The Perils of Reconciliation: Achievements and Challenges of Daniel Ortega and the Modern FSLN

Alliances and Their Inception

The Sandinistas’ darkest hour was when they lost the election to Violeta Chamorro’s Unión Nacional Opositora (National Opposition Union—UNO) coalition in 1990. After 10 years in government, the revolutionary dream proved to be brief, costly, and elusive. The electoral defeat led to the division of the Sandinistas into camps that—in contrast to those of the past—differed not only on the preferred means to a common end but also on the end itself. Many historical leaders left the FSLN. In fact, many of the party’s most renowned figures did so, and as a result the Sandinistas’ heroic image began to fade (Cruz Feliciano and Chaguaceda, 2013: 149–150). ² Daniel Ortega, former president and one of the nine commanders in the FSLN’s national directorate, stayed aboard, steering the ship in opposition waters, for 16 years until finally, in 2006, and with only 38 percent of the votes, the Sandinistas returned to power.

The FSLN’s comeback after almost a generation enshrined Ortega as the party’s savior. For many hard-core Sandinistas, had it not been for his perseverance, leadership, and vision the party would have succumbed. This conviction earned Ortega a great deal of political capital, which manifested itself in unyielding trust among his followers—a deep conviction that no matter how bad things got, in the end their leader would prove to have acted in the best interest of the party. ³ Throughout the years, Ortega has used this political capital to forge a number of pragmatic alliances that have allowed him not only to climb back to power but also to consolidate it as has no other president in the country’s democratic history.

After two failed attempts at overcoming the 1990 electoral defeat, Ortega gave the FSLN’s 2006 campaign a significantly different turn. Beyond the lowering of the electoral threshold negotiated with then-president Arnoldo Alemán in the infamous Pact of 1999, ⁴ according to opinion polls the biggest obstacle to Ortega’s reelection was people’s fear of war. The electorate associated the Sandinista leader with the possibility of renewed conflict and bloodshed, and his contenders reinforced that fear for political advantage. To overcome this last hurdle, Ortega established a policy of broad pragmatic alliances that included various actors, ranging from former Contras to the Catholic Church and the Consejo Superior de la Empresa Privada (Superior Council of Private Enterprise—COSEP). In preparation for what would become the Unida Nicaragua Triunfa coalition in the 2006 election, Ortega made overtures to each of the sectors that had proven key in keeping alive the anti-Sandinista forces that prevented the FSLN from returning to power.

The first of these alliances began in 2004, when in an act celebrating the twenty-fifth anniversary of the revolution Ortega publicly apologized for having attacked members of the Catholic hierarchy during the 1980s. ⁵ Days later, Cardinal Miguel Obando y Bravo, then archbishop of Managua and one of the most fervent opponents of the Sandinistas during their decade-long government, accepted Ortega’s invitation to celebrate mass on the anniversary of the revolution. These events laid the foundations for a durable pragmatic alliance with the Church that was consolidated through a number of gestures including the passage of legislation criminalizing therapeutic abortion, Obando’s designation as head of the Peace and Reconciliation Commission, and more recently his recognition as National Hero of Peace and Reconciliation by the Sandinista-dominated National Assembly (Montez Rugama, 2016). ⁶ Although Obando is no longer the head of the Church in Nicaragua, he commands a good deal of respect from followers and the hierarchy alike, paving the way for a very cordial relationship with the institution. The cardinal’s successor, Monsignor Leopoldo Brenes, is not as vocal as Obando in his support for Ortega but has nevertheless valued the government’s social spending, particularly in education and health, “because it’s what the people ask for and what they need for their development” (quoted in Chamorro Mendieta, 2015). Since 2011, the FSLN has described its government as one that strives to build a “Christian, solidary, and socialist Nicaragua.”

