A Guide For Election Observers

I. INTRODUCTION: CAN THE FAIRNESS OF AN ELECTION BE EMPIRICALLY EVALUATED?

Judging the fairness of any election is difficult. Conventional wisdom holds that a secret ballot is an antidote to many forms of pre-election improprieties, because the voter can still freely choose; but this may not be true. As Harvard University President Derek Bok wrote twenty years ago in an important analysis of workplace union elections, we know much less about the effects of campaign tactics upon the voter than one might assume as a matter of common sense. And such knowledge as we have diminishes greatly once we proceed beyond the most serious forms of coercion and interference.”^[1]Derek Bok, “The Regulation of Campaign Tactics in Representation Elections under the NLRA [National Labor Relations Act],” Harvard Law Review 78:38, 52 Cl 964). More recent research into United States labor elections indicates that coercion may have little average effect, but may have pronounced effects at the margin in close elections.^[2]The controversy currently revolves around supporters and critics of Getman, Goldberg & Herman, Union Representation Elections; Law and Reality (Russell Sage Foundation, New York, 1976). The … Continue reading

Coercion and interference can take two electorally distinct forms. The most obvious form is the direct attempt to coerce the voter by threats of physical or economic harm if (s)he fails to respond correctly. Another form of coercion may not entail threats, but may instead take advantage of ignorance and illiteracy or a relationship of authority. Both are direct attempts to influence the individual voter, and are clearly perceived by the voter concerned. Interference with voter choice may also be indirect. Acts against political leadership and activists, such as physical violence, imprisonment, or threats, deprive parties of organizational strength, and curtail their attempts to sway voters. Possibly equally harmful are limitations on opposition parties’ access to means of communication, limitations on their rights to field candidates, and disproportionate advantages conferred on favored parties and organizations.

Voters may respond to direct interference by complying, remaining unaffected, or casting retaliatory votes. They may or may not respond to indirect interference, depending on their knowledge of the interference and the pertinence of the interference to their interests and values. If voters lack knowledge of imitations on their range of choices, and the limitations are pertinent, their ability to remain unaffected or to retaliate is diminished, and the “antidote” quality of the secret ballot is made irrelevant. But if some limitations are irrelevant to some voters’ values and interests, as you may discover in your interviews with them, then you may, cautiously, judge the particular limitation to have been of no or little consequence to the particular narrowly defined group or class of voters.

These uncertainties about the effects or non-effects on voters of election improprieties reduce your ability to judge the fairness of the election. Theoretically, observers can judge with some confidence an election’s unfairness due to direct interference with voters. Empirical evidence of thwarted voter preferences and their responses is always available, although it may be difficult to obtain. Judgments of fairness are made suspect by indirect interference with parties, however, because observers cannot deduce exactly how voters would have chosen had they had unlimited choices, or had political communications not been restricted.

This is not to say that judgments of fairness cannot be made, that the indeterminacies are always too great. After all, there do exist situations of eminent unfairness, such as where large numbers of voters are involuntarily disenfranchised (South Africa; the pre-Voting Rights Act U.S. South), massive fraud has clearly discredited the vote count, or the atmosphere of fear is palpable, and the ballots are printed on transparent paper. Outside of such obvious situations, judgments must be empirical and not a priori. Even elections in repressive regimes sometimes result in unexpected surprises—the 80 percent vote against military rule in Uruguay a couple of years ago; the acceptance by the FDR-FMLN in El Salvador acceptance of the legitimacy of President Duarte’s government, even though voters cast their ballots in an atmosphere of extreme uncertainty.^[3]I saw a photograph of a representative of presidential candidate D’Abuisson’s Arena Party examining a voter’s ballot, as the voter marked it. This could be considered intimidating, … Continue reading Evidence of interference must be interpreted in the light of ascertainable effects on voters, with sensitivity to local predispositions. Many observers have praised or condemned elections based on factors they considered crucial, but which may not have affected voters in the ways they considered a priori probable.

Election observers should assume the voter to be the center of the electoral universe. Empirical evidence of effects of interference on voters should be used, to the greatest extent possible, to judge substantive fairness. Unfairness should not be assumed to be causally related to procedural irregularities, absent persuasive evidence; nor should fairness be assumed in the absence of direct interference with voters, if indirect interference (with parties, etc.) is apparent to the researcher. Facts should be allowed to speak for themselves as much as possible. If facts can support differing conclusions, you should note these, and provide supplementary analyses to enhance your reader’s ability to understand the context that might cause this result. Where relevant, a comparative approach should be used to deal with the particular interpretive problems encountered, in order to inhibit them is application of cultural or political biases.

Yet, the method of investigating an election’s fairness must necessarily be inexact. The world outside the laboratory honors no neat theoretical boundaries. But inexactness and conflicting assertions of fact do have antidotes: more evidence and more knowledge of conflict situations. The more one knows about the universe of an election, the more bounded and comprehensible the election becomes.

Your study and report, if it is to be a full analysis and not an affirmation of your particular preconceptions, must be a careful investigation and evaluation of

• the election laws and their legislative history
• the implementation of the laws and the means used to promote participation, including provisions for non-Spanish speaking areas
• the expectations, criticisms, and evidentiary allegations expressed by political leaders of each party
• the observations and perceptions of voters
• the factual and values context for particular and general actions affecting the nine conditions required for free elections

Your study should also identify and evaluate

• the dominant intent underlying the laws, and the values being actualized
• the tacit assumptions about political behavior upon which majority and minority political leadership rely in supporting or criticizing the laws
• the reference points used by leadership and voters in assessing the role and validity of the election process
• the roles of institutions, community organizations, and individuals in effecting the election process
• the range and degree of freedom from interference felt by political actors and voters and the extent to which allegations of unfairness seem to be borne out by evidence
• the relative importance or harmlessness of types and instances of interference

The conclusory judgments of government officials and party leaders do not establish or disestablish the fairness of an election. Rather, you must assess fairness in light of voters’ perceptions about how free they feel to freely choose, how unlimited voters feel their choices to be, and how unlimited their choices actually are. You might dismiss as harmless instances of direct interference if the voters affected still feel free; you might likewise dismiss as harmless indirect interference if the instances are insubstantial in reducing the actual flow of information and choice to the voter. But conversely, seemingly minor interference may at times or overall have a magnified effect, and prejudice the election-for instance if campesinos, who comprise a large proportion of the population, are discouraged from entertaining opposition overtures. Therefore, your judgments about the effects of interference must be empirically grounded, and you must avoid a priori and facile assumptions.

You should remember also that what you are evaluating in the first instance is the freedom and fairness of the election, not its legitimacy, and not the legitimacy of the government. Legitimacy is an important question it is the golden ring for which the present government is reaching, and which some of the opposition seeks to deny them. Electoral freedom is a basket containing many questions and is itself contained in a larger basket of electoral fairness, which includes contextual and political considerations. Legitimacy is the largest basket of them all, containing all of the electoral considerations, plus others which cannot be measured by elections, or which may not be tangible enough to confidently assess with hindsight has improved our vision. You will go away from this election with some of the answers to your questions. It is to be hoped that you will keep your mind open, test your observations with scientific earnestness, and thus enhance your understanding of Nicaraguan perceptions and conceptions. It is ultimately the Nicaraguan people who will grant to or withhold legitimacy from their government and its political-economic ethos—your testing of empirical reality will increase your ability to assess, with greater knowledge and certainty, the legitimation process in which the Nicaraguan people are collectively engaged.

