Kalowatie Deonandan, David Close, Gary Prevost - From Revolutionary Movements To Political Parties - Cases From Latin America and Africa (2007)

From Revolutionary Movements to
Political Parties
This page intentionally left blank
From Revolutionary Movements
to Political Parties
Cases from Latin
America and Africa
Edited by
Kalowatie Deonandan, David Close,
and Gary Prevost
FROM REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENTS TO POLITICAL PARTIES
Copyright © Kalowatie Deonandan, David Close, and
Gary Prevost, 2007.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any
manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief
quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
First published in 2007 by
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ISBN-13: 978–1–4039–8010–6
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
From revolutionary movements to political parties : cases from
Latin America and Africa / edited by Kalowatie Deonandan, David
Close, and Gary Prevost.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 1–4039–8010–1
1. Political parties—Latin America—Case studies. 2. Political
parties—Africa—Case studies. 3. Revolutions—Latin America—
Case studies. 4. Revolutions—Africa—Case studies. I. Deonandan,
Kalowatie, 1958– II. Close, David, 1945– III. Prevost, Gary.
JL969.A45F76 2007
324.2096—dc22 2007013674
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd., Chennai, India.
First edition: December 2007
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed in the United States of America.
To my husband Raj Srinivasan for the zest
and joy he brings to our lives
From Kalowatie Deonandan
To Rosa
From David Close
To the people of South Africa and their

ongoing struggle for social justice
From Gary Prevost
Contents
List of Illustrations ix
Preface and Acknowledgments xi
1 Introduction: Transitioning from Revolutionary

Movements to Political Parties and Making
the Revolution “Stick” 1
David Close and Gary Prevost
2 From Guerrillas to Government to Opposition
and Back to Government: The Sandinistas since 1979 17
David Close
3 Guatemala: From the Guerrilla Struggle to
a Divided Left 43
Carlos Figueroa Ibarra and Salvador Martí i Puig
4 The Left’s Long Road to Power in Uruguay 67
Martin Weinstein
5 The Colombian Contradiction: Lessons
Drawn from Guerrilla Experiments in
Demobilization and Electoralism 81
Suzanne Wilson and Leah A. Carroll
6 Guyana’s PPP: From Socialism to
National Democracy 107
Kalowatie Deonandan
7 Revolutionaries in Power: The Evolution
of the African National Congress 133
Gary Prevost
viii ● Contents
8 Born Powerful? Authoritarian Politics in

Postliberation Eritrea and Zimbabwe 157
Sara Rich Dorman
9 Revolutionaries to Politicians: The
Case of Mozambique 181
Carrie Manning
10 Angola: From Revolutionary Movement
to Reactionary Regime 211
Assis Malaquias
11 Revolutionaries to Politicians: Can
the Transition Succeed? 227
Kalowatie Deonandan
Bibliography 247
Notes on the Contributors 263
Index 267
Illustrations
Figures
1.1 Characteristics of Parties Evolving from
Politico-Military Fronts 12
2.1 The Sandinistas: A Chronology 22
Tables
1.1 The Cases under Study 6
2.1 Nicaraguan Presidential Election
Results, 1990–2006 30
2.2 Changing Voter Preferences in Nicaragua,
February–October 2006, Decided Voters 32
3.1 Revolutionary Organizations and
Their Affiliated Mass Organizations 50
3.2 Results of the First Round of Presidential
Elections, 1995 55
3.3 Results from the First Round of Presidential
Elections, 1999 56
3.4 Results from the First Round of the
Presidential Elections of 2003 59
4.1 Electoral Results for Leftist Parties since 1971 77
Preface and Acknowledgments
T
he original inspiration for this book was the experience of
Nicaragua’s Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN). All
three coeditors are scholars of Nicaraguan politics, have done exten-
sive fieldwork in the country and have in-depth knowledge of the country’s
political evolution, particularly the story of the FSLN. This common back-
ground stimulated intriguing questions about revolutionary movements
elsewhere, especially as following the end of the cold war, variations on the
Sandinistas’ experience were witnessed in many countries of Africa and
Latin America. These developments begged analysis. Our first practical
step was a roundtable held at the 2001 meetings of the Canadian Association
of Latin American and Caribbean Studies (CALACS) in Guatemala where
all three of us made presentations. We then let the matter lie dormant for
four years before taking it up again in collaboration with other scholars
working on relevant cases (though of course it was not possible for us to
cover the entire spectrum of examples). It is our hope that the current
volume will stimulate further work on the question of how revolutionary
armed movements face up to the challenges of becoming civilian
governments.
When the idea of this project of analyzing the transition from
revolutionaries to politicians first developed, we suspected we would be
writing about a historical phenomenon, one that had had its hey day. We
were wrong. Besides the Lebanese and Palestinian cases (not included in
this volume), the world may soon have to cope with the coming to power of
one or more Iraqi insurgent groups. And if our findings about the transi-
tions of revolutionary fronts to political parties can be generalized to
include other cases of violent yet nonrevolutionary insurrections, it is unfor-
tunately likely that there will be no shortage of cases for future scholars to
examine. In fact, this situation will persist as long as violence is a political
instrument and revolution the last resort of the oppressed. Perhaps the most
important lesson we have learned while putting this book together is that
xii ● Preface and Acknowledgments
the struggle for freedom does not end when the guns fall silent but rather
continues under new and equally difficult and exhausting circumstances.
Many individuals and institutions have been instrumental in bringing
this project to fruition. Kalowatie Deonandan would like to recognize the
many hours invested by Alexis Dahl and Meagan Williams in finding
creative solutions to the research and technical problems that emerged in
the preparation of this manuscript. She would also like to express her appre-
ciation to the many scholars and politicians in Guyana (of all political
stripes) who generously offered their time for interviews, shared their
knowledge and insights, and greatly faciliatated her research endeavors.
Finally, she would like to thank the Department of Political Studies at the
University of Saskatchewan for the material support it provided for this
project.
David Close acknowledges the many people with whom he discussed
the complexities of Nicaraguan politics over the years, especially: David
Dye, Carlos Fernando Chamorro, Shelley McConnell, Salvador Martí i
Puig, Sherrill Pike, Linda and Cliff Holland, and Judy Butler.
Gary Prevost would like to acknowledge his administrative assistant,
Suzanne Reinert at St. John’s University and the College of St. Benedict,
for her tireless logistical support and the officials of the Nelson
Mandela Metropolitan University, especially Dr. Nico Jooste, Head of the
International Office, who hosted him twice as a visiting scholar on the Port
Elizabeth campus. He is also indebted to South African scholar Janet
Cherry for her wisdom and guidance on the political issues of South Africa.
In addition, he owes a debt of thanks to Roland Williams of the Mayor’s
Office of Nelson Mandela Bay for his assistance in contacting officials of
the African National Congress and to all of the officials who willingly gave
of their time for lengthy interviews.
CHAPTER 1
Introduction: Transitioning from

Revolutionary Movements to
Political Parties and Making
the Revolution “Stick”
David Close and Gary Prevost
T
oward the end of 1958, the movie star Errol Flynn, known for his
portrayal of swashbuckling heroes, took on the real-life role of
newspaper reporter to cover the final days of Fidel Castro’s trium-
phant overthrow of the Batista dictatorship in Cuba. His initial stories were
overwhelmingly positive (he even made a sympathetic movie about the
Fidelistas, Cuban Rebel Girls, a box-office flop), but as ever more Batistianos
made their way to el paredón—the wall where prisoners were shot—he
began to alter his opinion of the Cuban revolution. “[It] is one thing to start
a revolution, another to win it, and still another to make it stick. . . .”1
Making their revolution “stick” is, of course, the goal of all revolutionar-
ies. Put more formally, their objective is to institutionalize the revolution,
translate plans into actions, and even make dreams into realities.
Institutionalization of the revolution ensures that it is without serious chal-
lengers—its position is hegemonic. However, hegemony is not achievable
overnight. So how do revolutionaries make a revolution stick?
To begin, the revolutionaries themselves have to make some important
changes in their behavior and outlook. In a sense, they have to make the
same adjustments as any political group that graduates from opposition to
government. At its simplest, that means they have to do more than say “We
can do it better,” because now they are in charge of the polity and responsible
2 ● David Close and Gary Prevost
for the fate of the nation. However, revolutionaries have to undertake more
dramatic shifts than most opposition groups, simply because they are
revolutionaries whose platform is to bring about dramatic reforms.
Substantive overhauls of a political system are never without costs nor are
they easily achieved. They require patience, substantial administrative
capacity, and, usually, great negotiating skills. Revolutionaries may have
the first in abundance but the latter two are traits that need not have been
demonstrated by those who lead revolutions.
Besides the behavioral and attitudinal realignments, revolutionaries who
become rulers also need to lay a firm and complex political foundation
before the revolution can become a country’s unquestioned regime. This
latter process consists of setting up formal structures and processes—
economic, political, and social—without which the big changes needed to
make the revolution hegemonic either simply will not happen or will take
place so painfully slowly that, to most people, the revolutionary project
starts looking like just another government. Making it to power does not
end a revolution, rather it starts the work of “making the revolution stick.”
As we the editors of this volume all teach political science, we put special
emphasis on the political machinery of revolutions. Nevertheless, we recog-
nize that not all aspects of that machinery are equally important and, even
more, that it is simply impossible to canvass all the apparatus of revolutionary
government in one book. Thus, the broad purpose of this book is to look at
how some revolutionaries constructed and used the political instrument
known as the “organizational weapon”—the political party. Its narrower
objective is to examine how a selection of late-twentieth-century revolu-
tionary movements from Latin America and Africa went about turning
themselves into political parties. However, our specific focus is on not par-
ties in general but parties that contest reasonably open elections, ones that
they can lose as well as win. Although this book includes cases of revolu-
tionary parties that govern effectively one-party states, they are included
principally to highlight the differences between them and our real center of
attention.
Besides all teaching politics, we have another characteristic in common:
all of us have worked extensively in and on Nicaragua. Having followed the
fate of the Sandinistas over several decades, we wanted to know if their
experience was unique. The Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional
(FSLN, Sandinista National Liberation Front) went from guerrilla move-
ment to revolutionary junta to elected government to electoral opposition,
all between 1979 and 1990. From 1990 until 2006, the party has been the
largest opposition party in the Legislature and the runner-up in presiden-
tial elections. It has fared better on the municipal front yet national power
Introduction ● 3
has remained elusive. This history naturally gave rise to a series of what
became research questions.
Preliminaries
Before going further, we must clarify a number of points. The first of these
is that, although most of the cases presented in this book began as armed
groups, not all did. When we think of revolution we normally think of
armed struggle, of the violent overthrow of one class by another to use Mao
Zedong’s words. But in the second half of the twentieth century there were
at least three revolutionary movements—organizations that proposed thor-
oughgoing economic, political, and social change—that endorsed a peace-
ful road to Socialist transformation. Two of these are well known: the
Eurocommunists2 of the 1970s and Salvador Allende’s Unidad Popular
(UP, Popular Unity) in Chile (1970–1973). However, they were following
in the footsteps of Cheddi Jagan, the Guyanese Marxist, whose People’s
Progressive Party (PPP) won a colonial election in 1953 that saw Jagan
become chief minister, thus the first Marxist elected to head a government
in the Western hemisphere. His tenure lasted 133 days, at which time
British troops removed him, suspended the constitution, and named an
interim administration. Jagan, however, returned to lead the country twice
more: as the colony’s premier (1961–1964) and as the nation’s president
(1992–1997). Both because Jagan’s history is relatively less known and
because he and his party exercised power, it is he who represents the small
class of nonviolent revolutionaries in this work.
All the other cases presented involve armed-opposition movements.
However, we have two classes of these as well. Not all insurrections suc-
ceed. Most are defeated and even some of those that are not defeated still
do not take power. In four of the cases presented there are political parties
constituted by former insurrectionists who did not take state power:
Colombia, Guatemala, Mozambique, and Uruguay.3 Interestingly, in three
of these countries, these parties remain in opposition, while in Uruguay,
the Tupamaros are part of a left-of-centre coalition Frente Amplio (FA,
Broad Front) that took office in 2005.
In the past, it was highly unlikely that a failed revolutionary group
would survive defeat to form a party and contest power within a nonvio-
lent, constitutional context. However, the changing dynamics of the
post–cold war world has opened possibilities for armed groups that can
fight government troops to a draw. Rather than pursue internal war to its
bitter and bloody end, the combatants can find themselves pressured by the
international community to enter negotiations. This benefits both sides.
The insurgents, who have been unable to defeat the government’s troops,
get a seat at the negotiating table that it can turn into a chance to enter an
at least somewhat reformed political system. The state, which could not
defeat the insurgents, has to accept its erstwhile enemy as a political com-
petitor but gets peace in return. From our perspective, what matters here is
that the insurgents have to transform themselves into a political party and
learn the art of nonviolent politics.
The bulk of the cases examined below, however, are neither nonvio-
lent revolutionaries nor guerrillas who did not have quite enough
strength to overthrow the government. Rather, they are the successful
armed-oppositional insurgents. Logically, they can set up the kind of state
that they want. Throughout much of history, the preferred option in such
cases was to either forbid opposition or permit it in a limited form that did
not include challenging the control of government. A number of our cases
follow this well-established practice, but three winners—in Mozambique,
Nicaragua, and South Africa—present themselves in winner-take-all elec-
tions, and one of them, the FSLN of Nicaragua, has lost.
Obviously, the universe of cases comprising that last category is small, as
there are not a lot of one-time, armed insurgents that have become political
parties in electoral democracies. In fact, in 2006 it is difficult to identify
even two dozen cases. Central America contributes three: Nicaragua’s
FSLN, El Salvador’s Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional
(FMLN, Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front), and Guatemala’s
Unidad Revolucionaria Nacional Guatemalteca (URNG, Guatemalan
National Revolutionary Union). Southern Africa gives us four:4 the Frente
de Libertação de Moçambique (FRELIMO, the Front for the Liberation of
Mozambique; the Movimento Popular para Liberação de Angola (MPLA,
the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola); the Southwest Africa
People’s Organization (SWAPO) of Namibia; and the African National
Congress (ANC) from South Africa. Beyond these there is Ethiopia’s
Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF); Frente
Revolucionária do Timor-Leste Independente (FRETILIN, Revolutionary
Front for an Independent East Timor) from East Timor; Colombia’s M-19
(Movimiento 19 de Abril or April 19th Movement); the Palestine Liberation
Organization (PLO); and from the former Yugoslavia, the Croatian
Democratic Union and Serbian Democratic Party in Bosnia and
Herzegovina, as well as the Kosovo Liberation Army. Operating at a rather
different level are Hamas and Hezbollah, because they maintain armed
operations alongside their electoral actions. Finally, one might stretch the
concept of revolutionary-movement-to-party to include the political wings
of armed movements, the best known of which are Sinn Fein, linked to the
Introduction ● 5
Irish Republican Army, and the now outlawed Batasuna, the political arm
of ETA stands for Euskadi ta Askatasuna (Basque Fatherland and Liberty),
the Basque separatist movement.
With the exception of Sinn Fein, all the parties listed above grew from
fronts founded in the second half of the twentieth century. Armed opposi-
tion, however, has been a constant throughout history. Thus, while there
may never be many instances of parties growing out of political-military
oppositional fronts, there is also no reason to believe that the species will
disappear. Why, however, did we choose to focus on Latin America and
Africa, leaving aside the European, Asian, and Middle Eastern cases?
We had originally planned to focus solely on Latin American examples.
This offered some uniformity of background and a relatively common set
of expectations about how politics works and what political parties do.
However, centering our attention on Latin America brought with it two
weaknesses: first, there were only five cases and, second, only one of those
five, Nicaragua’s Sandinistas, had taken power as an armed revolutionary
front and then transformed itself into a political party. It was evident that
we needed a larger sample and Africa not only offered the greatest number
of potential cases but many of the revolutionary-movements-turned-parties
there also had long enough histories to permit thorough studies.
This approach is not without its own costs and limitations. The most
obvious of them is that we exclude the small but important category of
cases formed by Hamas in Palestine and Hezbollah in Lebanon. Their orig-
inality derives from their maintenance of armed struggle as a part of their
identities even after entering the electoral arena. In both cases, this decision
reflects the parties’ continuing conflict with Israel, against whom each
wages a continuing guerrilla war. Although one can argue that other
revolutionaries in power have had to mobilize militarily to resist threats to
their regimes, Angola, Mozambique, and Nicaragua come readily to mind,
the military instruments were national armies and not party militias.
Although Hezbollah has been an active political party in Lebanon for over
a decade and Hamas is the largest party in Palestine, we decided that their
continued reliance on violence made them sufficiently different from other
examples that it was best to use them only as contrastive examples.
As the above suggests, this is a book of case studies. Although the use of
cases studies in common in political science, it is also controversial.5 We
chose to build this work around cases instead of concepts for a series of
reasons. First, the details of the experience of the various parties are gener-
ally not widely known. Central America specialists, such as us this book’s
editors, might have a good sense of what has gone on in Guatemala and
Nicaragua but only a general idea of the details of most of the African cases.
Our situation probably applies more broadly. Second, although the

