There is no path to change through elections. The entire state apparatus is set up to reelect the dictatorship. It is not time to lower our arms and close the doors, this grave situation requires the regroupment of the social forces in Nicaragua and in exile, and the creation of a new phase of social struggle and opposition against the regime governed by Ortega Murillo and the capitalist state they administer.
By Alternativa Anticapitalista
#AprilHasNoCandidatures
The International Monetary Fund demanded that Ortega Murillo impose a pension and tax adjustment.[1] The immediate reaction was one of struggle. In order to impose the measure, the FSLN Government responded with lead and terror. The April Rebellion began: the political and massive irruption of the working class, youth and the population in general. Three years have passed. The dictators organized an electoral farce with more than 150 political prisoners, hundreds of thousands in exile, with a leadership vacuum and no social pressure resulting from popular mobilization. The electoral route that was imposed leads to impunity for the criminals against humanity and the high cost of living.
The conclusion that the elections of next November 7 are illegitimate is not new, it was anticipated by the population months, even years ago. The “spirit” of April is contrary to the institutional solution, to the “lesser evil” that does not offer any guarantee for the immediate liberation of political prisoners, nor mechanisms to establish Justice Without Impunity for the crimes against humanity committed by the dictatorship; because it is limited to the frameworks of the same institutionality that Ortega uses. Since the birth of Alternativa Anticapitalista in 2020 we have denounced that the elections with the dictator are a trap.
Faced with this panorama we call on the population not to participate in Ortega Murillo’s electoral farce, to reject and boycott them. Let us support any legitimate intention of demonstration that arises from the population. We urge to multiply protest actions at different levels and forms, in every street, in social networks, with protests, with documented denunciations, with assemblies and discussion spaces, wherever, in exile, and in digital media; to contribute with proposals to continue discussing the fundamental solution we need.
In April the route was marked. That is why we are convinced that it was the whole of the working population and the nations in the country that in a self-convened and mobilized way, without bosses or opportunists, managed to destabilize the regime. Bearing this in mind, only this organized massiveness will uproot it. Hence the importance of resuming any effort to build ties that strengthen all the organizational efforts that are being developed and to promote new ones. In order to face what is coming we call to build organizations of the working population, youth, women and diversity.
The capitulation of the Blue and White (AyB) leadership.
The “civic and institutional” strategy of the Civic Alliance for Justice and Democracy (made up of representatives of the economic power, in line with the international community and the clergy) saved the existence of Ortega’s regime from 2018 until today. The policy of dialogue-elections corroded the self-organized bases at the territorial level, and the consequent blunders ended up atomizing the best of the standing activism. Later, groups such as the National Blue and White Unity, UNAB (the result of the confluence between the ACJD and the Articulation of Social Movements and Civil Society Organizations, AMS) and the National Coalition NC (the result of the confluence between the ACJD, the UNAB, and other expressions) continued the task of usurping April’s protagonism. The leaderships of these organizations excluded from their agendas the genuine demands of the working majority, of the youth, of the direct victims of state terrorism and subordinated them to the agendas of Big Capital and the international community. All these directions capitulated to the regime and diverted the social rebellion from the streets towards the institutional channel of the dictatorship.
Initially more belligerent leaderships, such as the AMS leadership, remained half-hearted in their purpose of encouraging mobilization and building a transitional program for the majorities. Its policy of concertation resulted in conciliation with the worst of the national political crust and with the capitalist overlords. The call for concertation around the “Anti-Ortega” logic showed that it has no limits. Little by little the best of the activism within this platform went from promoting progressive agendas and plans of struggles, to the creation of electoral fronts with parties that have historically collaborated with the dictatorship. As happened in the NC with the integration of the very Constitutionalist Liberal Party of the corrupt Arnoldo Aleman and Fernanda Flores, or the lists that integrated its membership to participate in the electoral farce that Ortega Murillo always organized by imposing terror. This is how they reached the “democratic opposition” -where the representatives of the FDN have more voice than their delegates- where they are promoting the “electoral strike” calling to stay at home this November 7. Not even a noon protest.
