially important tool for democratic governance in Nicaragua.