following section will indicate that there are a series of benchmarks that
we use to guide this investigation to allow for comparisons across cases,
there is not a substantial array of concepts explicitly applied to the study of
the transformation of revolutionary movements to civic political parties.
Thus, finally, we decided that to derive concepts useful to the study of
this phenomenon we needed the rich databases that country- and
movement-specific case studies offers.
Orienting Themes, Concepts,

and Questions
Although the book only covers 10 countries, these relatively few cases
present a complex array of traits (table 1.1). There are armed movements
that took power in a revolutionary seizure of the state, movements that
failed to do that but held out long enough to earn a negotiated peace and a
place in the political system, and a revolutionary party that used only
Table 1.1 The cases under study

Country Group PF PE RPE LPE NCE SEV Armed
Angola MPLA x x x x
UNITA x
Colombia UP x x
M19 x x
Eritrea PFD x x x
Guatemala URNG x x
Guyana PPP x x x
Mozambique FRELIMO x x x
RENAMO x x
Nicaragua FSLN x x x x x x
South Africa ANC x x x
Uruguay FA x x *
Zimbabwe ZANU(PF) x x x x
*: Some former armed insurgents
PF: Power by force
PE: Power by election
RPE: Retain power by election
LPE: Lose power by election
NCE: Not competitive elections
SEV: Some electoral victories, not state power
Introduction ● 7
peaceful electoral struggle. Among those that gained power, we have cases
where power was lost by election, won in elections, retained through elec-
tions, or where either elections were not held or were never going to take
power from the government. There are groups that neither acceded to power
by force of arms nor have yet managed to win a national election as well.
What concepts can be employed, what questions asked to draw intelligible
findings from such disparate cases?
The best way to proceed is to start with the armed movements and give
particular attention to those in political systems with competitive elections.
Competitive elections, those in which the winner is not predetermined
either legally or through the manipulation of electoral machinery, mark the
context of 7 of the 10 armed movements in this study. This is a very chal-
lenging transition to make. It is more difficult to put your record on the line
for all to judge every few years than it is to repeatedly assert that the people
have voted for their vanguard in the insurrection, and no political lottery
will cheat them of their triumph. Yet making themselves accountable to
their citizenry is what the parties in this class do. The others, both the
Guyanese who sought to make their revolution without force of arms and
those who follow the time-tested practice of eschewing elections they could
lose, will be treated as separate categories, which will provide a context for
comparison.
The Armed Movements: Context

and Conjuncture
In the early twenty-first century, as in every previous era, a certain number
of states are reconstructing their political systems, after periods of internal
conflict. What distinguishes the current situation from those of the past is,
as noted above, that many of the political rebuilding projects aim at becom-
ing constitutional democracies. These are polities where the rule of law
prevails, reasonably free and fair elections decide who holds power, and
citizens can usually count on their constitutionally guaranteed rights being
respected by the state.
However, in all of the cases that have emerged since the collapse of the
Eastern European Socialist governments at the end of the cold war, the
democratic and constitutional governments are operating in the framework
of capitalist property relations. The economies of these emerging democra-
cies are overwhelmingly in private hands, especially in the wake of the drive
of neoliberal ideas in the 1990s to downplay any positive role of state-owned
enterprises or even a large role for the state in regulating economic relations.
This challenge will be especially difficult for the former revolutionaries
who have entered constitutional politics because their prior goals had gone
beyond establishing political democracy to the establishment of economic
democracy (i.e., socialism).
Operating within this framework poses extra challenges for governments
who must not only restore order and remake their economies but do so
while being bound by the law themselves. Those forming the governments
undertaking these tasks often were not long before political-military orga-
nizations, generally guerrilla groups, built to seize and hold power by force
of arms. It is clear that these parties must reconfigure themselves as they
rebuild their countries.
Two principal tasks await guerrillas who transform themselves into par-
ties. The first of these concerns the introduction of a new medium of polit-
ical exchange: ballots instead of bullets. With the new currency comes the
need to make a host of operational adjustments. Clandestine operations
yield to relative openness. Coercion takes a backseat to persuasion, although
the persuasion can easily be co-optation. Ringing declarations of principle
are traded for policy analyses. Enemies are transmuted into opponents.
And bureaucratic tedium becomes the new fog of battle.
As significant as those adaptations might be, the second great transfor-
mation, the abandonment of verticalism, may be even harder to achieve.
Political-military organizations are constructed and operate on military
lines. They literally have command structures. Leaders drawn from such
organizations give and follow orders. Although commanders doubtless
discussed war plans among themselves and top representatives probably
negotiated with civilian authorities, the continuous buffeting that elected
leaders get from the media, opposition parties, organized interests, and
even their own caucuses will be unfamiliar. Democratic centralism will
look very good. Nevertheless, these newly minted politicians will learn that
insulation from public pressure and unaccountability often spells electoral
disaster.
Successfully carrying out all of the above changes does not assure elec-
toral success. Once launched on their constitutional democratic careers,
parties that grew from the soil of revolutionary struggle should be neither
better nor worse equipped than any other to contest and exercise power.
But is that really so? Besides the foregoing structural factors, there are also
questions of history and public perception that can work to either the ben-
efit or detriment of any party. Did the ex-revolutionaries enter the electoral
fray as the only organized political force in the country, giving themselves
an advantage that they can build on? Is the party too closely linked in the
public mind with bloodshed and suffering to win the majority’s votes? Have
new parties arisen that better capture the current public mood?
Introduction ● 9
A Framework
To analyze these questions, we should start from the more familiar ground
of the movements-to-parties literature before addressing the particularities
of how political-military organizations might make the transition to become
political parties. There are many cases around the world of movements
transmuting into parties—most Labor and Socialist parties sprang from
movements, as did many nationalists, and now the Greens—and there is a
surprising wealth of Canadian examples reported in an ample and easily
available literature.6 The hallmark of the movement-to-party literature is its
emphasis on routinization7 or institutionalization.8 Movements, even pow-
erful ones, generally have flexible structures.9 They encourage members to
participate broadly and allow substantial innovation. Parties demand
greater discipline, at least from officially registered members. There are
platforms and policies to support. And elected members can be expected to
toe the party line on votes, at least where party discipline is enforced. Thus,
the shift from a movement to a party implies a significant change of orga-
nizational culture and operational logic. In essence, one institution, the
movement, becomes another, the party.
Political-military fronts cannot have flexible structures. They are com-
mand organizations. Therefore, when they change from movements to par-
ties it is not the loss of spontaneity that stands out. In fact, there is a marked
tendency to adapt a verticalist, top-down, party structure and impose a
quasi-military discipline on the relatively restricted number of militants
who compose the formal membership. Yet they too make substantial adjust-
ments, to be effective the old political-military organization has to become
more flexible and more open. What this literature, then, suggests is that the
hard part of changing from movement, civil or armed, to party is that it
requires developing a new and quite distinct institution.
Themes and Questions

Parties that began life as armed, politico-military revolutionary movements
carry with them a lot of heavy baggage. For one thing, they may have a
strong tendency toward verticalism, the top-down, order-giving organiza-
tional logic characteristic of armies. This is a necessary concomitant of war
fighting but it does not translate well into democratic politics. Debating a
general’s orders is unthinkable, just as unthinkable as not debating a polit-
ical leader’s positions should be. Are parties growing from armed struggle
in fact more verticalist? Are they more leader-centered than other parties in
the same polity?
Another trait that is absolutely necessary in war is secrecy. However,

democracies at least claim to promote transparency. Are transformed
politico-military movements less open than the parties against whom they
compete?
Though each of the above can and should be remedied with time,
patience, and energy, other aspects of the character of armed oppositions
may be more deeply rooted. Maximalism, that is, a predisposition to seek
unconditional victory, is one of these. Politico-military movements are
almost always revolutionary in the sense that they propose to use violence
to change the existing regime. The revolution could be Marxist or religious,
nationalist or ethnic; but people seldom take up arms to negotiate the fine
points of a contract. Although stalemate may produce climb-downs and
negotiations, at least at the start the rule will be, “Patria libre o morir! Patria
o muerte! Venceremos!” However useful maximalism may be in war, it can
be a terrible encumbrance in ordinary politics.
One possible consequence of maximalism is polarization. Playing a zero-
sum game, in which you either win or lose everything, leads to a “with us
or against us” perspective. Again, this is perfectly adapted to the battlefield
and has its place in transformational revolutionary politics, or even in a
dictatorship. In more pluralistic settings, however, where there is no imag-
inable, legitimate reason for annihilating your opponent, maximalism will
simply divide the polity into warring camps. One possible outcome of this
is gridlock. Another is the permanent marginalization of a weaker party,
which produces a different kind of instability. There is also the Nicaraguan
solution, described in chapter 6, of making a power-sharing pact between
the adversaries. None of these options is fully consistent with democracy.
Transformed armed oppositions are not the only sources of political
maximalism and polarization. The question is whether these are more com-
mon outcomes where parties that grew from politico-military movements
are prominent political actors. To the extent that they are, it becomes useful
to know if the consequences of maximalism noted above in fact appeared,
and if so, how they have been addressed.
A final condition that could logically affect all parties in this class is
ideological rigidity and reluctance to move far from the original move-
ments’ founding principles. Obviously, at least the commitment to armed
struggle has to go. But the question is how far a party whose founders shed
blood for a cause can move away from its original message, even if that mes-
sage will never bring electoral success.
Beyond these questions that consider the characteristics of whole politi-
cal systems, there are themes that require the examination of specific par-
ties operating in particular contexts. Four are set out here: whether the
Introduction ● 11
movement seized power by force of arms; the role of external actors; issues
of recruitment and generational change; and the strength of other parties in
the system.
The most obvious of the particular factors is whether the party had
taken power by force of arms. Those who did were assured experience in
government. This gave them a record of rule, which is not always an advan-
tage, some managerial skills, and some appreciation of the arts of negotia-
tion and compromise. For those who entered the realm of electoral politics
after a negotiated end of hostilities those advantages may not have existed.
To examine this issue the obvious comparison would be the FMLN of El
Salvador and Guatemala’s URNG, on the one hand, and the FSLN of
Nicaragua and Mozambique’s FRELIMO, on the other.
Only slightly less immediately apparent is the role played by external
actors. Support or opposition from without can be critical to armed opposi-
tions and to the political parties that succeed them. To take one well-known
case, the opposition of the U.S. government to the Sandinistas has ham-
pered the FSLN’s electoral chances in Nicaragua.
As armed oppositions were set up to recruit warriors and not politicians,
there is some question about how well their leaders will adapt to their new
jobs. Even if they do well, however, eventually the party will need new peo-
ple with new ideas. The experience to date of the FSLN and the FMLN
suggests that this will be difficult. These parties continue to put great
weight on participation in the armed struggle, which may call for different
skills than the electoral struggle. A possible result is parties whose leaders
are strongly attached to ideas that have little currency among voters, per-
haps even among the party’s younger members. Yet FRELIMO appears to
have solved that problem. Whether that was the result of good leadership
and sound planning or was simply fortuitous is a question that we shall
have to consider.
There is also the question of the other parties in the system. In one
sense, parties formed from politico-military movements are just like any
other party. They have to raise money, recruit candidates and workers, put
together platforms, and run elections, and if they win, organize a govern-
ment. But in the polarized environment that often follows protracted con-
flict, facing strong opponents with attractive policies and leaders can spell
oblivion for the ex-fighters. We believe that this matter lies at the heart of
the different results achieved by, for example, the FSLN and FRELIMO,
and is part of what accounts for the FMLN’s limited success.
Finally, we must ask if these parties have been able to make the social
changes their revolutions promised. Obviously, they will be hamstrung by
the reigning international economic order, which prescribes a reduced
public sector and an open, largely unregulated economy. Also a revolution-

ary organization like any other party will find that what looks good in a
platform is often found wanting after a confrontation with intractable
social and political realities. Nevertheless, if ex-revolutionaries are to claim
any sort of distinction in the present it logically ought to be for having a
political agenda that promotes, as far as is reasonably possible, revolution-
ary goals. In practice, their program will likely take the form of redistribu-
tive social policies, affirmative action for marginalized groups, economic
policies favoring the poor and working classes, and a foreign policy promot-
ing nonintervention and a skeptical stance on global free trade. Parties in
power plainly are better placed to secure these ends than are those in oppo-
sition, thus it is easier to assess their records. However, parties out of office
can not only push for current versions of their historic goals from opposi-
tion but can also sometimes shape legislation to move their country toward
those objectives.
We can summarize all the foregoing points in a box (figure 1.1) for easier
reference.
Likely to apply to all parties in this class