II. THE NINE CONDITIONS FOR FREE ELECTIONS

Criteria^[4]These criteria are derived from Herman and Brodhead, Demonstration Elections: U.S.-Staged Elections in the Dominican Republic, Vietnam, and El Salvador (South End Press, Boston; 1984); Bok, op. cit.; … Continue reading

What are the necessary and sufficient conditions for substantive fairness and “free choice” in an election? Election campaigns inevitably are part and parcel of their societies, and even procedurally fair elections are bound by the ideological limitations of their societies. East and West, North and South, voter “free choice” is limited when “undesirable” ideas and politicians are kept out of the social milieu, and therefore do not enter the smaller election milieu. Nevertheless, the election process can be examined apart from its context, so long as researcher and reader bear in mind that an election’s representativeness is bound by its ideological limitations.

A. The election day process and its substantive conditions can be assessed relatively easily. You need to look for

1. Honest watching of each polling place;
2. Total privacy in casting the vote; and
3. Integrity of inspecting and counting of votes.

An election is valid only if these three conditions are met. If they are not, claims of election fairness and legitimacy should be met with extreme skepticism.

B. The election atmosphere must be sufficiently conducive to free discussion to enable voters to cast their ballots without fear of group or individual reprisals. In addition, candidates and party workers must be able to freely communicate with voters. Therefore, there must exist an

4. Absence of a climate of coercion and fear.

But what level of coercion or fear is sufficient to deter voters from choosing freely, and parties from communicating? This is a tough empirical question and may vary by group or class of voter, and type of party.

C. Unless there is a range of candidates approximating the social milieu, one can hardly assume that the election possesses real substance. Therefore, there must exist

5. Pre-election freedom of party organization and activity, including presenting candidates;
6. Institutional freedom of intermediate organizations^[5]This category derives from the Durkheimian idea that intermediate organizations buffer the relationship between the individual and the state and its agents.; and
7. Freedom of speech, campaigning, and assembly.

(5) and (6) are thorny to assess, since the only direct sources of information, party and government officials, all have incentives to exaggerate or dismiss the burdens under which the parties function.

D. If all of the above conditions are met, there remains the need for a society-wide forum in which ideas can freely contend, across institutional, group, and class lines. Therefore, there must exist

8. Freedom of access to the media; and
9. Media freedom, including the existence of independent journals and papers.

Voter reception of political communication is included under (4) and (7). These two conditions relate more to the political party and the communication channels, but voter interviews can yield circumstantial evidence of effectiveness of attempted limitations.

The first three items on the list are crucial to a fair election, but they are not sufficient. The remaining conditions give substance to voter freedom. Infringements upon these remaining conditions might not invalidate the fairness of an election—they may be harmless in effect, or the voters may be sophisticated enough to account for the infringements and vote their own interests and values anyway. But at what point an infringement (such as incomplete censorship) loses it harmlessness and undermines the fairness of the election is a tough empirical question, not a theoretical one. You need evidence of both acts and effects, and your judgment must be divorced as much as possible from a priori assumptions and your own political affinities.

III. EVALUATING THE NINE CONDITIONS IN THIS ELECTION

1. Honest watching of each polling place;
2. Total privacy in casting the vote; and
3. Integrity of inspecting and counting of votes.

All recognized parties are permitted to post inspectors in polling stations, and they are allowed to make complaints about irregularities. Only electoral workers and these inspectors are allowed inside the polling station with the voters. The pol fee guard is to remain outside. There is to be no propaganda in the area; only the national flag is permitted within the station.^[6]You may obtain English and Spanish copies of the Electoral Law from the CSE and Press Office.

Space may be at a premium in some stations. As accredited observers, you will be allowed to walk in and out of polling places on presentation of your accreditation. You should note the following:

1. Is identification being carefully checked?
2. Is the ink, required to indelibly stain a voter’s finger to the first joint, truly indelible, and is it being correctly applied by complete immersion? Are people with already-tinted fingers turned away and referred to the police?^[7]All voters are required to vote in their home barrio, even ff they are currently living elsewhere. The one exception is military personnel. Whereas civilians would have had to multiple-register to … Continue reading
3. Do the party inspectors have a clear view over the voter identification process? What happens when an inspector raises a question about someone?
4. Is there no propaganda or propagandizing close to or near the polling stations?
5. Is there only a minimum number of police nearby, bearing in mind the location of the polling station (whether in a war zone or not), and are they comporting themselves politely and non-threateningly?^[8]You should try to be aware of the feelings of ordinary people about guns and those carrying them. Those who live in societies where public display of weapons is exceptional may feel quite uneasy … Continue reading
6. Are the demeanors and attitudes of all officials and inspectors non-threatening and non-leading?
7. Are the ballots of uniform, heavy stock?
8. Do the voters receive proper instructions to fold their ballots before departing the booth, thus assuring them that their votes are truly secret? Are the ballots kept folded before depositing into the ballot boxes?
9. Are the ballot booths entirely enclosed, to ensure total privacy?
10. Are voters given sufficient time to vote, considering some may be undecided?^[9]Article 104 of the Electoral Law, English edition, is badly translated from the Spanish. In English it reads as if a two-minute time limit is intended to guarantee secrecy. The proper translation is, … Continue reading
11. Were ballots carefully counted at the opening and close of voting, and the numbers of votes, ballots, and voters correctly reconciled? How were inspector challenges/complaints handled?
12. Is counting of ballots at the local station done in sight of the party inspectors, and in conformity with the rules (Articles 109-114)?
13. Is transmission of results accurate (Article 115)?
14. Is the mandatory recount (Articles 116-119) done properly and within sight of party inspectors?
15. Are mismarked-ballot challenges handled appropriately, and are ballots put aside for higher decision when inspectors cannot agree?

You should plan on visiting several polling places in different locations, preferably in different types of neighborhoods, and without warning. Every step should be observed in one place or another, and you should follow the process through to the end of the last ballot count, noting where you went and when, and who was in charge in each place, along with comments about each place. You should spend more time in places where there are no opposition party inspectors, possibly returning to those stations more than once. Rural areas and small towns will be most likely to lack opposition party inspectors, and these may be more worthwhile locations for poll watching, as these areas are most troubling to the opposition.

4. Absence of a climate of coercion and fear.

Article 45 and 139 are blunt in outlawing any coercive or pecuniary attempts to influence voting behavior, including the use of authority relationships. Any such attempts, however, will be difficult to verify, so a combination of techniques will be necessary, of random spot questions, of close attention to possible influence followed by direct questions unobtrusively asked, with sensitivity to voter candor and demeanor, and tracking down an occasional apocryphal occurrence to its source, to verify or to disprove them.