The second key alliance brokered by Ortega was with the former counterrevolutionary forces (popularly known as Contras) grouped in the Nicaraguan Resistance Party. With the help of Washington, the Contras waged war on the Sandinista government during the 1980s. While by the end of the decade the conflict was a virtual stalemate, by most accounts it was largely the bloodshed and pain brought about by the war that accounted for the FSLN’s electoral defeat. Nicaraguans became convinced that as long as the Sandinistas were in power the United States would not cease in its efforts to topple the government. As a result, the majority—including Sandinista sympathizers—voted against the regime as a means to seeing the war end. In his third bid for reelection Ortega gathered that there was no better way to remove the prospect of war from people’s fears than to co-opt the former Contras into the Sandinista project. The first step in this direction was to invite the former Contra leader Jaime Morales Carazo to join Ortega as vice-presidential candidate on the FSLN ticket. Morales Carazo had been not only the civilian face of the Contras in the 1980s but also their chief negotiator during the peace conversations and a founding member of the Liberal Constitutionalist Party, one of the main contenders in the 2006 election. In accepting the nomination he reaffirmed his belief in “a market economy, with responsibility and social solidarity, in private property, in integration treaties, and in a free press without restrictions” (La Nación, May 28, 2006). His words sought to put at ease those who feared controversies reminiscent of those of the 1980s in these areas.

Four months after announcing the candidacy of the former Contra chief, in an event that assembled some of the most noted personalities of the former Contra army, the FSLN and the Nicaraguan Resistance Party proclaimed an electoral alliance. During the ceremony, two former combatants from opposing sides read a 15-point pact that once again spoke to Nicaraguan fears about a Sandinista comeback. In it, both parties pledged “that never again will the Nicaraguan family resort to violent means to resolve its differences” and that “never again will there be war, conscription, confiscations, or rationing cards and that never again will they be objects of foreign intervention leading to armed confrontation among Nicaraguan siblings.” The Sandinista Radio La Primerísima (2006a) described the deal as a “spectacular electoral maneuver,” shedding light on the importance that the FSLN placed on the prospect of this pragmatic alliance as a key component of a strategy to reconquer power.

A third critical actor with which the FSLN needed to make peace as a means of winning the election was the business sector. While in its plan of government in the eighties the Sandinistas had declared a mixed economy—along with nonalignment and political pluralism—as a pillar of their revolutionary project, in practice the party imposed a predominantly statist, socialist-inspired economic model. The business sector deemed this counter to its interests. In 1980 the bulk of the business groups represented by the COSEP issued a formal declaration that the government “ha[d] ceased to be a pluralist government of national unity and [thus] become the government of one party, the FSLN.” Following the statement, the COSEP announced its resignation from the State Council. Five days later, and under obscure circumstances, its vice president, Jorge Salazar, was killed in a confrontation with security forces (Torres and Coraggio, 1987: 147–148).

With the notable exception of the “patriotic bourgeoisie,” regarded as such by the Sandinistas for its willingness to operate within the parameters rejected by the COSEP, the adversarial relationship between business and the FSLN grew worse in the years to follow. The animosity between the parties continued even after the FSLN left office as it vigorously opposed the neoliberal policies promoted by successive governments and defended by the business sector. The rapprochement between the two began shortly before the 2006 election. Morales Carazo’s designation as vice-presidential candidate had the effect of bringing the FSLN closer not only to the former Contras but also to the COSEP. A businessman and banker himself, Morales Carazo represented an ideal letter of presentation to the business sector, showing that Ortega was serious about leaving hostilities in the past and giving business representatives an important role in his prospective government. Besides Morales Carazo, Ortega had on his team another powerful agricultural entrepreneur, Bayardo Arce, as economic adviser. The appointment of a high-ranking Sandinista commander and member of the FSLN’s national directorate in the 1980s reflected the belief that once-hard-core revolutionaries could open their minds to the ways of the market and work to advance commercial interests (Spalding, 2017: 166).

On the COSEP front, the time was also ripe for rapprochement. As noted by COSEP President Jose Adán Aguerri, a new generation of businesspeople was willing to consider strategic alliances that would advance its interests (Spalding, 2017: 163). In line with this view, a few days before the election, the COSEP invited all presidential candidates to sign a document committing themselves to limiting excessive state regulation, promoting macroeconomic stability, and controlling the fiscal deficit. Ortega arrived at the signing of the 10-point agreement accompanied by Morales Carazo and Arce and urged entrepreneurs not to fear confiscation or the imposition of a state-led economic model. In signing the document Ortega explained that his primary objective was to eradicate poverty and that this would be accomplished by “promoting the capacities of producers, entrepreneurs, and the Nicaraguan private sector” (Radio La Primerísima, 2006b). Soon after the FSLN candidate was proclaimed winner of the contest, then–COSEP President Erwin Kruger expressed confidence that the new president would keep his word (La Prensa, November 9, 2006).