Verticalist
Secretive
Maximalist
Polarlizing
Ideologically Rigid
Likely to distinguish between parties in this class
Came to power through arms or not
Role of external actors
Recruitment and generational renewal
Other parties in the system
Fulfillment of revolutionary agenda
Figure 1.1 Characteristics of parties evolving from

politico-military fronts
The Others
Four of the cases examined in this collection either are not descended from
armed-oppositional movements, Guyana, or do not operate within a
framework of freely competitive elections, Angola (National Union for the
Total Independence of Angola UNITA [União Nacional para a
Independência Total de Angola], and MPLA). Eritrea (Democratic Federal
Party, PFD), and Zimbabwe. These afford us two useful sets of controls.
Knowing about Guyana will shed light on the effects of having to make
Introduction ● 13
the transition from armed to electoral political struggle. As the PPP’s roots
are Marxist, hence presumably revolutionary, the extent to which its path
diverges from that followed by the former guerrillas will generate hypothe-
ses about the impact of armed struggle on a party’s behavior. Similarly, the
policy profiles and socioeconomic outcomes produced by ruling parties
that dispense with free elections will be compared to those generated by
administrations of ex-revolutionaries who fight open elections to raise ques-
tions about how competitive politics affects the course of one-time armed
insurgents.
The Plan of the Book

The book is divided into two sections; the first draws on case studies from
Latin America and the second from Africa. Among those in the former cat-
egory, Nicaragua’s FSLN is the only one to have seized power via revolution
(1979). It then became a constitutional opposition after an electoral defeat
(1990), and then regained control of the state by winning national elections
(2006). In chapter 2, David Close presents the history of the FSLN, empha-
sizing its 16 years in opposition and the conditions that allowed the party
to return to power in 2006.
Carlos Figueroa Ibarra and Salvador Martí i Puig’s chapter on Guatemala
detail the history of the Guatemalan revolutionary movement distinguished
as the first to take up arms after the Cuban Revolution and the last to lay
them down. The primary question that the authors confront is how to
explain why the guerilla movement and its final manifestation, the URNG,
has had so little electoral success compared to its Nicaraguan and Salvadoran
counterparts. The answer they suggest lies in the extent of the success of
the Guatemalan state in repressing the movement, which in turn limited
the latter’s ability to penetrate effectively into Guatemalan political life in
the long term.
Martin Weinstein’s chapter on Uruguay documents the long road to
power of the Uruguayan left. Success came with the election of Dr. Tabaré
Vázquez to the presidency in 2004, at the head of the Broad Front coalition
of Socialists, communists, and ex-Tupamaros (the armed guerillas of the
1960s and 1970s). Weinstein places the Broad Front’s victory in the context
of Latin America coming to grips, increasingly so, with its authoritarian
past through the prosecution of crimes committed by military regimes.
The contribution by Suzanne Wilson and Leah Carroll on Columbia
approaches the themes of the book from a somewhat different angle because
the primary guerilla group, the Armed Revolutionary Forces of Columbia
(FARC, Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia), have not laid
down their arms and entered the political arena, but are continuing their
40 year long insurrection. The particular focus of the authors is on those
groups over the past 25 years that have demobilized and entered the politi-
cal arena. Their primary conclusions are that the Colombian system has
ultimately provided only limited political space to revolutionaries turned
politicians and that the state’s systematic and ongoing repression has not
encouraged a transition to electoral politics. Furthermore, they note, the
former guerillas have had the most success when they participate in the
political system as relatively small players in broad political coalitions.
The last chapter in this section, by Kalowatie Deonandan, analyzes one
of the more unique cases, the PPP in Guyana, that from the beginning
advocated the electoral route to socialism over armed struggle. What
emerges is that the PPP share many of the traits and constraints its counter-
parts had espoused via the armed route. Like many of them, once it won
power (after 28 years of political exclusion) it modified its ideological pro-
gram to conform with the economic policies it was forced to implement.
Furthermore, it faces internal challenges such as verticalism in leadership,
and is constrained by accusations that it is perpetuating one-party domi-
nance, charges not unfamiliar in other contexts as well.
The second half of the book consists of four case studies of
revolutionaries–to-politician transitions in Africa. The first is Gary Prevost’s
chapter charting the transformation of the ANC in South Africa from rev-
olutionary movement to Social Democratic Party adhering to the Third
Way political path. This transformation is placed explicitly within the con-
text of geopolitical changes surrounding the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The chapter then proceeds to an examination of the challenges which con-
front a liberation movement when it strays politically from its historic
commitments.
In her chapter on Eritrea and Zimbabwe, Sara Rich Dorman draws out
the differences between the two countries’ postliberation experiences based
on the manner by which the liberation forces took power. In the case of
Zimbabwe, the negotiated character of the transition placed great restraints
on the behavior of the ZANU in power. This is unlike Eritrea, where the
military victory of the EPLF gave the movement greater freedom in its post-
liberation policies. This theme of the constraints imposed by (pacted) tran-
sitions is also central in Prevost’s chapter on the ANC. Dorman also makes
important comparisons between the two countries in terms of the relative
lack of democratic openings in Eritrea compared with that of Zimbabwe.
In the chapter on Mozambique, Manning compares the experiences
of FRELIMO and Resistência Nacional Moçambicana (RENAMO,
Mozambican National Resistance) as armed movements that have had
Introduction ● 15
dramatically different political success. FRELIMO began as a guerilla

army and assumed power in 1975 with the end of Portuguese rule.
RENAMO was a counterrevolutionary armed force backed by South Africa
and the West to destabilize the FRELIMO government and protect South
African apartheid. FRELIMO’s success is discussed in terms of its much
greater organizational preparedness for multiparty elections in the 1990s.
The chapter documents how FRELIMO utilized its advantages over
RENAMO to consolidate power by electoral means in the early elections
and to strengthen its long-term dominance in Mozambican politics.
FRELIMO was especially adept at separating its party structures from the
state apparatus, a task that often proves difficult for revolutionary parties
operating in the pluralist democratic environment.
Malaquias’ chapter on Angola analyzes the trajectory of the main revo-
lutionary force in Angola, the MPLA. He identifies the key factors that
enabled the MPLA to survive at various stages of the conflict and to rise to
a position of dominance in the postcolonial era. The chapter also provides
an analysis of the motivations behind the MPLA’s abandonment of its
revolutionary ideals in recent years and its embrace of privatization and
neoliberalism. Malaquias explains the transformation primarily in terms of
the economic realities of postcolonial Angola and argues that its principal
beneficiaries are the revolutionary elites.
The concluding chapter by Deonandan brings together the cases by
identifying the common and cross-cutting themes that bind them and
highlight the challenges faced by revolutionaries who become politicians
and the possibilities that await them. She identifies several common factors
that allowed for the transition from revolutionary movements to political
parties, and one overriding theme is the fall of the USSR. In terms of their
success in the transition phase, she suggests they can be evaluated in terms
of several criteria and amongst these are: the degree to which they remained
ideologically committed to their revolutionary agenda; and ability to pro-
mote democracy both within the movement and within the state.
Notes
1. Quoted in Peter Pavia, The Cuba Project: Castro, Kennedy, Dirty Business, Double
Dealing, and the FBI’s Tamale Squad (New York: Palgrave, 2006), p. 65. Flynn
ended his story with the comment, “. . . and as far as this writer is concerned it
ain’t sticking.” He was wrong.
2. Although Eurocommunism was arguably mostly about relations between
Western European Communist parties and the Soviet Union, it was also an
attempt to adapt those parties to the realities of late twentieth century, West
European political pluralism. It is for this latter reason that we include them in
the category of nonviolent revolutionaries.
3. This collection originally was to have included a chapter on El Salvador, a key
case. Unfortunately, the author of that chapter withdrew for personal reasons
when it was too late to find a replacement. The editors regret this omission.
4. At one time we could have included Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe African
National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) as a fifth case.
5. A good review of the debate on case studies in political science is found in
J. Gerring, “What Is a Case Study and What Is It Good for?,” American Political
Science Review 98, 2 (2004), pp. 341–354.
6. Two sets of movements in Canada produced parties that went on to form pro-
vincial governments, some for extended periods. The first of these came from
the farmers’ movements of the early twentieth century, which yielded the United
Farmers, Progressives, Social Credit, and the Cooperative Commonwealth
Federation, while the second emerged from the Quebec nationalism of the
1960s, which produced the Parti Québécois. On agrarian radicalism in Canada,
see the classics, viz. S. Lipset, Agrarian Socialism (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1950); W. L. Morton, The Progressive Party in Canada (Toronto:
University of Toronto Press, 1950); C. Macpherson, Democracy in Alberta
(Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1953); also L. Zakuta, A Protest Movement
Becalmed (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1964). For recent Quebec
nationalist politics, consult M. Sarra-Bournet and J. St-Pierre, Les nationalisms
au Quebec du XIX au XXI siecle (Quebec: Presses de l’Universite Laval, 2001),
and S.Trofimenkoff, The Dream of Nation (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s
University Press, 2002).
7. S. Clark, J. Grayson, and L. Grayson, Prophecy and Protest (Toronto: Gage
Educational Publications,1976).
8. S. Tarrow, Power in Movement (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998).
9. Flexibility, of course, is far more characteristic of new social movements—
for example, second- and third-wave feminism, antiglobalization, and the
environmental movement—than of old social movements, for example labor.
CHAPTER 2
From Guerrillas to Government

to Opposition and Back to
Government: The Sandinistas
since 1979
David Close
Introduction
Nicaragua’s Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional (FSLN, Sandinista
National Liberation Front) was well positioned to make a successful transi-
tion from armed guerrilla movement to competitive electoral party. Even
before abandoning Leninist principles in 1982 and allowing free electoral
competition, the Sandinistas had begun constructing a remarkably plural-
istic revolutionary state. Winning open elections against a weak and divided
opposition in 1984 gave the revolutionaries useful experience in electoral
politics and committed them to recognizing victory at the polls as the only
legitimate road to power in the new regime. Handing over power after los-
ing the 1990 elections confirmed the FSLN’s democratic credentials. After
that, however, the Sandinistas showed signs of becoming Nicaragua’s natu-
ral official opposition. The two succeeding national elections (1996 and
2001) produced second-place finishes that saw the party stalled at approxi-
mately 40 percent of the vote, at least 10 points behind the winning
Constitutionalist Liberal Party (Partido Liberal Constitucionalista, PLC)
To change their fortunes, in 2000 Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega struck
a deal with Liberal leader and then-president Arnoldo Alemán to change
Nicaragua’s constitution in ways that might improve the FSLN’s chances.
18 ● David Close
In 2006, even with a smaller percentage of the votes than in 2001 (38 as
against the previous 42.5 percent), however, the FSLN captured the presi-
dency for its historic leader Daniel Ortega.
This chapter asks two questions about the Sandinistas electoral trajectory.
The first is whether the FSLN’s lack of electoral success over 16 years can
be attributed to its revolutionary origins or whether other factors accounted
for the party’s showing. To be able to consider the party’s armed, revolu-
tionary origins as the principal cause at least one of the following must be
present: party choice dividing along pro-/anti-Sandinista lines; continuing
salience of issues from the period of revolutionary government; continuity
of party program or ideology from its period as a movement; continuity of
leadership; outside, here United States’, opposition to the FSLN carried
over from the party’s revolutionary past. Explanations for the Sandinistas’
16-year stint in opposition that are not rooted in their pre-1979 history
include their record as governors (1979–1990) and the strength of other
parties in the political system. The available evidence indicates that it is
necessary to draw on both factors to explain the Sandinistas’ long run in
opposition. Specifically, a careful reading of the record suggests that the
FSLN’s radical origins and the record of the revolutionary government
combine with its leader’s style and the party’s performance to limit its elec-
toral appeal.
Obviously the second question addresses the party’s 2006 victory. The
best way to understand what produced this result is to focus on three related
themes: actors, structures, and conjuncture. The actor most in the spotlight
has to be Daniel Ortega, although his pact partner Arnoldo Alemán and
the presidential candidates of the three other significant parties—the
runner-up Eduardo Montealgre of Nicaraguan Liberal Alliance (Alianza
Liberal Nicaragüense, ALN), Jose Rizo of the PLC, and the Sandinista
Reform Movement (Movimiento de Renovación Sandinista, MRS), whose
candidate was eventually Edmundo Jarquín1—who contested the election
also played significant roles. Structures are those factors that can be counted
on to shape Nicaraguan politics. These include historic voter preferences,
the country’s legal-constitutional framework, the party system, the media,
and the U. S. government. Finally, contextual elements include the cam-
paign and national and international events that shape voters’ perceptions.
We shall want to explain how the FSLN’s vote stayed above its historic floor
(37.7 percent in 1996), how and why the anti-Sandinista—perhaps better
thought of as the anti-FSLN or anti–Daniel Ortega—vote split as it did.
Above all, we are interested in determining whether the FSLN is now a
party like its main Nicaraguan competitors or it retains anything of its
insurrectionary past, besides memories.
The Sandinistas since 1979 ● 19
Addressing these questions takes us through a number of steps. First, we