Illegal influence can be very discrete, especially where employer-employee relationships are involved. Both private and public sector employers might try to influence uneducated or frightened workers. Two things must be determined: Did the attempt take place, even if it was only a matter of unspoken understanding? And was it effective, according to the voter interviewed? Special attention should be given to voters arriving en masse, in trucks and buses, in military vehicles, etc. You should pay attention to whether peer pressure appears to be present, or if members of groups are behaving as if they feel secure and independent. Are people arguing politics in such ways as might be felt threatening? Are people “confronted” on emerging from the polling stations? Are some voters drunk? If so, you might ask where they obtained the liquor, as it is not legally available on election day.^[10]During Somoza’s time, the stories go, Somoza’s party functionaries commonly gave liquor to poor, uneducated people to buy their votes. A few of the more committed anti-Sandinistas … Continue reading Your judgment of harmfulness or harmlessness must be cautious, as it will be based on extrapolation and generalization from your specific observations.

Weighing the effects of attempts at pressure and coercion is difficult and fraught with hazards of interpretation. Since the success of such attempts is definitively known only to the voter, the voter must be sought out. Lacking that, circumstantial evidence must be carefully gathered and weighed. If a ballot is not secret, for instance, or if voters believe it is not secret (which may produce the same caution), and someone with some power over voters Can employer, a block leader) makes a threat, this circumstantial evidence must justify the conclusion that voters will probably give in to the threat, and thus make the election results suspect.^[11]Fear of CDS block committees, “the eyes and ears of the revolution,” is present amongst upper middle class people, even where people do not have a CDS in their neighborhood. Is this fear … Continue reading **Different circumstantial evidence should be weighed differently**. Intimidating people is a serious matter, and should weigh heavily. But peer pressure and feelings of vulnerability are more difficult to assess. Nicaraguan barrios are close, people know each other, often well, and usually know their neighbors’ political tendencies. If the ballot is secret, a pressured person would know that her neighbors would suspect she had voted in a certain way even is believed to be secret, for people to give in to pressure—they face the same perceived dangers regardless. This underlines the necessity of trying to learn voters’ subjective perceptions.

Several opposition charges can be investigated and, in the light thus shed, reveal the extent of fear felt by Nicaraguans, the groups and classes that most feel such fear, and the objective and subjective grounds for the feeling. Understanding this, you will be able to better understand and evaluate the opposition charges.

The Libreta Civica, the voter registration and identification card, and registration itself, have been the focus of such charges. In the weeks before and after inscription (voter registration), opposition party officials around the country said that the Libreta Civica was to be used as a national identity card, and that people were afraid to not carry it, believing that they would be subjected to a variety of wrongs if they could not produce the Libreta on demand. Further, it was said that the inscription lists, posted outside all polling stations^[12]The registration lists are posted outside of polling places here in Cambridge, Massachusetts, as well. were being or would be used to pressure people whose names were not on them.

I heard reports of people checking registration lists in some places, noting which people had not yet registered, and going to their houses to remind them to register. One person told me that he had been so reminded. This demonstrates little, per se—the demeanors of those making the reminders is of greater importance for your purposes. Did the reminding person threaten, or seem to threaten? If so, did the person you are interviewing feel fear and specifically of what? What kind of reprisals might be expected? Ask others in the same barrio how they feel or felt about registering, and about the likelihood of reprisals for not registering, in order to prevent one fearful or fearless response from determining your conclusion. Then you should ask yourself whether it is unreasonable, on principle, to post lists whose legal purpose is to inform registrees that they are correctly listed, and to give neighbors a chance to complain if unqualified people have registered. If it appears that the extra-legal uses to which such lists might be put are unreasonably fear-inducing, you should seek to objectively determine the extent of such fears. Likewise, you should inquire about possible fear, and apprehensions associated with illegal uses of the Libreta Civica, such as demanding to see it before allocating ration entitlements.^[13]My interviews revealed that almost everyone carried their Libretas, that conservative opposition party officials almost unanimously condemned them as threatening and as the first move towards a … Continue reading If people fear such illegal uses, your inquiries should pursue their reasons: Have they themselves been subjected to such treatment, or do they actually know people who have? You can trust hearsay to some extent, but it is suspect if your interviewee does not know the victim or the victim’s family. This is not to say that fears inspired by suspicion and rumor are not reasonable—only that the bases of subjective fears should be tested, so that subjective realities can be distinguished from objective realities.

Having obtained a measurable sense of the fear of lack thereof in respect to these or other particular issues, from people in different social classes in different types of barrios, you will be in a position to evaluate whether party and government officials are accurately describing reality, in condemning or dismissing fear and abuse of authority. You may find that opposition suspicion on the one hand, and upbeat FSLN attitudes on the other, combined with ideological certitude by both, seem to shape leaders’ perceptions; and that voters’ experiences and perceptions are more mixed and less conclusive one way or the other. But in this range of possibilities, you can begin to feel how the different parties, groups, classes, regions, and ethnic groups differ from one another in both experiences and perceptions. You can then begin to read between the lines of partisan pronouncements, and determine for yourself the extent of any climate of coercion and fear and to what extent it will influence voter freedom of choice.

If voters feel fearful of CDS block committees, and not of you, they will tell you of their fears. They will also tell you if fear has affected their behavior, if they didn’t vote and why, and many more things. Only by pursuing these trails, however time-consuming, can you penetrate the superficial reality of election day, and begin to understand the months that led up to election day.

In short, you must evaluate the atmosphere of the months preceding your arrival, factor in circumstantial evidence and subjective reports, and meanwhile try to compensate for lack of candor or truthfulness whenever it can be detected. You may never feel entirely confident of your findings. Indeed, you may be able only to reduce your conjectures to a “more likely this than that” standard of probability. But achieving that standard is a crucial step in solving the electoral fairness puzzle.

5. Pre-election freedom of party organization and activity;
6. Institutional freedom of intermediate organizations;
7. Freedom of speech, campaigning, and assembly.

The necessity of individual freedom to choose is inextricably bound up with the complementary necessity of allowing organizational freedom to project programs and to develop mechanisms to pursue member interests. If these freedoms of organization and communication are abridged, voter opportunity to make informed choices is reduced.

The October 21 decision of the Partido Liberal Independiente (PLI) to leave the election, like the earlier decision of the Coordinadora Ramiro Sacasa, is based at least in part on their judgment that they would be unable to overcome unfair electoral conditions, and that they consequently lacked the ability to satisfactorily project their programs to the voters.

Contributing to this judgment is the assumption that they will not be able to overcome the handicaps imposed by the State of Emergency decree. Imposed in February of 1982, the decree did not prohibit party organizing, but severely limited the activities that would ordinarily be considered necessary for organizing: house meetings, propagandizing,^[14]The word “propaganda” does not possess the pejorative meaning in Spanish that it has in English. public rallies. Justified by the government as a response to the contra war, the opposition has criticized the State of Emergency as too severe, especially as regards political organizing—only the FSLN and pro-FSLN organizations have been exempt. Moreover, they say, it was “too much, too soon.” The early period of contra war was light and sporadic. The excessive restrictions on civil liberties, they say, have driven people to become contras, thus contributing to a vicious circle of increasing justifications for restrictions on political organizing and other important civil rights. The handicaps froze the opposition parties, stifled their press (the Communist newspaper, Avance, was banned for two years, and began publishing again last October), and gave the Sandinista Police and Militia the power to discourage potential followers, especially in the countryside.

