In less than 24 hours, CPC members had filed an Amparo Action in the Second Civil Court of Appeals of Managua (TAM), which is controlled by pro FSLN judges and justices. The Court issued an order preventing Núñez from publishing Law No. 630, pending the Supreme Court of Justice’s (CSJ) decision on the alleged unconstitutionality of the law, as it would go against the Executive’s constitutional right to organize itself.

But Ortega went one step further, and on November 30, at a massive rally in the Revolution Square, he reissued three decrees whereby he created the CPCs again, along with a National Citizenship Power Cabinet, which he included in the National Economic and Social Planning Council (CONPES), appointing his wife, Rosario Murillo, as its Secretary.

“Congress insists on stripping the Executive of its powers, and that goes against the Constitution and the separation of powers of the State. We can continue like this, because I am still going to reinstate the CPCs through presidential decrees. Their efforts would be better invested if they started working on approving laws that are more pressing for the country, and if they passed the National General Budget,” Ortega declared in front of dozens of thousands of CPC activists.

A few days after this new stage in the confrontation between the branches of government, a small group of pro Sandinista justices of the Supreme Court (CSJ) ruled in favor of the unconstitutionality of Law No. 630, generating a violent reaction from the opposition in the National Assembly, which led it to stop all parliamentary activity and form a “Bloc Against the Dictatorship.”  

The goal of this group is to reestablish the legality and autonomy of the Legislative and Judicial branches, and to call on the population to reject what they see as the beginning of a new dictatorship in Nicaragua.

In addition to paralyzing Parliament, they have decided to take their protest to an international level, and are considering the possibility of invoking the Inter-American Democratic Charter of the OAS and reforming the National General Budget presented by the Executive, cutting the funding for all the government projects managed by the CPCs, such as “Zero Hunger,” “Zero Usury.” These projects are aimed at the most impoverished sectors of the population and have received high recognition in both national and international spheres.

What does the future hold in store?

The crisis has undoubtedly worsened, but in the past Nicaragua has always come up with sudden solutions, which seem more like a sort of “role playing,” a theatrical performance where each actor plays out a role according to a script supposedly designed to change everything, but in the end changing nothing at all. That, however, is not what the country needs.

We must take full advantage of this new opportunity that part of the population has decided to give Ortega. Not just with the aim of improving the administration of a system firmly rooted in the neoliberal vision of society and the neoliberal way of running society, but also with the aim of changing that system.

Despite the many contradictions (it’s hard to ignore the alliance between the FSLN and the churches, which has led to the definite penalization of therapeutic abortions in Nicaragua, or the political manipulation of the Judicial and Electoral bodies, or the virtual disappearance of the Party as a structure that should condition the activities of the President and his government), we must admit that there has been an attempt to steer the country down a different path, away from the past. But that is not enough.

What are the people to do? According to the head of the radio station “La Primerisima,” William Grigsby, “The upcoming 2008 electoral battle will not just be about winning or losing in Managua, or about winning or losing in the Department centers, or regaining or losing the 86 municipalities held today. It’s much more than that! It will be a referendum on how the country should be governed. It will be an opportunity to further the people’s revolutionary conscience. It will give us a chance to publicly debate the two projects that exist in the country: capitalism and revolution.”

“The Right and the Yankees know -Grigsby continued in his program ‘Without Borders’- that to succeed ideologically they must win politically and in the elections, and for that they must weaken and wear out the Frente Sandinista as an ideological and political instrument of the people. That’s why they are coming at us full force. Full force. And what should we do? Are we just going to stand back like spectators? Or are we going to suddenly embrace, with the emergence of party democracy, one of these positions? It has now become strategically important to defend the Frente Sandinista as a political instrument. Perhaps at one point it may have become useless as a tool for forging the revolution, but right now it can and must become that instrument, and we must defend it.

We have to recover its institutional character, we must bring back its debates, its assemblies and discussions and, above all, we must train its leaders, both ideologically and politically, specially its youngest leaders. There is a lack of solid political leaders with ideological strength and with a vocational inclination to serve the people. We don’t have such leaders. It’s what we’re lacking. They’re in short supply.

Do we really want to save the Frente Sandinista from the onslaught of the right? Let’s recover all those structures, by involving the people, not by driving them away by decree. Involving, submitting everything to debate, no matter what the outcome. With faith in the conscience of the people. With faith in the strength of the people. Unleashing the creativity of the people. I think that is the best way to defend the Frente Sandinista as an instrument,” Grigsby concluded.