need a framework within which to analyze and evaluate the problems that
confront guerrilla movements as they move armed struggle to electoral pol-
itics. Here we also ask whether revolutionaries and other armed insurgen-
cies have to overcome similar obstacles or whether their different raisons
d’être present them with distinct challenges. The next part of the chapter
sets out a history of the FSLN that highlights the factors that have most
shaped its passage from revolutionary guerrilla force to Nicaragua’s largest
opposition party and finally back into office. Reflections on the state of the
Sandinistas and Nicaraguan politics more generally constitute the conclu-
sion.
Basic Questions
In the early twenty-first century, as in every previous era, some states are
reconstructing their political systems after periods of internal conflict.
What distinguishes the current situation from earlier ones is that most of
the political rebuilding projects involve constitutional democracies. These
are polities where the rule of law prevails, reasonably free and fair elections
decide who holds power, and citizens can usually count on their constitu-
tionally guaranteed rights being respected by the state. Operating within
this framework poses extra challenges for governments who must not only
restore order but also do so while being bound by the law themselves. Those
forming the governments undertaking these tasks had often not long before
been politico-military organizations, generally guerrillas, that were built to
seize and hold power by force of arms. It is clear that these governors must
reconfigure themselves as they rebuild their countries.
Two principal tasks await guerrillas who must transform themselves into
electoral parties. The first concerns the introduction of a new medium of
political exchange: ballots instead of bullets. With the new currency come
a host of operational adjustments. Secrecy yields to relative openness.
Coercion is replaced by persuasion, although the persuasion can easily be
co-optation. Ringing declarations of principle are traded for policy analy-
ses. Enemies are transmuted into opponents. And bureaucratic tedium
becomes the new fog of battle.
As significant as these adaptations are, the second great transformation
may be even harder to achieve. Politico-military organizations are con-
structed and operate on military lines. They literally have command
structures. Their members give and follow orders. Although commanders
doubtless discussed war plans among themselves and top representatives
probably negotiated with civilian authorities, the continuous buffeting that
20 ● David Close
elected leaders get from the media, opposition parties, organized interests,
and even their own caucuses will be unfamiliar. Democratic centralism will
look very good. Nevertheless, these newly minted politicians will learn that
unaccountability and insulation from public pressure bring their own
costs.
Successfully making all the above changes does not assure electoral suc-
cess. Once launched on their electoral careers, parties that grew from the
soil of revolutionary struggle should be neither better- nor worse-equipped
than any other to contest and exercise power. But are they? Besides struc-
tural factors, questions of history and public perception can also work
either to the benefit or detriment of any party. Did the ex-revolutionaries
enter the electoral fray as the only organized political force in the country,
giving themselves an advantage that they can build on? Or is the party too
closely linked in the public mind with bloodshed and suffering to win the
majority’s votes?
All the foregoing assume that the former insurgents’ party actually runs
in competitive elections. If for any reason it does not, none of the above
applies. For most of the twentieth century the political party was the revo-
lutionary’s organizational weapon. It was used to organize state power and
mobilize popular support. Of the many political forces that seized power by
force over the past century, only military regimes conventionally dispensed
with parties. Nevertheless, the mere presence of a political party did not
mean that there would be contested elections in which citizens could freely
choose their governors. In fact, during the first three-quarters of the past
century, armed oppositions that won power were most reluctant to risk los-
ing it in elections. It is only since the 1980s that organizations formed for
and through armed struggle have accepted elections.
Are Armed Opposition Movements

Automatically Revolutionaries?
When we think of revolution we automatically think of armed oppositional
movements. After all, one does have to smash the existing state before
building a new regime. As Kalowatie Deonandan’s treatment of Cheddi
Jagan (see chapter 6) indicates, however, not all revolutionaries have resorted
to arms to win control of the state.2 Equally, not all armed oppositional
movements are revolutionaries. Military leaders plotting a coup are unlikely
to seek thorough social change, although Chile’s General Pinochet and his
allies clearly did. And even more broadly based forms of armed resistance
may aim not at overthrowing government as much as seeking more auton-
omy; Native American movements that have occasionally used violence
exemplify this point.
In short, when thinking about revolution as a political end and armed

opposition as a political means we need to be careful to specify what our
concepts mean. This is especially true in the case of the Sandinistas. They
have existed long enough to have undergone numerous dramatic changes.
Thus they fall into many slots, which makes analyzing them a complex and
delicate task.
We can begin by noting what may be the Sandinistas’ most significant
political achievement: it was the first successful armed insurgent organiza-
tion in Latin America to make electoral competition a central part of its
system. While some might argue that the Costa Rican rebels of 1948 should
receive this distinction, the FSLN’s case is stronger. The principal reason is
that, although Costa Rica’s Partido Liberación Nacional (PLN, National
Liberation Party) grew out of that country’s 1948 civil war, it was not struc-
tured as an armed group. Rather the Social Democrats, the PLN’s prede-
cessor whose loss in the national elections 1948 sparked the war, were a
reformist, electoral political party that turned to arms to defend its elec-
toral victory. Violence was certainly used to take power but it was not the
instrument of preference. The Costa Rican Social Democrats were not
revolutionaries. That they sought dramatic reforms of society and polity is
unquestioned, and the social and political changes the PLN oversaw
between 1950 and 1980 were massive. Yet they were not about destroying
the old order and bringing an entirely new society into being. The
Sandinistas, however, were.
In many ways the FSLN was a classical revolutionary guerrilla organiza-
tion. It spent 18 years, from 1961 to 1979, operating clandestinely, doing
political work with the people while fighting the state. But it was also a
revolutionary organization with complex internal politics. The Sandinistas
were famous for harboring three very different tendencies or revolutionary
strategies within the bosom of a single guerrilla front. The Prolonged
People’s War faction followed the path blazed by Mao Zedong: the patient
accumulation of forces, military and political, to allow guerrillas from the
countryside to engulf the city-based state. Following a different trajectory
was the Proletarian Tendency, which, as the name indicates, built its anti-
Somoza struggle around the working class. The third group was the
Terceristas (Third Tendency), whose strategy of forming a multiclass alli-
ance to carry through a great insurrectionary movement finally carried the
FSLN to power.
We should think of the Sandinistas as revolutionary in three distinct but
related ways. First, they led a successful political revolt against two genera-
tions, 43 years, of dictatorial rule by the Somoza family. As well, the social
and economic agenda the FSLN brought with it to power was revolution-
ary. It proposed a radical redistribution of economic, political, and social
22 ● David Close
power to displace Nicaragua’s capitalists and give the workers and peasants
much greater authority and prestige. The third way in which the Sandinistas
were revolutionaries, or at least radical innovators, lay in the structure
and logic of the revolutionary state. Although the Junta de Gobierno de
Reconstrucción Nacional (JGRN, Governing Council of National
Reconstruction) was not a constitutional democracy, one governed by the
rule of law, it was not a proletarian dictatorship either. Rather, it was a sys-
tem that permitted licensed opposition and a greater degree of pluralism—
centers of power not under state control—than had the Somozas.
It is not necessary to accept all the premises of Philip Selznick’s old work
on the Bolsheviks3 to agree that the Sandinistas came to power as a combat
party. The FSLN displayed most of the characteristics of such organiza-
tions. The Sandinistas’ project of destroying the Somozas’ dictatorship and
replacing it with a revolutionary democracy demanded using military
means and a military structure, as well as assuring that most political work
would be clandestine. Yet the FSLN soon moved toward open, electoral,
political struggle (figure 2.1). Why?
1961 Foundation
1979 Take power
1982 Pass Parties’ Law; election now sole road to power
1984 Elections; Sandinista landslide win; Ortega president
1990 Elections; Sandinistas lose by 14 points; Ortega candidate
2000 Pact with Liberals
2006 Elections; Sandinistas win by 8 points; Ortega president
Figure 2.1 The Sandinistas: A chronology
Transforming the FSLN I: From

Revolutionary State to Electoral Party
There is well-developed literature that treats how political movements
become parties.4 Almost all of it describes the shift from movement to party
as a loss of élan and democratic effervescence. The process has been called
“routinization,”5 or of leaving a protest movement “becalmed.”6 Regardless
of the language chosen, the implication is that becoming a political party
takes away the romance and daring of movement politics, replacing it with
calculations of small, short-term advantages. Although this maybe true
where the shift from movement to party takes place in a democratic,
constitutional framework, one might think that a revolutionary movement

such as the Sandinistas would act differently. In part they did; but in part
the FSLN, too, had to settle into routines.
Gaining power after overthrowing the Somozas gave the Sandinistas
advantages they would not have enjoyed had they won office through elec-
tions. The most important of these was not necessarily the most obvious.
Having a clearer commitment to a total restructuring of the state than to
holding elections, the revolutionaries did not have to dicker over details of
policy or bear in mind the need to not alienate potential voters. Being able
to just do things, however, brought results as mixed as would come out of a
more constrained process of negotiated politics. On the plus side were the
revolution’s centerpiece social programs—the literacy and vaccination cam-
paigns, expanding education and health care, and the general reduction of
social barriers to individual fulfillment and happiness. The FSLN’s agrar-
ian reform had somewhat more mixed results: it certainly democratized
land ownership but it was founded on questionable assumptions,7 made the
peasant farmers who received land prime targets of the counterrevolution-
aries, and in the end proved unsustainable. However, the revolutionary gov-
ernment (the JGRN) made its most egregious error in its policy toward the
ethnically and culturally distinct Atlantic Coast. Although the Sandinistas
corrected this mistake in 1987 by granting the Atlantic departments a mea-
sure of autonomy, it came only after years of combat had cost many lives.
Yet when the FSLN opted to move toward electoral politics, a step it
took in 1982, neither was it a complete turnaround nor was it undertaken
out of conviction. Part of the framework that let the Sandinistas become an
electoral party existed even before the revolution’s triumph. More than
most armed revolutionary groups,8 the Sandinistas built a broad base of
support while still fighting. Besides unions and organizations of women,
peasants, and students, from among whom revolutionaries normally expect
to find support, the FSLN also had backers from the anti-Somoza elite.
Some of these were children of the rich who became Sandinista militants,
but there were also Los Doce, 12 executives and intellectuals who publicly
endorsed the Sandinistas. This pluralism carried over into the first years of
revolutionary government. A licensed opposition, one that could criticize
but never take power, was permitted and opposition groups, parties and
economic organizations, were also members of the appointed representative
body, the Council of State, although they formed a minority. In other
words, the Sandinistas did not have a complete monopoly on political life,
even if they were by far the preponderant force.
Even so, the passage of the Political Parties Law by the Council of State
in 1982 marked a dramatic change in the nature of Sandinista politics.9 In
24 ● David Close
its original form, the bill permitted all parties not proposing a return to
Somocismo to contest elections but not to gain power; that is, in good
Leninist form, power remained with the revolutionaries. This accorded
with the Sandinistas’ oft-repeated claim that the people had voted with
their blood in 1979 and that no mere lottery of votes could reverse their
verdict. However, the government was facing increasing political pressure
from its European social democratic donors to abandon all traces of
Leninism, while military pressure from counterrevolutionary insurgents
(the Contras) was beginning to strain the state’s resources. The FSLN’s
opponents in the Council of State took advantage of this conjuncture to
press the government to amend the parties’ bill to permit any recognized
party, without Somocista elements, to govern if it won an election. The
Sandinistas had committed themselves to becoming an electoral party.
The Practice of Electoral Sandinismo

From the Sandinistas’ perspective, the Parties Law probably seemed a min-
imal risk. Although there is no formal study of their decision, the logic of
the situation suggests that, faced with an array of small, ill-funded, and
scarcely organized parties, the FSLN could count on relatively easy elec-
toral victories. Certainly their first election in 1984 confirmed this, as they
took 67 percent of the presidential vote and 61 of 96 seats in the National
Assembly. Even though the last minute withdrawal of the best-financed
candidate, Arturo Cruz of the Coordinadora Democrática, a loose coali-
tion of committed anti-Sandinista groups that enjoyed the support of the
U.S. government, may have increased the FSLN’s margin of victory, it also
left the revolutionaries with the weak, divided opposition. Between 1984
and 1990, it was possible to conceive of the Sandinistas as being Nicaragua’s
hegemonic party for a long time to come.
Beyond the characteristics of the opposition there were also institutional
factors favoring the FSLN’s chances at a long, uninterrupted stay in office.
The key here was the electoral system. The 1984 elections, like those of
1990 and 1996, were run under one of the most egalitarian PR systems of
proportional representation ever established anywhere. Of particular note,
any presidential candidate receiving 1.1 percent of the national vote, the
quota needed to qualify for a seat in the National Assembly, got a seat in the
chamber. In 1984, all parties running met this criterion, thus all had their
leaders present in the house. Whether due to the designers’ intentions or
not, the electoral system encouraged small parties to proliferate and made
forming a party a better way for the ambitious to advance their political
careers than working their way up through an established party.10
It was also during their period as Nicaragua’s elected government that

the Sandinistas sought to institutionalize their revolution by drafting a new
constitution, which took effect in 1987. Previously the FSLN had not been
overly scrupulous in constitutional matters. For example, it was the Electoral
Law of 1984 that defined the offices of president and vice president, and
created the National Assembly. Because there was no constitutional charter
before 1987, there was no alternative. That history aside, the final docu-
ment was a mix of radical and conventional democratic elements, formed
both through public consultation and legislative debate, that vested extreme
power in the president: for example, the right to spend and tax without leg-
islative approval. In fact, one of the most significant developments of the
1984–1990 Sandinista administration was the growth of presidential
authority exercised by Comandante Daniel Ortega, the only person to have
ever been the presidential candidate of the FSLN.
Although the FSLN expected to be returned to office in 1990,
Nicaraguan voters had other ideas. Running against an ad hoc coalition of
14 small parties, the Unión Nacional Opositora (UNO, National Union of
the Opposition), Daniel Ortega received just 41 percent of the vote, while
Violeta Chamorro took 54 percent, with the rest scattered among third
parties. The legislative results were a little better for the revolutionaries,
winning 39 of 92 seats; but opposition was the FSLN’s destination.
Responsibility for the defeat can be laid on a straitened economy—the
Sandinistas imposed a fierce austerity program in 1988—and a costly war
against the U.S. financed counterrevolutionary insurgents, the Nicaraguan
Resistance.11 Yet by being perhaps the first Marxist-revolutionary party
anywhere to acknowledge defeat at the polls and leave office voluntarily,
and only the second in Nicaraguan history to do so,12 the FSLN clearly
demonstrated its democratic credentials.
Transforming the FSLN II: Nicaragua’s