Not so, FSLN officials have replied. The problem with the opposition parties, especially the traditional bourgeois parties, is that they “don’t know how to get away from their electricity and hot running water,” and organize in the countryside. “Only the FSLN has tried to organize [there].” Besides, Comandante Daniel Ortega told me, these parties “have had plenty of opportunity to project their programs.” All but the Partido Social Democrata, which was founded after the Revolution, were legal under Somoza. By contrast, the FSLN was illegal from its founding, and had to function under considerably more adverse conditions. Yet it was able to successfully project its program.^[15]My own judgement is that both arguments have merit. The conservative opposition parties have relatively small social bases, especially since over 200,000 middle and upper-class people went into … Continue reading

If the FSLN has had a two-year advantage in its exemption from the Emergency laws, it is up to you to judge whether the opposition parties would likely have changed their relative standings amongst the electorate, had the Emergency laws not been so restrictive. If you answer is yes, then you should strive to get a sense of whether a three-month campaign is sufficient time for a vigorous campaign to overcome the handicaps of two years’ restrictions. Through conversations with pro-Revolution opposition party leaders and sympathizers CPPSC, PSN, PCdeN), who have less ideological antipathy to the FSLN and the process, you may be able to capture the size and texture of the dilemma. But you probably will not be able to answer the question with any great certainty.

You should try to test party beliefs and prophesies about electoral fairness, and closely examine the factors they cite as responsible for their condemnation. You should compare their charges to the information you obtain from other party leaders, electoral officials, party activities, news and official reports, eyewitnesses, and voters close to reported impropriety. You can overlap your investigation with that you use to assess the “climate of coercion and fear.” Local party leaders and activists presumptively are the sources for their higher officials’ knowledge of harassment and intimidation. My own research has exposed occasional discrepancies between top leaders’ charges and the information given me by people close to the actual events on which the charges are based. The August 5 fight in Matagalpa between partisans of Arturo Cruz and the FSLN, for instance, lifted the morale of the Cruz partisans, because, in the words of a Social Christian leader, it “demonstrated that our people would stand up to them [the Sandinistas].” Harassment is not, ipso facto, effective, and is not, therefore, per se evidence of election unfairness. But if such irregularities are serious, and persist well into the campaign, they may indicate government participation or acquiescence in the activities of the perpetrators. The benefit of the doubt should be given to those parties damaged by the activities (including Sandinistas if harmed by opposition harassment) because it is difficult to determine satisfactorily the extent to which parties have been harmed—i.e., their activists dissuaded from working, and their potential sympathizers dissuaded from attending party assemblies or hosting house meetings.^[16]You might ask voters whether they or anyone they know felt fearful of participating in or identifying with those parties’ activities, as a result of actions taken against that party.

The Partido Liberal Independiente, in withdrawing from the elections, cited as one reason the harassment of party workers by police, who had arrested more than thirty members. There can be no doubt that illegal arrests unfairly prevent political work. But two counter-hypotheses might be valid: One, that the arrests and other harassments may not have persisted into the campaign in numbers and intensity sufficient to demoralize or terrorize party workers and party sympathizers, or to seriously divert party resources; and two, even if the party suffered difficulties due to harassment, the prevailing conditions of polarization and political antagonism may have been beyond the government’s ability to control electoral unfairness, even when such unfairness may have been perpetrated by the police.^[17]I cannot speak to conditions after August 29; but 15 of the 30-plus workers were arrested in early August, during a period when the local Electoral Councils were being forced to call meetings between … Continue reading In this case, one might conclude that the election process is as fair as can reasonably be expected, because the standard of fairness should be “attainability” rather than “perfection.”

Your investigative goal for the first hypothesis should be to examine the effects on the parties concerned, as suggested above. For the second, you should try to determine whether the Electoral Councils did their best to contain and punish harassment, and whether other branches of government did their best to cooperate. ^[18]It is conceivable that even a dedicated Electoral Council could have problems stopping police harassment, since they have no direct authority· over them, but rely on them for investigation and … Continue reading A negative finding on this would undermine government protestations of fairness in other respects, as it would throw into question FSLN and CSE assumptions of professionalism at relevant levels of government.

In summary, you should to try to weigh the limitations on parties and other organizations,^[19]By “other organizations” I mean trade unions, professional associations, volunteer organizations, etc. I have not extensively treated or researched condition (6), as it involves issues of … Continue reading and assess whether the limitations were sufficient to deprive them of their minimum right to project their programs to the extent of their abilities; and to assess whether the voters, who are at the receiving end, were deprived of opportunities to hear and participate and to make what they consider to be satisfactory voting choices.

8. Freedom of access to the media
9. Media freedom, including the existence of independent journals, papers, and electronic media.

The law guarantees equal minimum access to the electronic media, with additional time based on ability to pay. By and large, this requirement has probably been followed by the various stations, as its violation is easy to report to the Consejo Supremo Electoral, and easy to enforce. I heard reports, however, of government radio stations stalling on making time available, and knew personally of one instance a week into the campaign. Your inquiries into this issue should be specific, about who made what requests for time, and when, what enforcement ensued, and how effective it was.

More important is the issue of the power of the FSLN to “make news.” The opposition parties, especially the PU and the Coordinadora, have complained about continuing unrestrained propaganda by the FSLN, in spite of the equal access requirement, especially on Sistema Sandinista Television CSSTV). Part of the high visibility of the FSLN on SSTV should be attributed to the power of the incumbent to make news, such as when holding a Question and Answer forum with the people. But SSTV seems to cover Daniel Ortega as if his every movement was news—while neglecting to cover opposition events that could reasonably be considered newsworthy. The President of the Consejo Nacional de Partidos Politicos (National Council of Political Parties), under the Consejo Supremo Electoral, agreed with my conjecture that the staff of SSTV, being strongly pro-FSLN, may be incapable of implementing a policy distinguishing between real news and staged propaganda news. It is possible that they may even disagree with such “formalist” distinctions, believing, as do many pro-Sandinistas, that every project inauguration, proclaimed as a victory of the FSLN program, is indeed genuine news, and heralds another step forward. My own interviews with voters revealed that most, including pro-Sandinistas (though not militants) believe that there is indeed a lot of propaganda on SSTV, that there is a distinction between propaganda and news reporting, and that SSTV commonly blurs the distinction.

The question that you must consider is whether excessive incumbent domination of the news media in general, and of SSTV in particular, gives the FSLN an unfair advantage, thereby prejudicing the election. My own impression early in the campaign was that most people were alert enough to consider their own perceptions to be more persuasive than the blandishments of propaganda, when determining their party sympathies. Your observations may lead you to other conclusions, based on your own interviews. I suggest you ask many questions directed to this issue, of many different types of people.

