Municipal Elections of 2000
The Government generally respected many of its citizens' human rights; however, serious problems remained in some areas. Members of the security forces committed several extrajudicial killings, and police continued to beat and otherwise abuse detainees. There were allegations of torture by the authorities. Prison and police holding cell conditions remain harsh, although prison conditions improved slightly. Security forces arbitrarily arrested and detained citizens, although apparently less frequently than in previous years.
Most of the human rights abusers cited by the Tripartite Commission in well-documented reports remain unpunished. The Government followed few of the Commission's recommendations, and the political will to reopen these cases is virtually nonexistent. In March 1999 the Government forced Colonel Lenin Cerna, an egregious human rights abuser and former head of state security under the Sandinistas, to retire from the army, along with some of his top deputies; however, despite Cerna's admissions in newspaper interviews that he committed abuses, the Government has not prosecuted him.
In April 1999 a number of persons were injured in a series of violent clashes between police and students demonstrating in support of additional government funding for universities. During one of the demonstrations on April 9, police injured some demonstrators when they shot rubber bullets at a group of protesters after some protesters threw homemade grenades at police officers. There were media reports that police beat a student whom they detained.
The 2000 municipal elections were affected by the developing Alemán-Ortega pacto and the reforms to the Electoral Law. These reforms guaranteed “bipartisanship” in the elections by throwing up barriers to small and new parties - the so called “parasite” parties - and by eliminating the registration of parties by popular petition. Other factors that affected these elections and that emerged from the pacto were a new provision that granted the automatic right to ex-Presidents to become legislators once they had completed their term in office (which directly favored Arnoldo Alemán) and expanded the number of Supreme Court judges and the magistrates of the CSE. The pacto also diluted the authority of the Comptroller’s Office through expanded “collegiality.”
In this new legal electoral framework, three contending parties disputed 151 mayoral offices. Six new municipalities had been created, including El Crucero which effectively cut Pedro Solórzano out of the Managua race. The competing parties were the Liberal Alliance, the FSLN and the PC. The elections were polarized, with no relevant centrist parties competing (ex. Arriba la República, Camino Cristiano, etc.). This time, the victory went to the FSLN, which took a large number of mayoral offices from the PLC, including 11 of the 17 departmental heads. This included the Managua office which went to Herty Lewites who this time ran as the FSLN candidate. The elections were marked by a high rate of absenteeism (44.3%) which was catalogued as “relative absenteeism” since the division of the pie fell in almost equal parts between the PLC, FSLN and absenteeism.
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