Output per person is maybe £400 a revolutionary export market, the rs, biggest and now faces an economic blockade. It is chronically short of foreign exchange. War and a land reform have starved the country of labour to pick coffee and cotton - the main dollar But the achievements are dramatic. Soon after the Triumph — the univeral term for the Somoza's overthrow - thousands of high school students set off on a 'literacy crusade' to the countryside. Adult literacy rose from 40 per cent to 90 plus, and the pre-revolutionary Hulles now 1200 Europe.
with a labour shortage.
whiff of Stalinism.
penalty. Tomas latifundia Minimum monthly wages are Cordobas in the tryside and 1600 in the cities. Welfare and pensions are, comparatively, as generous de vera l wester the only underdeveloped country in the world All this has been achieved without a On the day of Somoza's overthrow the FSLN leadership, most of whom had been tortured in Somoza's jails, abolished the death Borge, told the tions. slogan, Ke-reading the last tew paragraphs, _ sense that —ke almost everyllis written by socialists who have visited it might seem over the top. The revolution has not ushered in the communist millenium Few urban workers have more money pockets today. Some have less. Most of their rural counterparts are probably a bit better off. The old and the sick can now get by. Hardly heaven on earth but a hell of a step forward.
This, then, pre-election Nicaragua. Nicaragua Libre as the new car number plates proudly announce. one can be sure of the outcome in a country with no history of free elecand no opinion polls. My own guestimate is that the Frente will pick up 55-70 per cent of the votes in a high turnout.
The elections will certainly be free, and meaningful. Over 90 per cent of — 16 upwards — have registered. A plethora of parties, some explicitly bourgeois, al c after power. Their programmes differ markedly. Representation will be based on votes received and the process monitored by Western observers.
Not so up North. There the geriatric star of Bedtime for Bonzo seems set to romp home on the back of the most expensive media campaign and lowest turnout in US history.
In the words of the FSLN's election Fi seguinos de frente, con el Frente. Forward with the Front.
How to find out more: • The best book on Somoza's overthrow is George Black's Triumph of the People, Zed Press 1981. • The Nicaraguan Solidarity paign organises occasional study tours. Mine lasted 17 days and cost nearly £800 all in. • The Financial Times has a sympathetic and well-informed correspondent in Managua. It will be worth reading over the election period. • Under Fire is a great movie. • The FSLN produces a weekly in English, Barricada International. A six month subscription is available from Apartado 576, Managua for $19.20.
Socialist Action 19 October 1984