Permanent Opposition, 1990–2006
After losing the 1990 election, the FSLN did not come within 13 percent
points of winning a presidential race until 2006. This made us think of
them as perpetual runners-up: able to make a game of it but who were never
able to unseat the champions. Yet these results did not reflect lack of effort
by the Sandinistas, or a failure to use all the oppositional tools at their dis-
posal, or that they never sought to change the system to better their chances.
This section sketches the actions of the FSLN in each of the three admin-
istrations that has governed between the time the Sandinistas lost power in
1990 and their return to office in 2006.
26 ● David Close
The Administration of Violeta

Chamorro, 1990–1996
In his first speech after conceding defeat in 1990, Daniel Ortega announced
that the Sandinistas would “govern from below.”13 Though this could be
read to have subversive intent, in fact Ortega was giving notice that the
FSLN would not limit its opposition to the floor of the National Assembly
and that confrontational politics could be in store. To give extra force to
this declaration, Ortega handed over leadership of the legislative opposition
to Sergio Ramirez, his former vice president who was Daniel’s alternate in
the National Assembly, and dedicated himself to events on a wider stage.14
In the wake of their defeat, the Sandinistas moved to restructure their
party. A meeting of the Sandinista Assembly, the party’s national forum,15
in June 1990 called for the democratization of the FSLN. The immediate
result was to permit local Sandinista organizations to elect their executives
and to open up a spirited public debate. As well, an ethics committee was
established. There were hopes that the base organizations would be able to
elect the National Directorate, which officially runs the FSLN on a day-to-
day basis, but the first party congress, in July 1991, showed the official slate
unopposed and elected with 95 percent of the vote. However, the congress
did see the FSLN decide to no longer identify itself as a vanguard party.16
Although President Chamorro led the anti-Sandinistas grouped in the
UNO to a resounding victory, her policy of moderation toward the losers
led many in her own party to reject her leadership and oppose most of her
initiatives. To pass her program, the president needed Sandinista support.
Freed of legislative responsibilities, Daniel Ortega was able to negotiate
deals with Antonio Lacayo, Chamorro’s son-in-law and the minister of the
presidency. Ortega also placed himself at the head of many strikes and anti-
government protests, presenting himself as still the champion of Nicaragua’s
downtrodden.
But while Daniel was taking the roles with the highest profile, his legis-
lative lieutenant, Sergio Ramirez, was actively working with reform-minded
UNO legislators, led by Luis Humberto Guzman, to modernize Nicaragua’s
constitution. Chief among the elements slated for change was the power of
the presidency. Although the amendments backed by Ramirez and Guzman
became law in 1995, it was only after a prolonged struggle with President
Chamorro and her backers, one of whom was Daniel Ortega. Obviously,
the FSLN could not have its president and legislative leader on different
sides, so Ramirez and other Sandinistas who favored the reforms were
effectively read out of the party at an extraordinary congress in 1994.17
Daniel Ortega thus became the unquestioned leader of the FSLN and
brought caudillo politics to the former revolutionary movement.
The Administration of Arnoldo

Alemán, 1996–2001
For a good part of the 1996 campaign it looked as though the Sandinistas
would retake the presidency and control the assembly. With a more moder-
ate Daniel Ortega at its head, the FSLN’s hopes that a more responsible
image and the promise of solid leadership would bring victory looked well
founded. However, a combination of a well-timed ad that reminded
Nicaraguans of the revolutionary past of Daniel and the FSLN and the
open intervention of Managua’s archbishop, Cardinal Miguel Obando y
Bravo, on the side of Ortega’s main competitor, the Constitutional Liberal
Party (PLC, Partido Liberal Constitucionalista) chief Arnoldo Alemán,
swung the decision to the anti-Sandinista side once again.18
Alemán had been an implacable enemy of the Sandinistas, but it did not
take long for him to start making deals with Ortega. In the new president’s
first year in office, he and the opposition leader reopened an ostensibly
widely accepted settlement of the allocation of properties nationalized
under the revolutionary government. The resulting accord probably under-
mined the rights of the poor who got lands and houses in the 1980s, leaving
them worse off. Yet the biggest deal was the pact.
The pact was literally an ad hoc agreement between Ortega’s Sandinistas
and Alemán’s Liberals to back a package of legislation, part of which
included constitutional amendments.19 Work on the deal began in 1999
and when completed a year later it left the country with a far less account-
able executive and put in partisan hands state agencies that most democra-
cies strive to make neutral, such as the controller, the electoral authority,
and the courts—most notably the supreme court. From the FSLN’s per-
spective, however, reestablishing the bases of presidential power and get-
ting greater quotas of power—Nicaraguan parlance for jobs at a party’s
disposal—was only half the story. The other half was a changed electoral
law that ostensibly provided the Sandinistas a better chance at winning.
Opposition had turned to collaboration undertaken with an eye to regain-
ing the reins of power.
The Administration of Enrique

Bolaños, 2001–2006
It is in this most recent period that the current editions of Daniel Ortega
and the FSLN have taken form. On the basis of a strong showing by the
party in the 2000 municipal elections, the Sandinistas believed that they
could win nationally in 2001. Again, they were wrong, although this time
it was pressure from Washington that worked against them. Perhaps this is
28 ● David Close
why Daniel Ortega remained at the head of his party despite losing three
straight presidential elections by landslide margins.20 Not only did he sur-
vive, he became the most powerful politician in Nicaragua.
Exactly how this happened is too complex a story to present here.
However, it is possible to sketch a few points that highlight the evolution of
the party and its leader. Enrique Boloños had been Arnoldo Alemán’s vice
president, yet his first major initiative as president was to launch an inves-
tigation of corruption under his predecessor’s government. With the aid of
a Sandinista judge, the inquiry brought Alemán a 20-year jail sentence,
albeit one that has been served mostly under house arrest. The Sandinistas
responded to this by abandoning their erstwhile ally, occasionally siding
with Boloños,21 and making themselves the linchpin of national politics.
It is what the FSLN did with their newfound power that is most inter-
esting. First, in April 2004, the same Sandinista judge who had indicted
Alemán began speaking of indicting Bolaños for receiving illegal campaign
contributions. A few months later, the party, completely under the control
of Daniel Ortega, by then an electoral caudillo, once again joined its old
partners, the PLC, to push another set of constitutional amendments. The
effect of the changes was to strip the president of the power to name min-
isters and directors of state agencies without legislative authority. And
unlike conventional “advice and consent” provisions, a supermajority of 60
percent of the National Assembly would be needed for approval. That pro-
vision was presumably inserted to ensure that neither of the pact partners
would be able to act without the consent of the other. Although a decision
apparently taken unilaterally by Ortega in January 2005 delayed the imple-
mentation of the amendments until after the end of President Bolaños’s
term, by that June the pact partners were pushing for his impeachment. Yet
in September of that same year, Ortega announced that the impeachment
was off and the original deal back on, demonstrating his ability to control
the course of political events.22 In the opinion of Carlos Tunnerman, once
a Sandinista legislator but now a critic of Ortega, the objective of this exer-
cise was to let Ortega distance himself from Alemán and the PLC to have a
better chance of winning the presidency in 2006.23
Daniel Ortega and the

Sandinistas: 1990–2006
During the Sandinistas’ 16 years in opposition, Daniel Ortega kept himself
at the forefront of national politics, while the FSLN remained a significant
actor in Nicaraguan affairs. That Ortega could not have remained a national
figure had the FSLN suffered a significant decline is unquestionable;
whether the party would have failed dismally without his leadership is less
clear. What is evident is that over the course of his tenure as effective oppo-
sition leader, Ortega became an electoral caudillo, a charismatic party boss
who builds a personalistic machine to take and keep power,24 just as fully
as his one-time rival for the presidency and partner in the pact, Arnoldo
Alemán. Thus the verticalism typical of Leninist vanguard parties shifted
shape to become more like top-down, leader-centered, boss politics.
Indeed, his control over the party goes far to explain Daniel Ortega’s
persistence at the helm of the FSLN despite 16 years without a major vic-
tory. But how did he manage to keep control while losing three straight
presidential elections? After all, bosses only stay bosses if they keep power
and have access to government funds to look after supporters. Perhaps part
of the explanation is the FSLN’s continuing self-identification as a revolu-
tionary party, which may privilege the historic leaders who were combat-
ientes (combatants).
There is, however, an alternative explanation: Daniel Ortega delivered
the goods, even while losing. From 1990 to 1996 the FSLN was the key to
the survival of Violeta Chamorro’s government.25 Then the pact he struck
in 2000 with Alemán gave the Sandinistas a substantial quota of power, in
the form of high profile government jobs. And holding important posts in
the judiciary, electoral authority, and the controller’s office gave the FSLN
substantial influence over decisions.26 This does not mean that losing was
the Sandinistas’ aim, but rather that Ortega was able to convert finishing
second into a source of material benefits for his party. Thus, although some
measure of its leader’s importance may stem from the FSLN’s days as a
guerrilla movement, one can also see a pattern of being able to secure mate-
rial benefits for followers that would work in any party in any system.
Verticalism is not the only attribute of revolutionary Sandinismo that
was maintained through the years out of power. Two other aspects of
Sandinista politics that have remained constant since 1979 are a generally
progressive, redistributive social policy focus domestically and a foreign
policy perspective that is frankly anti-imperialistic.27 What may be more
significant is that the FSLN still identifies itself as a revolutionary party.28
The expulsion of Ramirez and his allies in 1994 was not just an attempt to
maintain Nicaragua’s extremely powerful executive; it was also an effort to
keep the party from shifting too completely into the social democratic,
electoral-cum-constitutional camp. Even if this commitment to revolution
is more rhetorical than real, an argument we consider further on, the revo-
lutionary origins and achievements of the FSLN are evidently still impor-
tant to Ortega and probably to all of the generation that engaged in armed
struggle against the Somoza dictatorship.
30 ● David Close
Since that party congress ousted the most prominent foes of Daniel
Ortega, it has become increasingly common to label the FSLN “Danielistas;”
just as the PLC is usually called “Arnoldistas.” In both cases the nickname
reflects the leader’s dominance over his party; that is, it bespeaks boss-style
politics reminiscent of Huey Long or Richard Daley, to use only North
American parallels. Certainly Ortega’s ability to remain party leader after
three consecutive electoral defeats looks like a boss controlling his machine.
Whether Ortega does this because he feels that only he can uphold the
Sandinistas’ revolutionary legacy or because he wants another term in office
is not important. What matters is that the FSLN turned into a party run by
an electoral caudillo.
The FSLN was left not only leader-dominated after 16 years on the
wrong side of the aisle but also more experienced in playing by electoral
democratic rules. And Ortega had proven himself a master at maximizing
the party’s influence, allowing it to punch above its electoral weight. Thus
by 2006 the Sandinistas were not just surviving but were doing as well as
any party out of power could hope to do.
Victory, at Last! The 2006 Elections

To understand how Ortega and the FSLN came out on top in 2006 it helps
to think in terms of the party’s high floor and low ceiling. Leaving aside
1984, which might better be thought of as a vote of confidence in a revolu-
tion coming under foreign fire, the FSLN’s presidential vote has fallen in a
range of less than 5 percent, from a 37.75 percent floor to a 42.3 percent
ceiling (table 2.1). As a result, when there is a straight, two-party race, the
Sandinistas lose. To win with roughly two-fifths of the national vote
Table 2.1 Nicaraguan presidential election results, 1990–2006
Year FSLN Opponent 1 Opponent 2 Opponent 3
1990 40.8% UNO, 54.8% Others, 4.4% –

1996 37.75% PLC, 51% Others, 1.2% –
2001 42.3% PLC, 56.3% Others, 1.4% –
2006 37.99% ALN, 28.3% PLC, 27.1% MRS, 6.3%
UNO: National Union of the Opposition

