Los Elecciones

Election season has arrived to Nicaragua.  And, while certainly not as paradigm shifting and barrier shattering as those in the United States (personally I'm still heartbroken Nader didn't pull it off this time), Nicaragua at least had it's fair share of intrigue.

First a little background, as well as I can determine from talking to co-workers and friends and a little reading (I had to find a good Reagan quote),  Nicaraguan polictics, similar to the US, currently hover between two main political ideologies.  However, whereas we hover between liberal and conservative, they hover between socialist and liberal.  2006, I think, saw the resurgence of Daniel Ortega and the socialist Sandinista Liberation Front (FSLN).  You may remember Ortega and the Sandinistas from the 80's when the US organized and armed a contra movement to remove them from what was then a non-elected Ortega dictatorship (they have just previously overthrown a US supported Somozo dictatorship).  You might remember this little shindig...they call it the Iran-Contra-Affair.  If you don't it pretty much went like this:  CIA sells illegal weapons to Iran, Iran gives US money, US uses money to illegally finance, organize and train contra rebels, Reagan claims to his death that the US support of the "democratic resistance" was justified.  Anyways, in 1984, after defeating the contras, Ortega called for elections (which were and have been monitored ever since by international organizations such as the Carter Center) and ever since Nicaragua has seen a rather stable and fair democracy.

So where was I...oh yeah, 2006, Ortega wins a rather stunning presidencial election with 37% of the vote.  Pretty much the 3 liberal parties split the rest of the votes among themselves allowing him to win in one of those "what just happened" moments.  Still it is deemed a fair election and even President Bush called to congratulate him.  Is Ortega winning a bad thing?  Who knows.  Ortega has definitely moderated his views since the 80's but then again held a meeting with Ahmadenijad two weeks after being elected and has tied himself very closely to Chavez in Venezuela...nonetheless this is still seen as a legitimate democracy.  Two years later we arrive at the November 2008 Municipal elections (mayors, governors, etc), the Sandinistas have been in power for 2 years and there is a general fear that they may like it a little more than the democracy they ushered in over 20 years ago.  This fear is agitated when the Supreme Electoral Council refuses entry, for the first time in Nicaraguan history, to international election monitoring organizations and restricts the movement and activities of NGO's already operating in the country.

The results, the Sandinistas win 94 of the 146 municipal elections, including the coveted Managuan Alcalde.  The results are broadly viewed as fraud by the opposition parties and questioned internationally for several reasons: 1- Marked ballots indicating support for opposition parties are found in dumps near Leon, 2 - Election results show very questionable figures, including some municipalities giving 100% support to Sandinistas or others showing Sandinistas with a slim majority while the remaining parties have perfectly divided the remaining percentage of votes amongst themselves, 3- Supposedly original carbon copies of the Managuan results show the liberal opposition party (PLC) with over 60% of the vote, 4- Prior to the elections the Sandinistas and Ortega had a 26% approval rating.

As you can imagine, a young democracy and it constituents have not handled this ambiguity well.  Below you will find a video of riots in the streets following the elections.  For 3 days immediately after the elections it was not safe to travel widely in Nicaragua or Managua, especially near the principal rotundas.  Sadly there have been a few deaths reported, including the shooting of an 8 year old girl.  While Managua has calmed itself a little, after the Supreme Electoral Council agreed to review the election results here, there is still a lot of turmoil in other parts of the country, mainly Leon, where the Supreme Electoral Council has decided not to review the results.

Whatever you feel about the results or our own election, take the time to say thanks and acknowledge the fact that we are blessed (I'm referring to fellow Amercans...sorry if anyone else is reading this) to have a fair and mature system of democracy where your vote is always counted (Electoral College aside).

Bluefields / blueEnergy

HI ALL!!