Media freedom and press censorship are a related but distinct issue. There is no question but that censorship of all media sources exists—all media must submit their articles and broadcasts for approval.^[20]Obviously, it is impossible to censor all publications—mimeograph machines are the censor’s nemesis. One day early in the campaign, from the window of a passing pickup truck exploded a small … Continue reading According to the July 19, 1984 decree,^[21]July 19, the date of Somoza’s fall, is celebrated as Independence Day, and has become a traditional date for the announcement of major policy decisions which partially lifted the State of Emergency, press censorship was relaxed, and now only unconfirmed military and security matters are legally forbidden. But the volume and types of censored articles did not seen to change much after the “relaxation.” The censor’s office broadly construes “military and security” matters, excising not only unapproved stories of obvious military concern, for instance, but also prohibiting stories about military personnel being tried by military courts, anti-conscription protests, and shortages allegedly linked to government activities. Also excised are stories which might tend to impugn the military or security apparatus of the state, such as editorials casting alleged ex-Somocistas in a positive light, and articles alleging political prejudice in government bureaucracies, when insufficiently documented.^[22]Incidentally, Israel has a similar censorship regime, which is rigorously applied to the Arab “opposition” press. On the other hand, many articles highly critical of the FSLN and its allied organizations have been allowed, including documented allegations of irregular government funding of CDS entertainment and propaganda, exposes of government spending on behalf of the FSLN, and attacks on the military policies of the government. The censor’s office independently investigates many of the articles submitted by La Prensa, checking not only with the Interior Ministry to determine whether certain facts have been confirmed, but even checking sources quoted in the articles to determine whether the allegations are supportable. When the sources do not confirm the allegations, the article may be pulled.

However distasteful censorship is, the question for the election is narrow: What are the effects on the abilities of parties to project their programs, on voters’ abilities to correctly perceive reality, and on voters’ consequent abilities to make informed judgments about which parties best represent their values and interests?

To make this judgment, you should closely examine a selection of censored La Prensa articles—a month’s worth post-July 19, and another pre-July 19 would be adequate.^[23]You can obtain photocopies from La Prensa. You might seek to interview the director of the censor’s office—that may be interesting, as she presents arguable grounds for the excise of every … Continue reading Then, with a feel for the contents, you can question voters about their knowledge of the issues, and probe their attitudes as to how relevant the withheld information might be to their perceptions of reality, government, and parties. You may find that many people, already strongly sympathetic to a party, will either shrug off the relevance of the information, or consider the information very important in the abstract, but superfluous since they are already “convinced.” How many people lie between, undecided about the issues argued in articles you would consider unjustifiably censored? How many people do not already exploit other opportunities to obtain equivalent news? You may find, as did I, that many people opposed to the FSLN listen to contra-sponsored radio, or the Voice of America, the BBC, or, near the southern border and the Atlantic coast, to anti-FSLN Costa Rican radio and television. On the other hand, in much of the countryside, none of the newspapers are widely available, television does not penetrate, and shortages of expensive batteries restrict listening to all radio, both government and opposition.^[24]The opposition alleges that the government causes the battery shortages to keep campesinos “from learning the truth.” I don’t know how to either confirm or disprove such suspicions.

Your problem, therefore, will be to distinguish censorship’s effects on the ability of partisans to influence political life, legislation, and popular debate, from censorship’s effect on voters’ abilities to remain sufficiently informed to correlate the various parties with their own interests and values. Electoral legitimacy is a narrower question than that of the best method of organizing political life.

Should the censorship laws have been lifted sooner? This is likewise a matter of judgment, as is the question of when overt FSLN propaganda should have been restricted. The opposition complains that it should have had freer propaganda opportunities before the campaign, in order to obtain a posture of visibility by the beginning of the campaign roughly proportional to that enjoyed by the FSLN, dependent only upon their own abilities to project themselves. But because only the FSLN was exempt from the State of Emergency restrictions, they enjoyed exclusive propaganda privileges before the press and propaganda restrictions were lifted, and before the equal access provisions went into force. On July 17, for instance, the SSTV broadcast two hours of FSLN speeches announcing its program and candidates—using more propaganda time in one night than any opposition party would be permitted in the entire campaign. Do these pre-campaign advantages prejudice the election? Many opposition party leaders believe so—the presidential candidate of the Partido Communista de Nicaragua, Allan Zambrana, asserted flatly that there was “no way” the disadvantages of two years’ restrictions could be redressed during the campaign. But are undecided voters• perceptions of reality strong enough to allow them to overcome the explicit and subliminal conditioning of FSLN propaganda, and vote against the FSLN, even if they lack extensive information about the other parties?

IV. EXTRA-ELECTORAL FAIRNESS ISSUES

The nine conditions necessary for a free election do not alone define a fair election. Something more is required, something that fills in the gap in contents between the small er basket of electoral freedom and the larger of electoral fairness.

The nine conditIons on the surface are procedural—they guarantee the I freedom of individuals to make their own substantive choices. As long as everyone concerned agrees that individuals should have that freedom, the substantive nature of those choices need not be at issue. Fairness looks to more explicitly substantive sociopolitical issues of a classically troubling kind, and injects them into the debate.

The Coordinadora’s demand for a “dialogue a priori” with the contras is such an issue. It posited as a precondition to a procedural exercise—the election—a settlement^[25]What is “dialogue” if not an agreement to “talk seriously” with a view to coming to some sort of mutual understanding, i.e., negotiation directed toward a settlement? to an issue that for many Nicaraguans remains highly charged: the sociopolitical claims of a group that is identified with experiences of injustice. Most of the remaining “Nine Points” of the Coordinadora, notably separation of party and state, a general amnesty for contras, and absolute freedom of the press, were substantive fairness concerns masquerading as necessary preconditions to a free election. One can see that elections can be held without the satisfaction of those demands—and if enough people then chose the Coordinadora candidates, government policy might be forced to change, to satisfy the demands.

But is it fair to have an election when part of the electorate has been marginalized or excluded? Two of the Nine Points, freedom of travel and absentee balloting by exiles, have qualities identifying them with the nine conditions. The first falls under freedom of organization, speech and assembly; the second reflects a claim that most people on principle would recognize: the right of all citizens to vote. Their exclusion smacks of “excluding opposition voters.” They both seem legitimate in procedural terms.

But the other demands prompt the rejoinder “fair to whom?”. Contra leaders Robelo and Pastora may not feel that it is fair that they cannot participate in the election. But is the election much less fair for it, inasmuch as widely accepted arguments about treason make the justice of their exclusion at least colorable?

The issue of unity of party and state raises similar conflicts of perception and terminology. It feels unfair to a social class and several groups that government is organized in an arguably dangerous way, tending towards possibly unbridled state power. But such a unity is not unjust and therefore unfair. Rather, it is our century’s experience that situations bearing resemblances to this one led to heinous brutality. Will this one lead down such a path? That is not the question for watchers of this election—though you may develop during your observations a sense for the possibilities. The question is more limited: in spite of such a unity, is the election process conducted in a procedurally fair and evenhanded manner, acknowledging “legitimate” claims on the process (such as the right of all citizens to vote), thereby guaranteeing opponents of the unity the ability to put the issue on the electoral agenda?