PLC: Constitutional Liberal Party
ALN: Nicaraguan Liberal Alliance
MRS: Sandinista Renewal Movement
Totals may not equal 100 percent due to rounding
Source: Data from Political Database of the Americas.
necessitates a race among three or four relatively strong parties. In the three
presidential elections from 1990 to 2001 the FSLN faced a single, strong,
anti-Sandinista opponent. In 2006, those opposing the FSLN split three
ways. This let the FSLN win with its second lowest vote total ever.
Two things stand out in table 2.1. First, the FSLN held on to its historic
share of the vote. True, the party did suffer a loss of 10 percent relative to
2001, yet it marginally beat its worst performance. Second and more impor-
tant was the splintering in the anti-Sandinista vote. The Liberals nearly
equaled their 2001 vote but in 2006 it took two evenly balanced Liberal
parties to collect those votes. And there was also an anti-Daniel,
pro-Sandinista Progressive Party, the Sandinista Renewal Movement
(MRS, Movimiento de Renovación Sandinista), which stumbled badly on
voting day after having shown strongly throughout the campaign. In other
words, the structure of FSLN versus non-FSLN votes held, while the struc-
ture of that non-FSLN vote changed to the FSLN’s advantage. In fact,
without that change the ex-guerrillas would doubtlessly have lost the presi-
dency a fourth straight time.
Another factor that we need to consider is the electoral system. Winning
a presidential election with 38 percent of the vote is uncommon. Normally,
there is some kind of second round of voting—usually a runoff election or
a legislative vote—that decides presidential elections where no candidate
receives a substantial proportion of the votes cast.29 This proportion need
not be a majority; Costa Rica and Ecuador, for example, set a 40 percent
threshold, although the latter demands a 10 percent lead over the runner-up.
In Nicaragua, the threshold is lower: 35 percent and a 5 percent lead over
the runner-up. This curious provision was part of 2000 Alemán-Ortega
pact, and the FSLN fought hard for its inclusion. At the time, it appeared
little more than a curiosity, as the Sandinista versus anti-Sandinista two-
party system seemed to be well entrenched. But in 2006 this obscure sec-
tion of Nicaragua’s Electoral Law (Article 145) was Daniel Ortega’s ticket
back to the presidency.
How Daniel Did It: The

Dynamics of the Campaign
Entering 2005, the Sandinistas’ prospects were bright. Not only were the
Liberals in disarray, due to Alemán’s incarceration, but the Sandinistas
emerged as the strongest party in the 2004 municipal elections. However,
complications soon presented themselves in the form of the candidacy of
Herty Lewites, a longtime FSLN militant who was a minister in Ortega’s
administration and from 2000 to 2004, the mayor of Managua. Interestingly,
32 ● David Close
the PLC faced the same sort of challenge from Eduardo Montealegre, who
served in the cabinets of both Alemán and Boloños. Both Lewites and
Montealegre had reputations as pragmatic problem-solvers, and neither
showed signs of the personalistic dominance that characterizes both Alemán
and Ortega. Of greater significance, a CID-Gallup poll released in mid-
December 2005 showed Lewites and Montealegre tied for the lead with 22
percent, while Daniel Ortega came third as the pick of 14 percent of those
surveyed,30 while a poll by M&R Consultores, released in January 2006,
showed that Lewities was by far the most popular potential Sandinista
standard bearer, supported by 44.9 percent of the sample, whereas Ortega
was favored by only 14 percent.31 As table 2.2 shows, these numbers changed
dramatically as the year wore on.
Table 2.2 Changing voter preferences in Nicaragua, February–October 2006,
decided voters (in percentage)
Candidate/Party February May August October
Ortega/FSLN 18 28 29 33
Motealgre/ALN 22 27 23 22
Rizo/PLC 17 22 14 17
Lewites-Jarquin/MRS 27 15 14 13
Source: Data from Angus Reid Global Monitor.32
To explain the change we refer to four facts. First is the death of Herty
Lewites in July. Although his campaign was beginning to lose force even
then (see table 2.2), Lewites was a strong campaigner and a charismatic
populist who might have retained a larger proportion of the vote. Second
was Ortega’s campaign. Organized by his wife, Rosario Murillo, the cam-
paign avoided controversy and anything that might have taken Daniel off
message; he even skipped the candidates’ debate.33 Thus, Ortega could con-
centrate on the very real and far too often ignored problem of poverty with-
out being drawn off into the minefields of foreign policy or whether he
would pardon Arnoldo Alemán and put the pact back in business. Even
events that could have caused problems, such as joining the Liberals to vote
to criminalize even therapeutic abortion, where the mother’s life is at stake,
had little effect on the candidate.34 Third, foreign intervention worked in
Daniel’s favor. The U.S. government tried to undermine the FSLN cam-
paign but harkening back to the old story of the hardships of the revolu-
tionary era had little bite; even a Republican congressman’s threat to stop
Nicaraguans in the United States from sending money home fell flat.35 On
a more positive note, Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez donated fertilizer and diesel
fuel to Nicaragua; although these were distributed by the government,

there was little doubt that without Ortega the aid would not have come.
Finally, the Liberals split. Although some have suggested that this was the
pact at work,36 hence a device to throw the election to Ortega, there are
significant differences, which are based on both policies and personalities,
between the PLC and the ALN. Montealgre, in fact, was expelled by the
PLC.37 The Liberals could not unite behind a single candidate; however,
had they not split the right-of-center vote so equally between them there
could have been a runoff election that would have put the common wisdom
about Ortega’s low electoral ceiling to the test.
What Will the Sandinistas

Do with Power?
As this is written Daniel Ortega has yet to be sworn in as Nicaragua’s pres-
ident. Thus we cannot know how he and his party will govern. We can,
however, say something about the limits within which he will have to act.
In the National Assembly, the FSLN will have 38 seats out of 92, while the
PLC has 25, the ALN 24, and the MRS 5. Although the Sandinistas theo-
retically could work with either Liberal faction, the ALN’s roots in opposi-
tion to the Alemán-Ortega pact leaves the PLC as the only plausible source
of support for the FSLN. In this case, a new edition of the Sandinista-
Liberal pact promises to become the framework in which Nicaraguan poli-
tics will play out until 2011. Although Ortega has very close relations with
Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez, whom he even visited in Caracas on December 5,38
it remains to be seen how these will affect the Nicaraguan president’s ties
with Arnoldo Alemán and shape the government’s policies.
Beyond these domestic constraints, Daniel Ortega and the FSLN also
confront international challenges. The U.S. government worked very hard
to keep Ortega from the presidency, and one of the new administration’s
central challenges will be normalizing relations with Washington. With
this in mind, Ortega set about mending fences with Washington, establish-
ing ostensibly promising relations with the Bush administration even before
visiting Chávez, his hermano venezolano (Venezuelan brother).39
If to this we add the FSLN’s alliance with Nicaragua’s very conservative
Catholic Church and having as its vice-presidential candidate Jaime Morales
Carazo, once a leading Somocista, the evidence points to a Sandinista gov-
ernment quite unlike those of the 1980s. Not only is the Ortega adminis-
tration likely to be more orthodox economically, it could well limit its
progressive policies to rhetorical gestures in foreign affairs.40 The revolu-
tionaries of 1979 have become a party just like any other in Nicaragua:
34 ● David Close
leader-dominated, pragmatic to a fault, and on the lookout for quotas of

power to keep its supporters on the public payroll.
Conclusions
Unique among the cases treated in this book the Sandinistas have done it
all. They fought a long guerrilla war, overthrew a dictatorship, established
a revolutionary state, liberalized that state, lost power in elections, spent 16
years in opposition, and then won another national election. Over the
course of its 45-year existence, the organizations has changed greatly.
Obviously it is no longer a guerrilla front but rather a very pragmatic, elec-
toral political party. This conclusion asks a two-part question. First, to
what extent is the FSLN’s trajectory, since first coming to power, explicable
in terms of its origins as a revolutionary movement? The question can be
formulated slightly differently to ask how far the Sandinistas have come
along the road to being a party like all the others and how this happened.
The second question reflects on what the Sandinista experience tells us
about the transition from armed movement to electoral party.
Lessons from the Sandinistas’ Journey from

Combat Party to Personal Electoral Machine
In 1979 it would have difficult to imagine the Sandinistas becoming a con-
ventional electoral party, although picturing them holding elections would
have been easy. Similarly, in 1990, in the wake of its electoral defeat, few
would have foreseen the FSLN’s transformation into a personal political
vehicle for its leader, and even fewer would have predicted that it would lose
three consecutive national elections. But all these things happened and we
want to know how much is owed to having begun life as an armed revolu-
tionary movement. By extension, we also want to know whether the return
to power in 2006 owes anything to the party having separated itself from
those origins.
It is best to begin by reviewing the challenges facing electoral parties
descended from insurgent groups that we set forth earlier. One of these was
learning to carry out political transactions in the currency of ballots instead
of bullets, which was not a grave problem for the Sandinistas. This does not
mean that opponents were not harassed during the worst years of the coun-
terrevolution or that residents of combat zones did not occasionally receive
rough justice. Rather it suggests that the FSLN recognized that institution-
alizing its revolution required civility and tolerance, instead of the police
state practices that had marked the Somoza regime.
Neither has the FSLN suffered from ideological rigidity. Yes, it continues
to define itself as a revolutionary party, talks about constituting a leftist
bloc with Venezuela and others,41 and describe party dissidents as having
abandoned the principles of anti-imperialism.42 Yet it has formed a pact
with the very conservative PLC to assure itself a quota of power—an allot-
ment of government positions that gives the party both a presence in the
state and benefits to distribute to its loyalists.43 Further, in both the 2001
and 2006 elections, the FSLN has formed an electoral alliance with the
National Convergence, a group opposed to the politics of the Liberal Party
that includes a significant number of those who were once prominent anti-
Sandinistas, not least the vice- presidential candidates of 2001 and 2006.
And under Daniel Ortega’s leadership the party has supported its oppo-
nents in government when doing so benefited the FSLN.
More problematic has been verticalism: running state and party on top-
down, military lines. The steps taken to decentralize the FSLN’s structure
at its 1991 congress were an attempt to address this issue. Yet 15 years later
power within the party remains concentrated at the top, especially in the
hands of its leader, Daniel Ortega. Before deciding that this trait represents
a holdover from the FSLN’s guerrilla days, however, we need to remember
that the PLC is similarly structured, as was the Somozas’ Nationalist Liberal
Party. Verticalism is not just a disease of insurgents but one afflicting per-
sonalist parties, as well. In this sense, the Sandinistas have become a party
like others in Nicaragua.
Reflecting on the Sandinistas’ political evolution—from guerrillas to
government to opposition and back to government—suggests several ques-
tions for further comparative study. One asks whether parties grown from
armed insurgents eventually come to conform broadly to the political cul-
ture of their environments, instead of reshaping it, as revolutionaries should
hope to do. If local political wisdom says that only parties with strong cen-
tralized leadership succeed, it is improbable that an erstwhile revolutionary
organization will break the mold. This certainly is the experience of the
Sandinistas, at least under their current leadership.
A second question meriting investigation relates to the conditions under
which ex-revolutionary parties modify their ideology, identity, and leader-
ship. In the case of the Sandinistas, their program is no longer one that
could be associated with the revolutionary Left, if we set aside calls for
international solidarity to confront imperialism. And although the FSLN
styles itself a revolutionary party, its practice increasingly resembles the rest
of Latin America’s populist Left as it has made its peace with capitalism
even while it works to redistribute more of capitalism’s product to the poor.
Nevertheless, the party’s leadership still retains many figures from not just
36 ● David Close
its days in power but even from its guerrilla past. It thus appears that the
FSLN’s revolutionary identity will not be significantly modified as long as
the generation of combatants who fought against Somoza leads the party,
and that the founders of the revolutionary regime do not readily relinquish
power over their movement. In this respect, the Sandinistas resemble El
Salvador’s FMLN (Frente Marti de Liberacion Nacional, Faribundo Marti
National Liberation Front), while they are strikingly different from
Mozambique’s Frente para a Liberação de Moçambique (FRELIMO,
Mozambique National Liberation Front), the former guerrillas who have
governed the country since 1974 (see chapter 9).
Finally, we should compare these armed movements–turned-parties to
see how they affect their political systems. Do they bring in actors from
different sectors? Do they offer distinctive programs? And most impor-
tantly, do those with revolutionary roots continue struggling for equity and
justice? If parties grown from revolutionary insurrections do not differ
materially from their opponents then, even if they once exercised state
power, we must question the historic impact of their revolution.
In the Sandinistas’ case, the answer to the last question is a qualified yes. On
the positive side of the ledger, the FSLN has a 30 percent quota for women on
the party executive, the National Directorate, and although not required by
party statute, the legislative complement between 2001 and 2006 had 13
women among its 38 members. Further, 10 percent of the positions in the
party’s executive are reserved for members under 30 (as well, a number of young
people are deputies). However, between 2001 and 2006 the party appeared to
have rather few National Assembly deputies who hailed directly from the work-
ing class or peasantry.44 In terms of policies and program, it is the only party in
the country that opposed the Central American Free Trade Agreement with the
United States (CAFTA); and it was certainly the only party to make poverty
alleviation the central theme of its campaign in 2006. The FSLN has a distinct
image built on its revolutionary identity, which makes it the most plausible
defender of the poor and marginalized. However, the party has also accumu-
lated a list of negatives since 1990, most notably through its pact with the PLC,
which suggests that its commitment to equity and justice comes second to its
drive for power.
The bottom line, however, is that the Sandinistas were long unable to
capitalize on what should have been a head start in the transition from suc-
cessful revolutionary front to successful electoral party. We found part of
the explanation in the party’s environment: Washington’s continued oppo-
sition, the electoral strength of first the UNO and then the Liberals, and
the apparent refusal of over half the Nicaraguan electorate to vote for the
FSLN. While the FSLN’s past—something the Sandinistas share with the
parties analyzed in this book and few others—accounts for part of its
electoral showing, it is not the whole story. Like all parties, regardless of
their origins, the explanation for both its recent success and repeated earlier
failures rests with its leader, the party’s political choices, the performance of
its opponents, and the voting decisions of Nicaraguan citizens.
Postscript: Daniel Ortega’s Return to Power