The Politics of Reconciliation and Their Implications

For the FSLN, the aforementioned pragmatic alliances have proven critical not only in the winning of successive electoral contests in 2006, 2011, and 2016 but also in ensuring a stable climate for economic development and investment. Since Ortega regained power, economic cooperation has increased, social programs have grown, and poverty has diminished at a sustained rate. ⁷ For a country that has for decades been one of the poorest in the hemisphere, these accomplishments are not to be taken lightly, since they help to explain the immense popularity of the FSLN and its growth with each election.

From the ideological standpoint, the logic behind what may appear counterintuitive alliances for a leftist party has its roots in the Sandinistas’ new conception of socialist transformation for Nicaragua. According to Orlando Núñez (2015: 64), historically “the economic subjects of capitalism have been the entrepreneur and the consumer, both subordinated to the market.” The Sandinista proposal is to create a new subject within the existing order that will eventually lead to its transformation. This subject consists of economic associations of small and medium-sized producers that will promote horizontal accumulation (as opposed to the vertical accumulation that characterizes capitalism) “as a means to satisfy the needs of producers, workers, and dwellers,” leading to the replacement of the old state (a combination of government and corporation) with a state that prioritizes the combination of government, councils, and associations. ⁸ Against this background, the policy of alliances is based on the government’s social welfare and economic development objectives (66). Describing the Sandinista model as nonexclusionary, Núñez recognizes the potential for conflict among competing interests but is quick to suggest that this does not preclude compromise to advance certain goals (74):

Struggle of interests and reconciliation are two moments, in space and time, of a single journey toward transformation and social perfectibility. There are times and opportunities for each, but not even the most belligerent, on one hand, excludes the most understanding, on the other. In each historical situation we find ourselves with a concrete agenda of conflicts, reconciliation efforts, and opportunities for transformation of that great contradiction: the contradictory and conflictive relation between masters and slaves. In any case, in this world plagued with contradictions we cannot live without struggle, but neither can we live without reconciliation.

On the basis of this rationale, Núñez contends that what allows the FSLN to continue espousing its belief in a socialist future in spite of whatever contradictions are implicit in the association with its strategic allies is the government’s promise to prioritize the needs of those that are closer to national and working-class interests, always deferring to the most vulnerable. Claiming that Nicaragua as a whole benefits from this model, Núñez (2015: 74) argues in favor of a macro approach, with special attention to those in the lower ranks of society: “Between the interests of national entrepreneurs and foreign interests the Sandinista Front opts for national interests. Between the interests of big national producers and the interests of small and medium-sized local producers, including workers, the Sandinista Front opts for the interests of small and medium-sized producers, including workers.” To be sure, much of this discourse does not reach (or convince) many critics from the left. As a result, the pragmatic alliances have contributed to undermining the image of the FSLN as a leftist party among historical base supporters and ideological peers in the international sphere. While some admit that at one point strategic concessions were necessary to ensure a fair shot at winning the 2006 election, today there is fear that the alliances may be going a bit too far, steering the party off its ideological path for the sake of maintaining elite support and holding on to power.

Perla and Cruz-Feliciano (2013: 97) have observed a tendency, based on “the logical fallacy of attributing intention to actions on the basis of their outcomes,” to conflate the FSLN’s tactical decisions with (its) strategic objectives. They call attention to the argument of some political commentators that the reason the FSLN is “developing good working relations with sectors of capital or the middle class is that [it is] no longer committed to the socialist transformation of society.” ⁹ One such example is the opinion of the Sandinista Commander Henry Ruiz, former member of the FSLN national directorate. In his view, “revolution is socialism,” and he asks, “How can a ‘revolutionary government’ promote economic development based on an extractive model that fits directly with big money interests, both internally and internally?” (Walters, 2016). The accusations made by other detractors from the left, however, transcend Ruiz’s criticism and suggest that the government appears to have gotten caught in an intricate web that prevents it from making its formula work as well in practice as it sounds in theory. The type and nature of government concessions to multinational capital and the business sector suggest that “neoliberal ideas continue to guide Ortega’s economic policies” while keeping democratic processes—both within the party and in the nation at large—constantly under attack (Walters, 2016).