One issue remains to be addressed here. Atmosphere, i.e., dominant social attitudes, can play a large part in the running of a society, and a larger part in an election. United States citizens need no reminder of the McCarthy era to recall that there have been times of manifest unfairness to people out of step with dominant attitudes. Nicaragua is highly polarized, in some very unpleasant ways. My own impression is that the FSLN government is reciprocally involved with the unpleasant dynamics of that polarization—as are other institutions and agencies within and without Nicaragua. But even if that dynamic were not being actively fed by ideological partisans from both sides, can anyone say that this “atmosphere” would spontaneously dissipate? If it would not, then one must infer that some legitimate “right” of the majority to tyrannize the minority is at work. Does it make the election unfair? It does seem to handicap the opposition in ways sometimes too intangible for many of the formal rules to touch. Does it delegitimize the election? Abstractly, perhaps yes—but concretely, should it delegitimize the election any more than the McCarthy era atmosphere should have delegitimized the elections in the U.S. of that period?

These questions do not make your job easier, and they may plunge you into a dilemma. You will simply have to try to factor them all into your mental equation, and try to play the sage.

V. ELECTIONS AND LEGITIMACY

If electoral freedom weighs only partially in the scales of electoral fairness, how much does electoral fairness weigh in the scales of electoral and governmental legitimacy?

The question of legitimacy is not simple, because the processes of social legitimation are complex (and quite beyond the scope of this short Guide). It should be apparent by now that questions of government legitimacy are bound up with both electoral and extra-electoral considerations, and probably can not be entirely separated for the purpose of weighing the post-election government’s legitimacy. The simple absence of a major part of the philosophical opposition, in the person of Arturo Cruz and his Coordinadora Ramiro Sacasa, will raise questions about whether voters will have had adequate philosophical alternatives, even though the Coordinadora voluntarily declined to participate in the elections. This problem has now been compounded by the withdrawal of the Partido Liberal Independiente, for which many Cruz sympathizers might have voted. This leaves only the Partido Conservador Democrata on the more conservative side of the political spectrum.^[26]But the PCD, which is to the right of the PLI, may be perceived as a sufficiently acceptable alternative in the absence of the Coordinadora and the PLI, and therefore perform the function of ensuring … Continue reading

What is the responsibility of a government to guarantee adequate philosophical choice to its citizens? Is there such a responsibility? Or, to the contrary, is there a duty to keep hands off the opposition, to avoid the appearance or reality of creating a “safe” opposition?

If a government’s responsibility is only to provide the procedural conditions necessary to the holding of a free and fair election, should it bear the responsibility for a boycott by the opposition, if it can be determined that the government did not, by act or unfair omission, encourage the boycott?

What relevance do these questions have to the issue of legitimacy?^[27]I will hence mean government legitimacy, not mere electoral legitimacy, which is roughly the sum of electoral freedom and fairness. The FSLN is fulfilling a pledge to hold elections within five years of the Revolution, and it is hoping to parlay the election into a demonstration of legitimacy—of the government, but most especially of the revolutionary road taken since 1979.

Some people say that the election cannot confer legitimacy without the participation of Arturo Cruz, at least in the eyes of foreign governments. But evidence of substantial support for the FSLN and its programs undermines the significance of this argument—Nicaraguans will be the ultimate arbiters of legitimacy, unless external events overwhelm them.

Others say that an FSLN victory will vindicate the course of the Revolution, and thereby legitimize it. But as long as questions persist in Nicaragua about FSLN dominance over the organs of mass communications, the structures of popular organizations, and of education, the complex processes of legitimation will be retarded, and the election will diminish to the stature of one of many factors of legitimacy.

Will the elections confer at least partial legitimacy? You can answer this question more easily than you can most of the questions subsumed under the nine conditions, because legitimacy is merely a collective statement of popular subjective perceptions. If you can construct a reasonably representative sample of voters, and simply ask them the question, you will be able to make a rather informed guess. The one serious caveat is that you accept with some skepticism answers obtained right immediately after the election, as people’s attitudes may continue to develop for some time.

It is conceivable that popular perceptions of legitimacy will not be greatly affected by the elections. Committed partisans, for instance, will not so easily abandon their points of view. But even nonpolitical people may change only slowly, and their pre-election attitudes may already have conferred on the government a substantial measure of legitimacy.^[28]The Atlantic coast, for instance, is proportionally more anti-Sandinist than any other area, yet many people seem to grudgingly accept Managua’s governance, as they have been accustomed to … Continue reading

In terms of international legitimacy of the FSLN government, much may depend on the reports that you and other observers take back. You should therefore try to prevent your own political attitudes from becoming a filter between you and the events you observe. Thoughtful consideration does not require that you abandon your attitudes, standards, and values. They can be factored back in when your observations, are considered, along with other factors, as the bases for policy decisions affecting events in Nicaragua.

VI. CONCLUSION

This Guide has attempted, if imperfectly, to introduce to you and other observers a method of examining elections according to criteria equally acceptable to every society holding a belief in the efficacy of elections. The Guide’ s epistemology holds, perhaps naively, that the truth, even if it fails to comport with one’s sympathies, will bridge communication gaps and, ultimately, lead to sounder policies and better chances for peace and reconciliation.

If you and others try to apply the techniques, methods, and criteria contained here, you will collectively subject the Nicaraguan political process to an intensity of inspection unknown in the history of national election observation. Few nations would likely bear up well under such scrutiny, including in some facets the author’s own. Once you have done your fieldwork, you will have an additional special responsibility: to weigh not only how well the Nicaraguan elections measure up to our theoretical ideal; but tougher still, how well they measure up to real-world standards of the possible and the attainable. These real-world standards have no fixed, knowable place. They may be one level, knowingly never reached, in Chicago; and another, high but usually attained, in France. How will Nicaragua compare to these places? How will Nicaragua compare to its own potential, given that its society is grievously divided, its dual political cultures at extreme poles on almost every important issue, its power of toleration sorely taxed by the exercise?

The Guide’s author hopes you will look to your work in Nicaragua first as an attempt to evaluate a national poll and the conditions it provides its participants; and second, as an exercise in self-perception. This election may be unique. It is being called upon to peacefully find a working majority who can sit down in Assembly and agree on the proper way to organize society still on the threshold of revolutionary changes. Such occasions are normally bitter, usually prolonged, and often undemocratically resolved. The chances are that you already possess strong sympathies one way or another, even if they do not lead you to endorse one partisan group or another. If you can put yourself in the shoes of people who have other sympathies, as well as of those whose primary desires are to live quiet, unpolitical lives, then you will stretch your perceptions, strengthen your understanding, and come away with an enhanced ability to comprehend the complexity of a society in troubled transition. Multiplied by many other observers, this cannot help but strengthen the possibilities for peace.

POSTSCRIPT: THE POLITICAL STAKES

Power and the Drafting of the Constitution

The stakes In this election are indirect and implicit, inasmuch as few people take seriously the idea of an FSLN defeat. The best that opposition parties can hope for is to capture a sizable proportion of seats in the 90-plus member Asemblea Nacional (National Assembly). The Presidential/Vice-Presidential race will be decided by what the law calls a “relative majority,” i.e., the largest plurality. It is virtually certain that the FSLN will win the Presidency and Vice-Presidency.