I know that I've been a little out of touch the past few weeks, and that's because I've been spending the past 2 weeks on the beautiful carribean coast.  No, I wasn't on vacation (although it felt like it at times) but instead Jamie and I attended a conference sponsored by blueEnergy, a Bluefields based NGO focusing on bring renewable and clean energy to isolated communities on the eastern coast of Nicaragua.    The conference was very impressive and educational.  BlueEnergy was able to bring Hugh Piggot, a smallwind guru (one of those those people who are worshipped by the hip/in the know culture).  Hugh actually designed the turbine that blueEnergy uses and came to help them fix some bugs and perfect their design.  In addition Hugh put on a wind turbine conference in which he gave presentations on design issues and then we spent the week actually building a wind turbine from the bolts up.......f#@* me it actually worked!!!!

The conference was absolutely awesome.  The mornings were spent in discussions and presentations among the 6 Nicaraguan renewable energy NGO's, universities, micro credit businesses present.  They were Asofenix, blueEnergy, ATDER-BL, Suni Solar, UNI and Inotec.  Topics for the discussion ranged from renewable energy resources in Nicaragua to community organizing to technical training programs.  I was generally impressed with the ideas, thoughtful consideration and obvious passion that the participants of the conference showed.  I learned quite a bit about the situation of renewable energy development in Nicaragua as well as the future ideas and direction of the movement.  Third world development is a confusing and confounding labrynth in which you can easily lose your way.  It's not simply about providing the resources a community needs, it is also necessary to provide a foundation a community to utilize and effectively safeguard their new resources.  When you consider the isolation and generally low level of literacy, much less education, that exists in these communities simply creating a committee and training a technician to operate the system becomes a daunting task.  But a lot of people are thinking very seriously about solutions to these issues and I felt lucky to be present to listen and share a little.

BlueEnergy itself is also a very very impressive NGO.  Founded 4 or 5 years ago by two brothers and their friend they have their executive headquarters in San Francisco as well as an office in Paris, France.  Their development work is all based in Bluefields where they have over 10 volunteers and 7 Nicaraguan shop persons.  BlueEnergy has spent the past year consolidating it's resources and developing it's infrastructure.  the effort has paid off as they now have an extensive staff, office and resources and the ability to fabricate all of their equipment internally, allowing them to save huge sums of money as well as fabricate their machines much quicker and fix any problems that come up.  The result is that by 2015 they plan to have installed nearly 130 wind turbines.  I think if they show the resourcefulness and resolve they've had over the past few years they now have the ability to do it.  Their long term foresight has paid off.  French volunteers are now my favorite by the way.

As for Bluefields itself, I'm in love.  The caribbean culture is such a unique and fascinated microcosm.  It's amazing how in a 7 hour bus ride, followed by a 2 hour panga (boat) ride (bluefields has no road access) how much a culture can change.  You go from a rather hierarchical and in many ways archaic social structure (I'm trying to say machismo and rigid I think) to this very tranquilo and laid back creoul / caribbean culture.  Reggae and Socca playing in the streets, "Yeah man" being hollered out windows and a general flow to the pace of life....takin it easy man.  The night club was something else as well.  For those of you with a brave heart and who don't blush easily I would highly recommend stopping by 4 Brothers if you're ever in the area.

We also got the chance to visit on of the communities that blueEnergy works with, Monkey Point.  If Bluefields sounds isolated you should see Monkey Point.  it's an amazing place, a 4 hour panga ride from Bluefields and one of the most beautiful and unspoiled areas I've ever seen.....unfortunately that often translates to very poor.

All in all it was a great experience and I feel myself lucky to have been invited.  I made many friends and I hope to make it back sometime very soon.

As for now we have a HUGE amount of work to do with Asofenix.  We had an 8 hour meeting today with community committees and with Asofenix staff where we were able to hammer out the details of the next few months and it is very daunting.  4 major projects, an amazing amount of community organizing, several small projects and repairs and the preparation for two 2 week tourist groups (15 people each) which arrive the 14th of December.  The good news is I feel renergized about the work we're doing and excited that projects are finally coming to fruition....I just wish it was a little spaced out.

I'm going to try to get a post in before the elections here on Sunday, summarizing the political process and the parties involved.  First though I need to learn about it myself so we'll see.  Note that these are not presidential elections but kind of similar to the mid-term elections in the US.

See my new Bluefields/Monkey Point pictures to be posted tomorrow afternoon at:

www.greengringo.shutterly.com