Illustrative of the apparent clash of the FSLN’s alliance with big money and the progressive agenda that the party espouses is the harassment of indigenous communities on the Caribbean coast. State authorities have been reported to be forcing them to consent to the expropriation of their communal lands for the construction of the Grand Nicaraguan Interoceanic Canal, the administration’s favorite economic development project (Kilpatrick, 2016). There have also been reports of repression of protests of the construction of the canal, specifically through the blocking of roads and the use of force (including live ammunition) by the police (AFP, 2016). For Goett and Morris (2016), the management of this issue is only one of many examples of Nicaragua’s authoritarian turn under the Sandinistas. From their point of view, “Canal opponents offer a critical take on how capitalist intensification and creeping authoritarianism undermine the interests of popular sectors and the pursuit of a more just society.”

Toward the Construction of Socialism?

From a leftist perspective, one of the most troubling concerns is the increased centralization of decision making and the limited participation of the base in the development of policy. Upon returning to power the Sandinistas recovered the concept of participatory democracy from the 1980s and vowed to make it a centerpiece of their governing model through the implementation of consejos del poder ciudadano (citizen power councils) (Cruz Feliciano, 2009). While in theory these councils were to represent a two-way channel for receiving input and implementing policy, ¹⁰ their role has been mostly limited to facilitating the delivery of public goods and services. ¹¹

Though at the neighborhood level a vibrant participative culture can be seen in many communities, ¹² within the Sandinista party structure effective grassroots input into decision making is scarce and constrained. While in the 1980s top-ranking leaders met face to face and on a weekly basis “with hundreds of people, discussing for hours their questions, complaints, demands, and suggestions” (Envío Team, 1987), today that practice is virtually absent. At the periodic Sandinista congresses—the party’s highest level of deliberation—high-level officials present motions and proposals to the plenary of delegates and subsequently invite the attendees to “approve” them unanimously and by acclamation, rendering the consultation process a virtual farce. ¹³ More recently Sandinista militants in several municipalities protested against the imposition of mayoral candidates for the 2017 election, which in their view obviated the preferences expressed in a survey that the FSLN conducted for that purpose (Gallegos et al., 2017).

Part of the problem has to do with the origins of the FSLN as a military organization, in which blind discipline, loyalty, and a disposition to sacrifice were cultivated as supreme values that would lead to the effective overthrow of a dictatorial regime. In spite of the leadership’s emphasis on accountability and transparency as pillars of the revolutionary project, raising doubts or questions about party actions and policies was frowned upon as having counterrevolutionary motives. The persistence of this logic in a twenty-first-century leftist party suggests weakness to the extent that it limits openness to new ideas, views, and strategies for establishing the foundations of a new participative order.

Together with Prado (2007), I allude to participative democracy as defined by Carole Pateman (1976: 43), who describes the model “as one where maximum input (participation) is required, and where output includes not just policies (decisions), but also the development of the social and political capabilities of each individual, so that there is ‘feedback’ from output to input.” In order for this dynamic to be translated into action, participation must be conceived as both active and propositive and as circumscribed by the notion of citizenship. Benjamin Barber (2003: 155–156) highlights these concepts when distinguishing between the behavior of the masses and the behavior of citizens, showing that only one of these is conducive to a higher form of democracy aimed at the common good. From his perspective, “masses make noise, citizens deliberate; masses behave, citizens act; masses collide and intersect, citizens engage, share, and contribute. At the moment when ‘masses’ start deliberating, acting, sharing, and contributing, they cease to be masses and become citizens. Only then do they ‘participate.’ ”

The absence of genuine popular participation in the direction of the public and partisan agenda has led to the restoration of what in the twentieth-century actually-existing-socialism model was termed as the “vanguard”: a group of “enlightened” leaders whose mission is to lead the way for the eventual liberation of the masses. The Nicaraguan vanguard, made up essentially of Daniel Ortega and his wife (now vice president), Rosario Murillo, has been effective in opening new channels to gather input on citizen needs and cater to them. Nevertheless, in their penchant for being the main articulators of the popular will, they are not only constrained in their ability to resist the demands for privilege of their strategic allies but also appear to fall victim to a groupthink mentality that clouds their ability to act according to the stated goal of pursuing participatory democracy. ¹⁴ The challenge is for a party with a military culture to move toward a participative culture consistent with the organizational proposals of the left in the twenty-first century. In the words of Isabel Rauber (2009), it is about instilling the notion of “building power from below.” ¹⁵

