Get It in Writing

Nicaragua’s revolutionary government this week began the complex process of preparing for a national election early next year. The first steps in the long process were not easy, and they provide a glimpse of the controversies still to come as the Sandinista government jockeys for ascendancy over rival political parties.

The Sandinistas agreed to move up the date of their nation’s 1990 election from November to February as part of a peace agreement negotiated among the five Central American presidents. To begin carrying out that agreement, Nicaragua’s National Assembly voted Tuesday to amend the nation’s election laws. But opposition Assembly members walked out, claiming that many of the amendments enacted by the Sandinista-dominated Assembly favor Sandinista candidates.

Opposition leaders are particularly troubled by the proposed membership of a five-person Superior Electoral Council, which will regulate all aspects of the campaign and oversee next year’s voting. Under existing law, all members of the council will be named by Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega. Acknowledging a stacked deck, Sandinista officials offered to compromise, saying that Ortega would name any two persons the opposition selected to the council, along with two Sandinista loyalists. The fifth appointee would be an “independent eminent person.” But when opposition leaders wanted that guarantee written into law, the Sandinistas refused.

Next year’s voting could well be the most pivotal election in Nicaraguan history. It could mark the end of a decade of political turmoil and violence that began when the dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza was overthrown. The Sandinistas played a key role in that revolution, but they did not bring the dictator down without help. Whether the Sandinistas like it or not, the burden of proof that Nicaragua’s elections will be fair and open is on them. That means they must be ready to compromise with the opposition on all the electoral disputes that are sure to arise in the months to come.

Ortega could get the process off to a constructive start with a written guarantee that Nicaragua’s Electoral Council will be a truly balanced and independent body.