January 10, 2007 was Nicaragua’s inauguration day, the day Daniel Ortega
returned to his country’s presidency after almost 17 years out of power.
During the campaign and during the two months between his electoral
victory and assuming office, Ortega and his FSLN hewed as closely to the
conventional as possible, even accepting the criminalization of therapeutic
abortion. Tactically and strategically, this was their best option. The candi-
date and the party avoided controversy prior to the November 5 vote, and
having defined for themselves a cautious path left the new administration
well positioned to function as a minority government, which had received
the votes of only 38 percent of Nicaraguans. However, things started change
on inauguration day.
At that point, Ortega began formalizing links with other Left populist
Latin American presidents, especially Evo Morales of Bolivia and Venezuela’s
Hugo Chávez. With Chávez, Ortega struck deals to bring massive
Venezuelan investment to Nicaragua to finance a refinery for Venezuelan
oil and perhaps to help build the so-called dry canal, an intermodal trans-
port system linking Nicaragua’s Pacific and Caribbean coasts.45 The week
after his inauguration, Daniel received Iranian president Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad and spoke in terms of cooperation to fight hunger, unem-
ployment, and poverty.46 Although this looked awfully like reconstructing
the 1980s anti-imperialist alliance, it is significant that Ortega neither
openly endorsed the more radically anti–U.S. foreign policy positions of his
allies nor retreated from earlier commitments to maintain good relations
with Washington.47
If President Ortega second term is bringing a more circumspect foreign
policy, his domestic initiatives are causing concern, because he is concen-
trating power in both the presidency and his family. Daniel has kept con-
trol of the police and military in his own hands and has seen a bill passed
to allow the creation of “people’s councils.”48 Although in form these are
purely consultative bodies, there are concerns that they will be used to
orchestrate support for Ortega’s policies and attempt to offset opposition
from the National Assembly, where the FSLN can count only about 40 per-
cent of the votes. More intriguing is Ortega’s appointment of his wife,
38 ● David Close
Rosario Murillo, as director of the Consejo de Comunicación y Ciudadania

de la Presidencia de la República (Office of Communications and
Citizenship of the Presidency of the Republic), a post that controls all gov-
ernment publicity.49 Putting the president’s wife in charge of an office with
such rich potential for patronage is curious political optics in any country;
in Nicaragua it is also unconstitutional: Article 130 of Nicaragua’s consti-
tution prohibits any official of the state from naming close relatives to gov-
ernment positions.
A month into his new mandate Daniel Ortega appears to putting a sub-
stantial amount of power under his personal control or that of his immedi-
ate family. Even if this power is used for some positive end, like reducing
poverty, the personalization of power is too reminiscent of what Arnoldo
Alemán did from 1996 to 2001, or even what the Somozas did in their four
decades in power to those hoping to see a return to power by the FSLN put
Nicaragua back on the democratic path.
Notes
1. The MRS ran under the label Alianza Herty and was named for its original
candidate, Herty Lewites, the former Sandinista mayor of Managua.
Unfortunately, Lewites died of a heart attack during the campaign and the
party chose as its new candidate Edmundo Jarquin, another former FSLN offi-
cial who later was an international civil servant.
2. Salvador Allende obviously belongs to this class of nonviolent revolutionaries.
3. P. Selznick, The Organizational Weapon (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1952).
4. It is especially rich in Canada, where four relatively successful federal parties
emerged from political movements in the twentieth century. Three came from
the agrarian movement of the early twentieth century: the Progressive Party,
which existed in the 1920s; Social Credit, a significant force from 1935 to 1979;
and the Commonwealth Cooperative Federation, founded in 1933, since 1960
it has been called the New Democratic Party. A fourth, the Bloc Québécois,
which first ran in 1993 and still exists, grew from the separatist movement in
Quebec. There have also been numerous parties born of movements operating
in Canada’s provinces. The key works are: W. L. Morton, The Progressive Party
in Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1950); C.B. Macpherson,
Democracy in Alberta (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1953); L. Zakuta,
A Protest Movement Becalmed (Toronto: University of Toronto Press 1964); and
S. Clark, P. Grayson, and L. Grayson, Prophecy and Protest (Toronto: Gage
Educational Publishers, 1976).
5. Clark, Grayson, and Grayson, Prophecy and Protest.
6. Zakuta, A Protest Movement.
7. The revolutionary experts in MIDINRA (Ministerio de Desarrollo Agropecuario
y Reforma Agraria), the agrarian reform agency, wrongly assumed that the
semi-industrial model used on agribusiness properties could be successfully

applied to the smallholdings of peasants who produced basic grains (especially
corn and beans) and coffee. This not only affected production but also turned
many smallholders into opponents of the revolution. For an overview of the
FSLN’s agrarian reform, see two books by L. Enriquez, Harvesting Change:
Labor and Agrarian Reform in Nicaragua, 1979–1990 (Chapel Hill: University
of North Carolina Press, 1991) and Agrarian Reform and Class Consciousness in
Nicaragua (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1997).
8. This is a subjective assessment, as I have never seen a systematic comparison of
the civilian support organizations linked to armed insurgents.
9. A brief description is found in D. Close, Nicaragua: Politics, Economics and
Society. London: Frances Pinter Publishers, 1988.
10. There are discussions of the proliferation of these “vanity parties” in D. Close,
Nicaragua: The Chamorro Years ( Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers,
1999).
11. Congress ended funding to the Contras in 1988. This gave the Sandinistas,
who had effectively contained the insurgents militarily for some time, reason
to believe that victory was near. That same year produced a ceasefire, the
Sapoa Agreement, and 1989 brought deals to help the former insurgents reen-
ter the Nicaraguan mainstream. Nevertheless, postelection survey data showed
the war to be the most pressing issue for most people. On the Contras see: C.
Dickey, With the Contras: A Reporter in the Wilds of Nicaragua (New York:
Simon & Schuster, 1987); G. Garvin, Everybody Had His Own Gringo: The
CIA and the Contras (Washington: Brassey’s, 1992); and L. Horton, Peasants
in Arms: War and Peace in the Mountains of Nicaragua, 1979–1994 (Athens:
Ohio University Center for International Studies, 1998). An evaluation of
the Sandinistas’ counterinsurgency strategy is found in D. Close,
“Counterinsurgency in Nicaragua,” New Political Science 18/19 (1990), 5–19.
A thorough discussion of the 1990 election is found in V. Castro and G.
Prevost, eds., The 1990 Elections in Nicaragua and Their Aftermath (Lanham,
MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1992).
12. The Conservatives recognized the Liberals’ triumph in the 1928 elections that
were supervised by the United States.
13. Much of the material in this section comes from Close, The Chamorro Years.
14. In Nicaragua’s electoral system, every candidate for the National Assembly
runs with an alternate who is to replace her in case of death, illness, or simply
a prolonged absence. Ortega’s seat in the chamber came as the result of being
a losing presidential candidate who got more than 1.1 percent of the vote.
Ramirez, his running mate, was treated as Ortega’s alternate and occupied the
seat when Daniel opted for a more public presence outside the assembly.
Currently Nicaraguan law awards a seat to the runner-up in the presidential
contest and to the past president, who cannot serve consecutive terms.
15. The Sandinista Assembly only meets when called by the seven-member
Sandinista National Directorate.
40 ● David Close
16. A useful, brief treatment of the 1991 FSLN congress is provided by Federal
Research Division of the Library of Congress, Nicaragua a Country Study.
<www.countrystudies.us/nicaragua/50.htm> (January 30, 2006). This is an
online version of the old Army Area Handbook series.
17. However the 1994 congress set a 30 percent floor for women in FSLN leader-
ship structures, including National Assembly slates, and a 10 percent floor for
members under 30.
18. This section draws on D. Close and K. Deonandan, eds., Undoing Democracy:
The Politics of Electoral Caudillismo (Lanham, MD; Lexington Books, 2005),
which offers an extensive analysis of the Alemán administration.
19. K. Hoyt, “Parties and Pacts in Contemporary Nicaragua” in Undoing
Democracy, ed. Close and Deonandan, 17–44, provides a thorough description
and analysis of the pact.
20. Daniel Ortega’s leadership of the FSLN was reaffirmed at the 1998 party con-
gress. Securing the party’s presidential nomination for 2001 and again for
2006 can be seen as votes of confidence.
21. Although elected at the head of the Liberal ticket, Bolaños lost the support of
the party in the assembly when he turned against Alemán. Able to count on
only a handful of supporters from Bancada Azul y Blanco (the Blue and White
Caucus), who comprised less than 10 percent of assembly, the president had to
rely on Sandinista votes to carry his program, to the extent that it was carried
at all. In this he resembles former president Chamorro.
22. Brief accounts of this lengthy episode are found in D. Close, “Nicaragua and
the Crisis of 2005,” Focal Point 4, 5 (May 2005), 5–7; and L. Arriolaga,
“Pacto intermitente en año electoral,” Confidencial, 467 (December 18, 2005–
January 5, 2006), <www.confidencial.com.ni.> (January 12, 2006).
23. Quoted in Arriolaga (2005–2006).
24. On electoral caudillos , see Close and Deonandan, Undoing Democracy, espe-
cially 1–16 and 173–188.
25. Close, The Chamorro Years.
26. D. Dye, Democracy Adrift: Caudillo Politics in Nicaragua (Brookline, MA:
Hemisphere Initiatives, 2004)
27. S. Aguirre Aragón, 2005, “Antiimperialismo es cortina de humo,” El Nuevo
Diario, 27 de febrero de 2005, <www.elnuevodiario.com.ni> (March 2,
2005).
28. E. Solis, 2002, “FSLN y sus dos rostros,” El Nuevo Diario, 17 de marzo, <www.
elnuevodiario.com.ni> (March 12, 2006).
29. Mexico is the most notable exception, as its 2006 presidential election
demonstrated.
30. CID-Gallup, Public Opinion Survey, Nicaragua no 50, December 2005,
<www.cidgallup.com> (January 18,2006), <www.laprensa.com.ni>
31. E. Marenco, “Mayoria cree que disidencia sandinista es real,” La Prensa, el 9
de enero de 2005, <www.laprensa.com.ni>. Another article in the same edi-
tion reported that Montealegre was Nicaraguans’ favorite Liberal, with the
approval of 51.7 percent; the second most popular option was “none,” with
28.1 percent; see, M. J. Uriarte, “PLC pierde terreno como opcion electoral,”
La Prensa, el 9 de enero de 2005, <www.laprensa.com.ni> (March 15, 2006).
32. The Angus Reid Global Monitor <<www.angus-reid.com>> reports polls done
by different firms. In the case of Nicaragua these are: CID-Gallup, M&R
Asociados, and Borge y Asociados. Thus data came from different polls. Given
that this table tracks the growth of Ortega’s support, something recorded by all
pollsters, the fact that the data is combined from different polls is
insignificant.
33. For a series of short articles on the campaign as well as on the strategies
of the four parties see Envío, numero 296–297 (noviembre-diciembre
2006), 3–26.
34. BBC News, “Nicaragua Brings in Abortion Ban,” November 18, 2006, <http://
newsvote.bbc.co.uk>, (November 19, 2006).
35. X. Chamorro, “Proponen en EE.UU. bloquearar remesas,” La Prensa, el 28 de
octubre de 2006, <www.laprennsa.com.ni> (October 28, 2006).
36. P. DeChazo, “The Triumph of the ‘Pact’ in Nicaragua,” CSIS Hemisphere
Focus 14, 8 (November 27, 2006), <www.csis.org> (November 28, 2006).
37. The PLC expelled Montealegre in January 2005. Not to be outdone, the
Sandinistas ejected Lewites in February 2005.
38. C. Sandoval, “Ortega invita a Chávez y Morales,” El Nuevo Diario, el 6 de
diciembre de 2006, <http://www.elnuevodiario.com.ni/> (December 6,
2006).
39. J. Rios, “Ortega dispuesto acercarse a Washington,” El Nuevo Diario, 28 de
noviembre 2006, <www.elnuevodiario.com.ni> (November 28, 2006). Ortega
visited Chávez on December 5, 2006.
40. “Enla Asamblea Nacional: ¿pacto con el PLC o alianza con el ALN?” Envío,
numero 296–297 (noviembre–diciembre 2006), 32–42, raises a number of
yellow flags warning of disappointments that could come from the Sandinista
administration.
41. L. Loásiga López, “Borge: ‘Lewites es diabolico,” La Prensa, 5 de febrero de
2005, <www.laprensa.com.ni> (February 5, 2005).
42. Aragón, “Antiimperialismo,” 2005.
43. In Nicaraguan usage, a “quota of power” is often linked to political pacts.
Pacts, at least in this nation’s vocabulary, are deals between the government
and the strongest opposition party. They can even be made when the govern-
ment is a dictatorship that tightly controls its opponents, as was true during
the Somoza dictatorship.
44. A review of the backgrounds of the 35 out of 38 members of the Sandinista
caucus in the National Assembly between 2001 and 2006, for whom biogra-
phies were available, came up with four who appeared unquestionably of lower
class origin. However, as many FSLN deputies have also worked for the party
as organizers and administrators and have furthered their education through
their work, it is probable that a more thorough check would reveal a higher
proportion of Sandinista legislators from the popular classes. For more
information see <www.asamblea.gob.ni> (October 15, 2006).
42 ● David Close
45. B. Morel, “Chávez sera el principal asistente financiero de Nicaragua,” El

Nuevo Diario, 11 de enero de 2007, <www.elnuevodiario,com.ni/2007-01-11/
html> (January 11, 2007).
46. CNN, “Iranian, Nicaraguan leaders meet, vow to work together,” January 14,
2007, <www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/americas/01/14/nicaragua.iran.ap/index.
html> (January 14, 2007).
47. C. F. Chamorro, “Navegando en dos aguas,” Confidencial 11,518, 14–20 de
enero de 2007, 2, <www.confidencial.com.ni> (January 22, 2007).
48. Associated Press, “Ortega’s People’s Councils approved,” Washington Post,
January 24, 2007, <www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/ 2007/01/
24/AR2007012402703.htm> (January 24, 2007); L. Loasiga, “Cortar alas a
Consejos,” La Prensa, 25 de enero de 2007, <www.laprensa/com.ni>
(January 25, 2007).
49. J. Loasiga, “C$90 millones para Murillo,” La Prensa, el 2 de febrero de 2007,
<www.laprensa.com.ni> (Februrary 2, 2007).
CHAPTER 3
Guatemala: From the Guerrilla