According to Rauber (2009: 10), the revolutions of the twentieth century were revolutions “from the top,” revolutions that sought “to change society on the basis of economic transformations conceived from the partisan state apparatus . . ., a mechanism of centralization and political, economic, social, and cultural control.” This, in turn, led to the relegation of the objectives of human liberation in favor of economic goals, hoping that people’s conscioussness would become “socialist” as a result of changes in the economy (4). Consequently (2),

Little by little, the decisions about the transformations, the steps to follow, the efforts to deliver, were wrested from the hands and the consciousness of the people. A growing estrangement came about, a distancing from what should have been an appropriation, and, with it, the revolutionary process itself was wrested from the people. Far from decreasing, the inherited political alienation tended to increase, to the point where in some realities of the socialist camp there was a total break between the political regime, the life of leaders, and the people as a whole, their aspirations, hopes, and needs.

As an alternative, Rauber’s proposal is to allow popular participation to define the agenda of the left, preventing the vanguard from being the one setting the direction of public governance. From this perspective, the conquest of power is not a simple act but a process articulated through the construction of the power of the people, since it is this power and not the power of capital that the left seeks to exercise. For Rauber this power must be built on a day-to-day basis as people develop collective practices that pave the way for something new while also creating and building it in every sphere of their daily activities. In sum, “the project of a new society becomes defined in the process itself, with the active and leading participation of the actors and social sectors that participate in the struggle and the social transformation process. . . . [The project] cannot be delegated to elites or well-intentioned minorities; it is everyone’s responsibility or, at worst, that of the majorities” (4).

To its credit, the FSLN elite has enacted some initiatives that are in line with the twenty-first-century leftist agenda, such as the economic empowerment of disenfranchised sectors, the promotion of gender equity, and the preservation of the environment. Some of the government’s most renowned policies are the restoration of free health care and education and the implementation of local initiatives that promote cooperativism and development at the grassroots level. Examples are the bono productivo alimentario, “which distributes farm animals, seeds, and technical instruction to women in the rural sector; [and] Usura Cero, which makes microcredit loans for small-business development” (Perla and Cruz-Feliciano, 2013: 88). Less-well-known achievements are the creation in 2009 of the Office of the Special Attorney for Sexual Diversity (Silva, 2009), massive investments in renewable energy that allowed the country to generate 54 percent of its energy from nonfossil fuels in 2015 (Mellino, 2016), and, at Ortega’s request, a 2012 reform to the electoral law requiring that 50 percent of all candidacies introduced by parties in municipal, National Assembly, and Central American Parliament elections be occupied by women (Asamblea Nacional de Nicaragua, 2012).

At the same time, other government actions—tied to the alliances with the Church and the business sector—leave much to be desired in terms of what would be expected from a modern left government and reflect a marked contrast with the positions that Sandinistas held during their decade-long administration in the 1980s. In the realm of women’s rights, for example, advocacy groups have filed more than 30 suits with the Sandinista-laden Supreme Court of Justice challenging the constitutionality of the ban on therapeutic abortion passed by the FSLN in 2006. To date, the court has not issued a decision in any of these cases (Vasquez, 2016). ¹⁶ In the realm of redistributive justice, the tax structure remains virtually untouched. In December 2012, and at the request of the International Monetary Fund, the National Assembly passed a tax reform negotiated for months between the FSLN and COSEP representatives. As a result, the lower end of the income tax contribution was increased from 10 percent to 15 percent, maintaining the cap at 30 percent, and the tax on capital gains (applied only to those who can afford to save or invest) remained steady at 10 percent. In addition, the list of tax-exempt entities grew to include investment funds and additional benefits for free-trade zones, putting a disproportionate amount of the fiscal burden on salaried workers while relieving more privileged sectors from a greater share of responsibility (Medal, 2012).

The absence of a significant overhaul of Nicaragua’s tax structure would not be such an issue if it were not for the government’s self-proclaimed socialist agenda in the context of an increasingly unequal society. According to Oxfam (2016), between 2013 and 2014 the growth in the number of Nicaraguan millionaires (5 percent) was greater than the average for Latin America and Caribbean (4.6 percent), and the growth percentage of their wealth was the third-highest (11 percent) among the 18 countries in the study. As a percentage of the country’s gross national product (GNP), in 2013 the wealth of Nicaraguan millionaires ranked number one in the region, 267 percent (41). In the face of this, only distributive, ¹⁷ discretionary social policies are being implemented, with scant evidence of any effort to institutionalize them as means to the incremental building of a more just social infrastructure.