The Asemblea Nacional seats are distributed according to a proportional representation calculus, one that relatively favors smaller parties.^[29]The seat assignment system works this way: The total votes cast in a district (say, 1000 votes) are divided by the number of seats in that district (say 10). The resulting first-round quotient (100) … Continue readingThe FSLN will not fare as well under this system as it would have if the Consejo de Estado had legislated, for instance, a single-member district winner-take-all system, such as the United States uses. Instead, the more likely result will be that the smaller parties will obtain representation closely approximating their actual electoral strength, presuming the election process will be fair, the voting free, and the counting accurate.

This means that the next government will likely differ from the present one in the following ways. The FSLN President and Vice-President will be able to exercise power and shape government policy with a clear mandate for the FSLN program, though that mandate may be a plurality rather than a majority. Limitations on executive power will likely become more formal, because the popularly elected Asemblea Nacional will counterpose its mandated legislative power to the executive power of the Presidency. The power of the FSLN in the Asemblea will be directly proportional to its share of the 90-plus seats.^[30]A late change in the electoral law added an interesting twist, making it impossible to predict exactly how many seats will actually comprise the National Assembly: Each party that wins at least one … Continue reading If the FSLN fails to obtain an absolute majority, the success of its legislative programs will depend on its coalition-building ability. Should it fail to win substantially more than half of the seats, it seems likely that the job of constitution-writing will be a genuinely coalitional and pluralist process.^[31]Juan Tamayo of the Miami Herald reported August 18, 1984, that Bayardo Arce, Political Director for the FSLN, had met in mid-May with the leadership of the Nicaraguan Socialist Party (PSN), and told … Continue reading What is not clear is the extent to which the President will assume legislative powers when the Asemblea is out of session, as is the current practice. As Daniel Ortega stated, the decisions of the Asemblea Nacional would have to be respected as the voice of the people. But questions of how much respect, in what types of circumstances, in what subject areas, remain open. Opposition leaders may suspect that only an opposition-dominated Asemblea Nacional would have a hope of significantly influencing, for instance, FSLN foreign policy. Would the President respect an Asemblea call for negotiations with the contras, as Daniel Ortega assured me that he would? Even though such a hypothetical eventuality is not likely to occur, only time can tell.

The real question in this election, therefore, is not who wins the Presidential race, but what proportion of the Asemblea the FSLN will win. The speed of legislatively-mandated social and economic transformation will be uncertainly at issue for about two years; the drafting of the Constitution will ultimately determine the limits of executive power, as well as the shapes of other important institutional relationships; it will tend to either contain or liberate FSLN policy and program, depending on FSLN strength in the Asemblea Nacional.^[32]By not participating, the Coordinadora gave up the nearly certain opportunity to at least partially contain FSLN domination of constitution writing, in exchange for the highly uncertain fruits of … Continue reading

The Debate Over Separation of FSLN and State

The present legislature, the Consejo de Estado (Council of State), and the executive, the Junta de Gobierno (Committee of Government), were created pursuant to the Fundamental Statute, an agreement signed in Costa Rica by the various anti-Somoza groups a month before his fall. The Consejo was composed of 33 representatives of these groups, representation being apportioned according to their then-existing “inventoried” membership strengths. These groups included the FSLN, the other parties, and various popular and professional associations. The size of the Consejo grew to 54, as popular organizations, such as the Comite de Defensa Sandinista (Sandinista Defense Committee, or CDS), were created or grew in size. The FSLN and its allies held a majority in the first seated Consejo; the subsequent increases in size continued the domination by pro-FSLN group representatives, due to the rapid growth of pro-Sandanist popular organizations. Some opposition parties interpreted the augmentations of the Consejo as “packing” strategies aimed at securing hegemony.

The Junta, at first numbering five, shrank to its present membership of two FSLN and one PCD representative, as non-FSLN Junta members grew disenchanted with the course of events in Nicaragua.

The Consejo de Estado and the Junta formally divide legislative and executive powers along traditionally Western lines of separation of powers. The Consejo advises the Junta, and sends legislation up to the Junta for its ratification, but when the Consejo is in recess, the Junta governs legislatively by decree; and even when the Consejo is in session, decisions of state are published as decrees, blurring the formal question of who has actually made the decision and who ratified it. Demarcations of authority are further blurred by the close relationship between the Junta and the Consejo, on the one hand, and the Direccion Nacional (National Directorate) of the FSLN, on the other. Two members of the Junta sit on the Direccion Nacional; many members of the Consejo de Estado are members of the FSLN, though they may formally represent popular groups. Many people have observed that Junta decisions seemingly adhere to decisions of the Direccion Nacional, which participates intimately in affair of state; and that decisions of the Consejo remain within limits established by the Direccion Nacional.

This example of party influence on government differs from, for instance, the European parliamentary democracies, in several ways: The Consejo and the Junta were and are composed according to initial calculations of group organizational strength as opposed to group electoral strength; and it is unclear to what extent FSLN members of the Consejo, some of whom are also group representatives, are subject to party discipline. The FSLN itself remains today, as it existed under Somoza, a small (probably fewer than 1000 members), democratic centralist, apparently disciplined, vanguard party. It is impossible for an outsider to know whether Consejo representatives of pro-FSLN popular organizations act according to the possibly differing interests of their pro-FSLN memberships, or whether the organizations function more strictly as popular extensions of the FSLN, and thus provide additional de facto FSLN seats in the Consejo de Estado. Over-simplified, the question is whether the government reflects FSLN policy because the FSLN is popular, or the FSLN appears popular because it has taken advantage of its preeminence and its organizational skills to infiltrate and regulate the institutions and organizations of Nicaraguan society, thus enhancing its domination of government. This question is at the root of opposition attacks on the FSLN.

Debate in the Consejo de Estado has been free and unfettered, especially when debating the electoral law. Many concessions were made to the smaller parties—proportional representation in particular favors smaller parties. But skepticism is not easily quieted. Why these debates were so free, and these concessions made, cannot be logically concluded. Was it because FSLN-Consejo members are independent actors, because the FSLN is genuinely pro-pluralist democratic, or because the Direccion Nacional of the FSLN loosened the party leash in the interest of appearing pluralist, knowing that it would win the election and would retain ultimate control anyway? The intentions and deliberations of the FSLN and its Asemblea Nacional (National Assembly of the FSLN) are secret and unknown, so their motives are unknown. That the FSLN did not act hegemonically in that debate, in spite of its domination there, seems apparent. Would the FSLN assert hegemony ff they felt secure enough? Only FSLN insiders could say—but since events sometimes have a way of altering even the best of intentions, the issue will most likely continue to be debated. Formalist critiques of the existing government-FSLN relationship remain relevant, therefore, even ff they do not go to the substance of the policies and programs of the FSLN.

This question about de facto identity between the FSLN and the state, in the face of formal demarcation, persists in prognostications about a post-election government. Even if the elections are free, some opposition leaders ask, will government function according to the formal rules? Or will it be insidiously dominated by the FSLN, which will surely win at least the Presidency and the largest plurality of Asemblea Nacional seats? These suspicions underlie opposition reluctance to equate free and fair elections with legitimate elections. Therefore, a guarantee of no de facto domination, even if given, could no more allay suspicion than have previous pledges of the FSLN. FSLN actions can usually be interpreted in two ways, depending on one’s faith or lack of faith in the FSLN’s good intentions. Occasional statements by high officials of the FSLN, indicating a contempt for “bourgeois formalism” as opposed to substantive policy contributing to the welfare of the people, have increased opposition suspicion about the intentions of the FSLN in a post-election government.