In 2021, facing the electoral farce of next November 7, we find ourselves in a critical situation, with a deep vacuum of leadership. These mistakes constitute the basis to draw conclusions, to see beyond the electoral field and to bet on new models of organization and active participation. In Our urgent call to the youth: “We conclude that the leaderships of these platforms are the biggest stick in the wheel of the struggle against the dictatorship and this decadent political system”, they continue to insist on “trusting in the business community as a “democratic” political option so that in the end nothing changes structurally in our country. “And we reaffirm our call to the youth and militant sectors of these platforms, to break with their leaderships, and with their strategy of the “civic and institutional exit”, let us dare to build our own and collective political tool, ready to fight consistently for all the rights we claim, and not one less.
Thinking beyond elections: Building something new
The re-election of the dictatorship through electoral fraud requires a new phase of social struggle against the regime. For this reason, we consider it opportune to regroup the social force in Nicaragua and in exile, to reunite efforts for a broad confluence, under a basic and clear programmatic agreement; with a truly independent political bet. It is necessary to break with the sectorial atomization and retake the spirit of April to become again a single fist striking at the same time, fighting for:
#FreedomNow The freedom of political prisoners is not a bargaining chip, nor a point of negotiation. The immediate freedom of political prisoners and the search for justice without impunity must be integrated into any plan of struggle with the organizations of survivors and relatives of direct victims of state terrorism.
#JusticeWithoutImpunity Lay the organizational foundations to promote a plan of struggle that socially prosecutes all those responsible for crimes against humanity; their political, economic and civilian collaborators. Establish real conditions for the creation of an Independent Investigation Commission and the opening of the dictatorship’s archives; and the dismantling of its entire repressive apparatus. For Truth, Integral Reparation, Non-forgetting and Non-repetition of crimes against humanity and State terrorism in Nicaragua.
#WeDoNotCompromise Any dialogue of the leaders who have coexisted and shared business and political gains with the regime for years, is a trap. The collaborators of the dictatorship and its elites do not represent us because they are enemies of our rights and our demands. The only useful dialogue for the social and working majority is between the oppressed, exploited and repressed sectors historically and since April.
#OrganizationAndMobilization Build and strengthen networks for the protection of life and integrity, against COVID19, repression and the precarization of the capitalist state. Recover strength in self-organized bases. Articulate the efforts that sustain from the smallest actions of resistance and active disobedience. To build an organization independent of all historical, economic and institutional collaborators of the dictatorship. This logic allowed us to create an important fabric at the dawn of April. We knew that the greater the repression, the greater the social and independent organization.
#ThePeopleDecide We, the majority, who have never governed our country, are the ones who have to give our opinion and decide. We need to return the protagonism to the social majority, to the working families, to the youth, women and dissidents who fight for another model of country. To strongly accompany the collectives and groups for human rights, the peasant communities, indigenous and Afro-descendant nations so that we, the working population and the poor people, are the ones who democratically discuss our future, that is why we are going for a
#WorkersGovernment Towards a plurinational, free, sovereign, informed and democratic constituent assembly. A deliberative space where workers, indigenous and Afro-descendant peoples, sexual dissidence and youth decide on new economic, social and political bases; with the people mobilized, active and participatory.
Our purpose is to fight for a government of the working population, the peasantry and the youth together with the nations of the indigenous peoples and Afro-descendants; of those of us who put our bodies and lives into the April insurrection, then and now. It is essential to set up an anti-capitalist, feminist and internationalist organization; a political tool without personalism, that transcends the electoral, nationalism and that fights on all terrains. In this sense, we call on all youth activism, social and environmental movements, groups of family members and survivors of state violence in Nicaragua and exile to take all these measures into their own hands. We in Nicaragua and in exile; militants of Alternativa Anticapitalista in the International Socialist League raise this strategy and we make ourselves available to build bridges and to continue the struggle against the dictatorship, hand in hand with the working sectors in our country and the world.