Empowering citizens to participate in partisan and governmental structures could contribute to changing this scenario and put the FSLN on a transformational path toward socialism. Within the party, this could be achieved by encouraging rank-and-file deliberative processes at the neighborhood level and ensuring that the outcomes of those discussions shape the agendas of the periodic Sandinista congresses, with a commitment by leaders to implementing the changes proposed from below. At the governmental level, multiple structures are already in place, providing the necessary foundation for channeling citizen views and proposals into the policy-making apparatus. ¹⁸ Political will to make them work is what is missing from the equation.

The promotion of input and deliberation would not only gain the FSLN additional buy-in from disenfranchised sectors but also allow both the party and the government to obtain a more grounded sense of people’s perspectives and proposals to elaborate their objectives. Projecting those objectives as a mandate emerging from popular participatory structures would provide Ortega with a powerful weapon at the bargaining table with the elite. With sustained popularity levels as an additional asset on its side, the government could employ a two-level game strategy to extract elite concessions, ¹⁹ relying on constituent pressure to promote a significant makeover of the redistributive structure.

For this to work the elite would have to be convinced that public exigencies were rooted in a genuine call for change. The leader can inspire, motivate, and even encourage followers in their demands but should not be perceived by the elite as their main driving force. To enhance the prospects for peaceful change, the public will must be perceived as autonomous and sovereign so that the government—despite its ideological affinity—may be regarded as an agent of concertation, looking out for the greater good of all actors involved. The burden of implementing this strategy lies, however, with the FSLN. Since the party holds the “exclusive representation” of people’s power and the organized left in Nicaragua, it falls upon the Sandinistas to encourage the formation of deliberation instances at the grassroots level to feed the party’s program and the government’s agenda. Political will to subordinate the leader’s role in favor of a heightened presence of grassroots militant voices is imperative to move in this direction.

Conclusions

Ten years after its electoral comeback, the FSLN has a lot to show for itself in terms of socioeconomic achievements. Much of that has been thanks to the stable climate that has ensued as a result of the Sandinistas’ decision to make peace with their historical foes. That peace, however, has come at the price of moving to the back burner structural changes of a more progressive nature that could prove unsettling to the Church, political associates, and business elites. At the same time, the efforts of the FSLN at politically empowering the citizenry have been limited at best. The citizens’ power councils, while well-intentioned, never lived up to the participative-propositive goals they espoused. Instead, they turned into neighborhood committees that implemented policy at the local level and collected citizen grievances to facilitate more expedient and efficient responses to community needs—a good public administration initiative but definitely not an instance of revolutionary change.

A more optimistic way to view the FSLN policy of pragmatic alliances, in line with the new path to socialism it purports to implement, is that the government is co-opting market forces in an effort to harness part of its resources toward the creation of new economic and political subjects. This is different from what a purely neoliberal administration would do, in the sense that it is counter to a laissez-faire mentality. From this perspective the state is taking charge and seeking to make structural transformations under the circumstances. That said, after 10 consecutive years in power there is little to suggest that such transformations are on their way. The promotion of political empowerment at the grassroots level is virtually absent, and receptiveness to popular proposals that may challenge the conventional wisdom of party leadership is practically nonexistent. The spirit of debate, deliberation, and accountability that was once promoted as part of Sandinista ideology remains alive in many neighborhoods at the local level, yet as those views make their way up through the party structure by way of delegates, people’s voices dissolve into the policy consensus at the top.

At the same time, Ortega’s sustained popularity over such a long period of time speaks highly of his ability to decipher and cater to the public’s needs. It is therefore safe to infer that establishing pragmatic alliances with elite sectors has proven an effective component of the strategy for producing confidence in those who were skeptical of the Sandinistas’ ability to bring about economic growth and social welfare in an environment of prosperity and peace.

Entrenched in the wealth of political capital they have accumulated, the Sandinistas are in a good position to take calculated risks in favor of bold redistributive policies. The government’s widespread popularity has given them the upper hand. Not taking more daring steps toward the socialist transformation of society at this juncture could in due time cost them their role as articulators of the leftist agenda in Nicaragua. Opening up to their base would not only allow them to develop policy that is more ideologically coherent and in tune with popular wants and needs but also strengthen their hand at the bargaining table to resist elite pressures against the implementation of redistributive justice and social change.