APPENDIX I: METHODOLOGY OF RESEARCH INTERVIEWING

Methodology Used for This Project

Demographic information does not exist sufficient to develop an interview regime that will produce statistically accurate results. The best that can be striven for is a qualitatively representative sample of the various identifiable groups and classes in Nicaragua. One can then carefully infer some of the quantitative dimensions of various points of view and attitudes, using judgments about the relative sizes of the various groups and classes. One cannot use even this with much confidence, however—but one can at least say that the descriptions obtained are “more likely than not,” a standard of probability at least superior to the conjectures that ’til now have characterized descriptions of Nicaraguan political attitudes.

Since this project looks to demonstrable evidence at both the party level and the voter level, the interview structure was made two-tiered. The first tier was interviews of party leaders, electoral officials, and leaders of organizations, seeking to obtain objective information on the process, criticisms of it, and projections of subjective perceptions. Since the number of high officials in Nicaragua is quite small, it is possible to interview most of this level’s universe. The second tier is voters, on the one hand, and local party, government, and organization officials and members on the other. These are numerous, and so cannot be exhaustively interviewed. A sampling method must be devised.

The method I devised developed out of the natural division of the electoral universe into its three general “camps,” structurally speaking: the (mostly) conservative opposition, the (mostly) pro-Revolution opposition to both sides of the FSLN, and the FSLN/Pro-FSLN. Though there are various political tendencies within each camp, they each internally share common attitudes towards and interests in the electoral process. For instance, the pro-Revolution opposition parties have ideological differences with each other, but they are united in wishing to guarantee pluralism—for without pluralism, they cannot hope to win a share of power. They have strong interests structurally counter posed to the interests of the FSLN. Yet they have certain ideological affinities with the FSLN.

The conservative opposition has the same counterposed structural interests, but possesses a deep skepticism of the revolutionary process. Their ideological differences from the pro-revolution opposition reflect different perceptions about the electoral process. The FSLN, being the dominant and ruling party, is naturally its own camp.

The method of interviewing the voter/local official tier was to select “structurally representative” parties, interview their local officials, and to interview a number of non-member non-militant sympathizers of each. This produced a triangle of party interviews, each party official surrounded by a circle of sympathizers. Each sympathizer was asked after the interview for a reference to one (or several) friends, who were by request less committed and political than the sympathizer. This had the effect of drawing a concentric circle around each of the three circles, thus broadening the coverage of the political spectrum.

The representative parties chosen were the FSLN, the PLI, and the PSC. In some places, where there were few PSC people, the PCN was substituted. Further coverage was obtained by obtaining interviews with both pro-revolution and conservative clerics and their parishioners.

The party officials were very different, as may be imagined. One has to wonder when talking with different party leaders (and members^[33]Political parties in Nicaragua are not easily joined. Members, almost by definition, are ideologically “committed,” and tend to be very similar to their leaders in their perceptions of … Continue reading) whether they are talking about the same country.

But at the level of party sympathizers, those who are less committed to the party’s world-view, one begins to see similarities in perceptions of events and life experiences, varying more by class and other descriptors than by party.

At the level of the second circle of interviewees, similarities began to outnumber differences, and differences from party officials became most apparent. It was as if the outer concentric circles had overlapped.

These growing similarities tended to prove that the electoral universe was being representatively sampled; and, though the sampling could not give quantitative information, such as “how many people are for the PSC,” the qualitative information looks reliable—i.e., one can talk about,shared political attitudes in Nicaraguan society at large, distinguished by political tendency, and in relation to identifying characteristics such as age, class, ethnic group, gender, and so on.

The results of these interviews are not presented in this Guide, except anecdotally and illustratively. It would have been desirable to make it available, but time was not available to do the necessary correlations; and in any event, the interviews were in substantial part forward-looking rather than retrospective, and thus less reliable for proof of the truth of what they assert.

Your interviews can be mostly retrospective, and thus more reliable for proof of perception of the electoral process and its events. They should still be in some part forward-looking, especially in testing for the legitimation processes; but your interest will be more in “what happened,” and “how did that affect you?”, than in what people think will happen.

Your results will therefore be more reliable than mine for the purpose of describing the latter two months of the electoral process, and how people and parties were affected. (My own results will be compared with the results I obtain in January, and similarities and dissimilarities analyzed.)

My suggestion to you is that you carefully examine the Questionnaire, and change the questions as you judge necessary to reflect changed time and circumstance. Note that some questions are constructed to yield, via indirection, evidence of underlying attitudes and contradictions. Some questions remain pertinent, others are not. Use it as a general guide, and it may be of some aid. If you use any of the questions in closely similar form, I would be interested in obtaining the responses you generate.

You should attempt to talk to as many voters as possible, before and after they vote. Since you will have little opportunity to establish rapport or feelings of confidence, you should avoid asking direct questions about who they wish to vote for, but rather inquire about whether they will or did vote for the parties they like most. You can indirectly determine sympathies, by asking about well-known people or activities, such as Ramiro Sacasa, Sandino, Revolutionary Vigilance, and so on (see my Questionnaire). In some cases, asking questions away from the polling stations, especially in private areas or in homes, will lead to the most truthful and relaxed answers. Harmless questions should precede questions which might put people on guard.

After successfully interviewing someone, you should take advantage of the relationship of confidence you have developed. Ask for a reference to a friend—you will find that people have friends with differing political persuasions, so you can specify what type of person you would like to meet. My FSLN interviewees sometimes gave me references to conservatives, and vice-versa. Sometimes you will find differences in the same household.

I always found that a frank and honest explanation of my project and purpose resulted in the quickest achievable relationship of confidence. Without confidence, you cannot count on candor. Many people are suspicious of interviewers, feeling that their words might be misused according to the interviewer’s own agenda. My own explanation stressed the empirical nature of the work, and that the purpose was to bring out the truth and complexity of the Nicaraguan situation. Everyone, without exception, understood the essence of the scientific method, of representative sampling; so you should not fear talking over people’s heads, so long as you use vocabulary suitable for the person.

Vary your approach and exposure, follow leads, remain generally consistent in your interview goals, and you will produce results which, though not truly scientific, will begin to approximate a valid picture of Nicaraguan political reality. Always keep in mind, though, that some experiences, perceptions, and attitudes will be localized, and thus not generalizable to the population at large, nor evident in other sampling groups. For instance, experiences of perceived oppression, such as those of the Miskitos, will not exist among some other groups, yet they have their own independent validity.

You should always keep in mind the need to causally connect events, experiences, and perceptions to electoral behavior. If you find what you believe to be causally induced behavior, even if it is indirect, you should try to explore it and verify it.

My only remaining caveat is statistical. If you find electoral improprieties, you should consider whether they seem sufficient to affect the results of a race. If a margin of victory overwhelms the amount of a fraud or induced behavior, there is some question about whether you should_consider the results invalid. You should keep in mind the standards adopted for re-counts in other countries: fraud must affect the results of the election, in order to invalidate it and necessitate a new election—which standard is adopted by the Nicaraguan electoral law.

Good luck!