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Second, the Irish delegation stressed the fact that the populace was free not to vote or to spoil votes, and the low level of both, “despite the abstentionism promoted by” the Cruz parties, deflated their claims to any serious support (p. 7). The LASA report reached similar conclusions, based on an extensive review of the evidence, namely: (1) that “circumstantial evidence” indicates the strong probability that Cruz had no intention of running, and (2) that he had no mass base and would have been badly beaten.

In retrospect, Kinzer concedes the fact, although with the customary propaganda twist. He writes that “Ortega’s landslide victory was never in doubt,” because “the opposition was splintered” (and, as he fails to observe, had no popular base, in contrast to the well-organized Sandinista party), and “because the Sandinistas controlled the electoral machinery.” Neither he nor anyone else has offered a particle of evidence that Sandinista control over the electoral machinery made the elections a sham, or to contest the conclusion of the LASA delegation that “the FSLN did little more to take advantage of its incumbency than incumbent parties everywhere (including the United States) routinely do.” A few days earlier, Kinzer had quoted Arturo Cruz as observing that the Sandinistas deserve credit for having overthrown Somoza and “having broken barriers in Nicaragua that had to be broken, and that is irreversible,” because “the Sandinistas were working in the catacombs while we in the traditional opposition were out of touch with the rising expectations of the masses.” As Kinzer knows, but will not write, the same was true at the time of the 1984 elections, which is why the Sandinista victory was never in doubt. This deceitful dismissal of the 1984 elections is one of Kinzer’s many contributions to the media campaign to contrast the “elected presidents” of the four Central American “democracies” with the Sandinista dictator Ortega, not an elected president by U.S. government imprimatur. The specific context was the massive media campaign to attribute the failures of the Guatemala City peace agreement of August 1987 to the Sandinistas, in accordance with Reagan administration priorities, on the eve of the crucial congressional vote on renewed contra aid.105

LASA also stresses the fact that Cruz—effectively representing the contras, a segment of the local business community, and the United States—could have run in the Nicaraguan election, with excellent funding, ample media access, and without fear of being murdered. Even without Cruz the contras had an electoral voice. LASA notes that

We know of no election in Latin America (or elsewhere) in which groups advocating the violent overthrow of an incumbent government have themselves been incorporated into the electoral process, particularly when these groups have been openly supported by a foreign power. The contras nevertheless had a voice in the 1984 election campaign. Two of the Coordinadora-affiliated parties, the PSD and the PLC, supported their inclusion in the elections. And while denying that they represented the contras, Arturo Cruz and the Coordinadora seemed to endorse and promote their cause, both within Nicaragua and abroad (p. 18).

LASA also discusses in some detail the U.S. intervention in the election, noting the terrorizing overflights by U.S. planes during the election campaign, and considering at some length the U.S. efforts to induce the withdrawal of candidates. LASA reported the claims by both Liberal and Conservative party figures that the United States offered specific and large sums of money to get candidates to withdraw from the election.

3.6.6. THE CONCERN OVER FREEDOM OF THE PRESS AND ASSEMBLY

Not only the rights of any and all candidates to run for public office, but other basic conditions that had been off the agenda in El Salvador and Guatemala were of deep concern to the U.S. government and mass media in reference to Nicaragua. The New York Times,