SPECIAL: ELECTIONS IN NICARAGUA Former Sandinista leader to run for president: Moisés Hassan calls for workers, peasants to preserve and extend gains of revolution

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'After Somoza's downfall in July 1979, Hassan represented the MIPU on the five-person Junta of the Government of National On Aug. 22, 1989, Moisés Hassan, a former leader of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN), announced his bid for the presidency of Nicaragua on the ticket of the Movement for Revolutionary Unity (MUR). His vice presidential running mate in the Feb. 25, 1990, national election is Francisco Samper, a leader of the MUR.

The announcement of the Hassan candidacy means that a third major contender has entered the presidential race, challenging both Daniel Ortega, the presidential candidate of the FSLN, and Violeta Chamorro, the candidate of the right-wing National Opposition Union (UNO).

Hassan stated he decided to run for president because "the great majority of the Nicaraguan people are dissatisfied with the FSLN and the UNO." The major goal of his election campaign, Hassan stated, "is to create a new revolutionary alternative in Nicaragua." [See accompanying interview with Moisés Hassan.] The political platform of the MUR calls for the defense, the deepening, and the extension of the Nicaraguan Revolution to the rest of Central America. [See excerpts of the MUR's platform on next page.] A prominent revolutionary leader Hassan's decision to challenge the Sandinistas and the UNO on the basis of a revolutionary platform is of extreme significance. Hassan is a highly respected leader of the Nicaraguan Revolution. He joined the FSLN in the early 1970s and became the main leader of the Movement for People's Unity (MPU), the coalition of mass organizations that played a central role in organizing the insurrection against Somoza.

After Somoza's downfall in July 1979, Hassan represented the MPU on the five-person Junta of the Government of National Reconstruction. In 1981, Hassan stepped down from the government. He later held many other governmental posts, including vice minister of the Interior, minister of Construction, and mayor of Managua.

In April 1988, Hassan resigned from the FSLN, citing "irreconcilable political differences" with the Sandinista leadership. Shortly after his resignation, Hassan gave an interview to U.S. journalist Michael Massing in which he described his differences with the Sandinista leadership.

"What bothers Hassan is not so much the FSLN's ideology as its internal structure and style of operation," Massing wrote. "Nine years after taking power, the Sandinista Front continues to bear the stamp of its guerrilla origins. Distinctly military in cast, the party places a heavy stress on duty and discipline. Policy is set by a small group at the top, then is passed down the line to be carried out. Members are expected to perform their assigned task without complaint."

But "ideology" did play a role in Hassan's break with the FSLN, as Massing admits further on. "During an interview at his home in Managua," Massing writes, "Hassan ... spoke critically of the Terceristas, the FLN faction led by the Ortega brothers that is generally associated with a more moderate brand of Sandinismo. The Terceristas' continuing effort to mollify the bourgeoisie, Hassan told me, 'has caused the revolutionary quality of the Front to suffer tremendously."" (Los Angeles Times, July 3, 1988)

Hassan had broken with the leadership of the FSLN, but not with the revolution. Because the FSLN allows no internal tendencies or factions—in fact, all discussion of political differences is banned inside the FSLN—Hassan had no choice but to resign from the Front.

After his resignation from the FSLN, Hassan became greatly demoralized. In January 1989, a Nicaraguan journalist asked him to assess the political situation in Nicaragua. Hassan answered, "The country is obviously going through a deep economic and social crisis. But I see no perspective to help the country resolve this crisis. I have no solutions." (La Prensa, Jan. 12, 1989)

Nine months after this interview, however, Hassan was offering revolutionary solutions to the major problems facing the Nicaraguan people. What had occurred in the interim to change Hassan's political perspective? Why this political evolution?

The formation of the MUR On May 17, 1989, a new political party was legally registered in Nicaragua: the Movement for Revolutionary Unity (MUR). The party was formed by former members of various revolutionary parties in Nicaragua, including the Revolutionary Marxist League (LMR), the FSLN, the Movement for PopuReconstruction?

lar Action-Marxist Leninist (MAP-MIL), the Revolutionary Workers Party (PRT), and the Communist Party of Nicaragua (PCdeN). A current within the MUR's leadership and membership supports the historic program of the Trotskyist movement.

The formation of the MUR responded to the need to create a new revolutionary party in Nicaragua that could overcome the sectarianism of the non-Sandinista Nicaraguan left while offering a clear socialist alternative to the Nicaraguan workers and peasants.

At its First National Conference in July 1989, the MUR approved a resolution on the 1990 national elections. The resolution authorized the newly elected National Executive Committee of the MUR to contact the FSLN and other left parties that were not members of the UNO coalition with the proposal to run a joint slate of worker and peasant candidates to defeat the UNO coalition, the internal Moisés Hassan front of the contras. The MUR leaders enclosed their political platform with this proposal to initiate a discussion on the type of program they felt was needed to defend and deepen the revolution.

"We did not want to present our platform as an ultimatum to the other revolutionary parties," MUR leader Rodrigo Ibarra told Socialist Action. "We were simply spelling out the main planks we thought should be put forward in the presidential, legislative, and municipal elections. We were open to discussion and negotiations to reach a principled agreement."

On July 25, the leadership of the MUR drafted a letter to the FSLN with their joint electoral proposal. [See reprint in this supplement.] They also contacted the PRT, the MAP-ML, and various independent personalities such as Moisés Hassan. Both Stalinist parties, the Nicaraguan Socialist Party (PSN) and the Nicaraguan Communist Party (PCdeN), were excluded from this proposal, as they were members of the 14-party reactionary UNO coalition.

The MUR's fusion with Hassan One month passed and the MUR had received either no response or a negative response from the three political parties it had approached.

The PRT rejected the MUR's proposal, deciding instead to run PRT member Bonifacio Miranda for president. The MAP-ML and the FSLN did not respond to the specific electoral proposal, although the FSLN did agree to meet with the PRI, MAP-ML, and MUR to discuss their participation in the February 1990 elections. [See the Joint Statement of the FSLN and the three parties of the left.] Moisés Hassan, on the other hand, not only agreed with the general line of the MUR's program and its united-front method in pursuing worker and peasant candidates; after prolonged discussion with the leadership of the MUR, he also agreed to become the presidential candidate of the MUR.

"Hassan's decision to run for president represents a big step forward not only for the MUR but for the Nicaraguan workers and peasants," Rodrigo Ibarra told Socialist Action. "Having someone of Hassan's political stature head up our ticket will permit the party to become a major force in Nicaraguan politics. It will also mean that the revolutionary-socialist alternative will have a mass appeal and mass audience in Nicaragua."

Dividing the revolutionary vote?

Not long after he announced his presidential bid, Hassan came under heavy attack from the pro-Sandinista press. He was accused of "dividing the revolutionary vote" and "playing (continued on page 12, in “[SOCIALIST ACTION OCTOBER 1989 11 S.A.: In an…]”)

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