Struggle to a Divided Left
Carlos Figueroa Ibarra and
Salvador Martí i Puig
Introduction
The Guatemalan case fits amongst those revolutionary movements, such as
its neighbor El Salvador, that were not defeated militarily (at least the guer-
rillas adamantly assert that they were not but had fought the military to a
stalemate) but laid down their arms for the electoral option through nego-
tiated settlements. However, power has eluded the former guerrillas since
they first began contesting elections in 1995, and by the last elections,
2005, their movement was in danger of extinction, torn by internal divi-
sions, wracked by leadership problems, and uncertain of its ideological
direction.
The Evolution of Armed Struggle

from Inception to Strategic Defeat
Revolutionary guerrilla activity began in Guatemala in the early 1960s.
The country was the first in Central America to know armed struggle after
the Cuban Revolution and the last to see its guerrillas lay down their arms.
At the same time, and again different from its neighbors, Guatemala’s
Communist Party, the Partido Guatemalteco del Trabajo (PGT,
Guatemalan Labor Party) was quick to embrace armed struggle as the road
44 ● Carlos Figueroa and Salvador Martí
to power, while maintaining its vision of a multifront “revolutionary

war” that also encompassed the struggle for democracy and human
rights.1
There are two defining features of the Guatemalan revolutionary Left.
One is the role of the country’s Communist Party; the other is the Latin
American national liberation movements spawned by the Cuban
Revolution.2 In fact, one can claim that the PGT was the parent (or perhaps
grandparent) of all succeeding revolutionary organizations in Guatemala.
In some instances, as with the Fuerzas Armadas Rebeldes (FAR, Rebel
Armed Forces, founded in 1962 and reorganized after a schism in 1968)
and the Ejercito Guerrillero de los Pobres (EGP, Guerrilla Army of the Poor,
founded in 1972) the relationship was immediate and direct. In other cases,
such as the Organización del Pueblo en Armas (ORPA, Organization of the
People in Arms, dating from 1979), the ties are more distant and
attenuated.
Armed struggle in Guatemala occurred in two cycles. The first was
between 1962 and 1967, while the second and longer lasted from 1972 to
the middle of the 1980s. In the first cycle, which reached its peak in 1966
and 1967, the FAR succeeded in establishing several guerrilla fronts in the
country. In the northeast of the country, between Zacapa and Izabal, the
Frente Guerrillero Edgar Ibarra (Edgar Ibarra Guerrilla Front-FGEI) had
over 100 guerrillas. The 13 November Revolutionary Movement (MR-13,
Movimiento Revolucionario 13 de Noviembre) operated in Izabal with 30
ill-armed men. In Santa Rosa, located in the southeast of Guatemala, there
was a small group called the Regional de Santa Rosa (Santa Rosa Regional
Front). The Regional del Occidente (Western Regional Front), which oper-
ated in San Marcos and Quetzaltenango, had 30–40 combatants, as did the
Southern Regional Front, while there were some 25 in the northern region.
About 80 guerrillas operated in Guatemala City, the central region. Overall,
there were about 300 combatants, with an additional 5,000 sympathizers
and collaborators, most of whom were concentrated in Zacapa and
Izabal.3
A year and a half after reaching its highpoint, the first guerrilla move-
ment was effectively dismantled by a wave of unprecedented state terror.
Before its collapse, however, the insurgency carried out a number of armed
actions4 and withstood counterinsurgent sweeps by the army in 1964 and
1965.5 But the army’s third offensive, which began the day after the death
of Luis Turcios Lima, October 3, 1966, and lasted until August 1967, com-
pleted dispersed the FAR.6
In the second cycle of the insurgency several guerrilla fronts coexisted
with the PGT, which in its IV Congress, December 1969, adopted a line
Guatemala ● 45
endorsing popular revolutionary war.7 Particularly noteworthy in this

period was the activity of the EGP, which had emerged in the context of the
split between the PGT and the FAR. The EGP waged armed struggle from
the jungles of Ixcán to the Cuchumatanes mountains, thence toward the
northwestern mountains of El Quiché near Huehuetenango. Later, guer-
rilla action moved to the northeast with the creation of a front in Alta
Verapaz and to the center with the founding of the “paracentral” front. In
1976, the EGP began doing political work with the urban and rural prole-
tariat, semi-proletarian migratory laborers, students, shantytown dwellers,
and middle peasants.8
At the end of the 1970s and beginning of the 1980s, the EGP was the
most efficient politico-military front, and the one most feared by the
Guatemalan state and its army.9 By early 1982 the EGP claimed to have six
guerrilla fronts operating. Fighting alongside the EGP were the FAR and
the ORPA. The former worked mainly in the country’s central region but
also succeeded in establishing a stable front in the north, in the Department
of El Petén. The ORPA was able to establish itself in several highland zones
and the west of Guatemala.
Unlike what happened to the guerrillas in the 1960s, the second wave
took root in areas inhabited by poor, indigenous peasants and was accom-
panied throughout the 1970s by a vigorous urban mass movement. We
should note that alongside this urban movement the EGP succeeded in
organizing the Peasant Unity Committee (Comité de Unidad Campesina,
CUC), which brought together peasants and rural laborers. As late as 1980,
in the midst of a rising wave of state terror, the CUC was able to organize a
significant strike on the agro-export plantations located on Guatemala’s
coast. Combined, the urban and rural movements provided both the guer-
rillas’ social base and the training ground for future leaders of the insurgency.
It was under these conditions that guerrilla activity in Guatemala grew to
cover three-quarters of the nation during 1979–1980; and by 1981 the
insurgents could realistically foresee expanding to the rest of the country.
This phase of rapid expansion coincided with the impetus that the triumph
of the Sandinista Revolution and gave the revolutionary hopes of large
sectors of society in Guatemala and El Salvador.
When the Unidad Revolucionaria Nacional Guatemalteca (URNG,
Guatemalan National Revolutionary Union) emerged in February 198210
the military was stunned by the dimensions of the revolutionary movement.
Reading the memoirs of General Hector Gramajo11 one sees clearly that the
Guatemalan army perceived the guerrillas as a serious threat.12 As it had
been in the 1960s, the army’s response was a fierce counterinsurgent
campaign that unfolded in distinct phases.
The counterinsurgency began in urban areas, focusing on eliminating

the leaders and activists of the mass social movement and political parties
of the Center and Left (1979–1980). Its objective was to completely destroy
the network of social organizations that had been built up during the
seventies; thus state terror was selectively applied. This changed with the
second phase (1980–1981), which began with a massive wave of terror in
the countryside that was directed against the periphery of the insurgency,
with the EPG as its principal target.13 A third phase started in July 1981,
targeting the urban network of the insurgency and ravaging the EPG14 and
the ORPA. The final phase of the counterinsurgency began in the last
quarter of 1981. Beginning under the government of General Romeo Lucas
Garcia (1981–1982) and reaching its peak during the rule of General Efrain
Rios Montt (1982–1983), this final offensive razed dozens of rural
communities in its campaign to exterminate the guerrillas. During its
17 months in power, the government of Rios Montt murdered more than
16,000 Guatemalans, most of them in rural areas, created over 90,000
refugees, most of whom fled to Mexico, and displaced roughly 1 million
people.
The campaigns carried out under the government of Rios Montt—
Operación Victoria (Operation Victory) in 1982 and Firmeza (Strength of
Purpose ) the following year—had as their mission the occupation and
control of communities deemed susceptible to becoming guerrilla bases.
Three instruments were developed for this task. One was the Civil Self-
Defense Patrols (Patrullas de Autodefensa Civil, PACS, later renamed
Voluntary Civil Defense Committees), which would become a counter-
insurgent force of some 800,000 persons, most of whom were of peasant or
indigenous origin.15 A second tool was the establishment of economic
growth poles16 in zones where guerrillas operated. The final device was a
scorched earth policy, which military intelligence saw as a way to “drain the
water from the revolutionary fish.”17
Unlike the 1960s, however, significant parts of the guerrilla organiza-
tions survived and were able to launch several offensives in the following
years. Further, the URNG did not acknowledge the effects of the counter-
insurgency.18 However, in January and February 1986 they began mak-
ing overtures toward the recently elected President Cerezo. Then, in
November, when the guerrillas suggested the possibility of initiating a dia-
logue in the interior of the country,19 it became clear that the chimera of a
revolutionary seizure of power had been abandoned. In its place was
the more realistic project of a negotiated solution to Guatemala’s internal
war. In fact, by the end of 1983 the revolutionary project had suffered
a strategic defeat.20
Guatemala ● 47
The Organizational Logics of the Guerrillas

Guatemalan guerrilla organizations began their political careers carrying
out a very specific task (armed struggle), in an equally specific environment
(defined by the hostile and repressive Guatemalan Military Regime), and
with a common objective (getting the power to carry through the social
and political transformations sought by the revolutionary Left of the time).
These organizations were highly centralized, vertically structured, and
constructed around rigidly defined and hermetically sealed compartments.
Nevertheless, each guerrilla formation presented its particular organiza-
tional variation on this general theme.
The PGT built its structure around a series of regional bases that covered
the principal geographic regions of the country (west, north, central, etc.);
the FAR, in whose founding the PGT had participated, used essentially the
same organization. The EGP, ORPA, and to some degree the FAR too,
used a slightly different geographical base that reflected physical or social
regions (plains, highlands, jungle, city) and constructed their organizations
around guerrilla fronts that had set up in each zone. At the local level the
PGT installed base committees and local committees, whereas the guerril-
las formed what they called local irregular forces (FIL) or militias. Relations
between the guerrillas and their social bases went through different phases,
with each organization having a somewhat different approach. Generally
speaking, the PGT, FAC, and EGP sought to maintain close ties with the
rural populations in the zones where they had a presence. This was not true
of ORPA. After the disastrous effects of the counterinsurgency, it chose to
limit the risks it posed to inhabitants of zones where it operated by not
organizing villages as publicly declared support bases.
All organizations that engaged in armed struggle (FAR, ORPA, EGP,
and PGT) were Marxist-Leninist. Nevertheless, there was still substantial
ideological variation among the groups. In the cases of the PGT and FAR,
their commitment was explicit. Indeed, at one time the FAR asserted that
the PGT was failing to fulfill its duties as Guatemala’s Communist Party.
The EGP also took Marxism as it doctrinal guide, yet its documents are not
as explicitly doctrinaire as those of the FAR or the PGT. As to the ORPA,
although its conception of what needed to change in Guatemala was clearly
radical, having long been inspired by the Cuban example, it neither defined
itself as Marxist nor had “revolutionary” in its name: it was simply the orga-
nization of the people in arms. Each of these groups felt it necessary to have
a centralized structure, sustained by a highly selective membership (mili-
tancia) that was completely dedicated to the cause and absolutely sure that
its path was correct, much like Panebianco’s “believer.”21 In all cases, the
structure of organizational power, due to its limited size and extremely

hierarchical configuration,22 is characterized by its simplicity: all the
resources of organizational power are concentrated in and exercised by the
party leadership.
Thus the only difference between the guerrillas (FAR, ORPA, and EGP)
and the PGT was that former saw themselves as politico-military fronts,
while the later conceived of itself as a party. In the party, this difference
revealed itself through the existence of two collegial bodies (the central
committee and the politburo), as well as a secretary-general who was pri-
mus inter pares. In the guerrilla fronts, however, the dominant figure was
the commander in chief, even when he was formally supported by a national
directorate. The secretary-general was of course derived from Stalinist
usage, whereas the commander in chief followed the Cuban model.
In fact, the strong leaders who emerged to guide Central American
revolutionary movements during this period effectively amalgamated the
two styles. And like their Soviet and Cuban role models, these Central
American figures held their positions for life. Though change was not
impossible, it took a tremendous upheaval for a secretary-general or com-
mander in chief to lose his post. In Guatemala there are only four instances
where this happened. First, in 1954, Jose Manuel Fortuny resigned as
secretary-general of the PGT in the midst of the turmoil following the
CIA-engineered overthrow of President Jacobo Arbenz. Two leaders of the
FAR lost their posts. The first incident occurred in 1968 when the group it
removed Cesar Montes (Julio Cesar Macias) as its leader. Then in the early
1970s the FAR discharged Comandante Marco Antonio Yon Sosa as its
commander when it broke its alliance with the MR-13. The last case
occurred in 2001 as an ex-URNG commander, Pablo Monsanto, led a
movement that produced a split that saw the organization’s secretary-general
resign and move on to reshape the Alianza Nueva Nacíon (ANN, Alliance
for a New Nation).
In the three political-military organizations the commanders in chief
(the URNG’s Pablo Monsanto [Jorge Soto], the FAR’s Rolando Moran
[Ricardo Ramirez], and Gaspar Ilon [Rodrigo Asturias] of ORPA) had a
role not held by the Communist Party’s secretary-general. Unlike the
secretary-general, the guerrilla commander in chief was a charismatic leader
and the leader-for-life who personified the organization’s history. Besides
enjoying moral authority and controlling the levers of organizational power,
the commander also had international contacts and prestige. These were
sources of political capital that he used within the national revolutionary
movement and in his relations with foreign revolutionaries and the interna-
tional Left more generally.
Guatemala ● 49
Guatemalan revolutionaries, like those in El Salvador, were also

influenced in their organizational thinking by the 1979 victory of the
Sandinista Revolution in Nicaragua. The three guerrilla fronts and the
PGT faction known as the National Directing Nucleus united to form the
URNG in February 1982.23 Until the moment when the URNG went from
being a federation of four groups to begin functioning as a unitary organi-
zation, the four component organizations maintained their structural inde-
pendence and autonomy in military operations. There had been no general
staff and military plans agreed to by the Comandancia General (General
Command ), composed of the military leaders of the four organizations,
were carried independently by each of the four allies. It was only as the war
continued that there were more instances of coordination among the
insurgents.
Besides the General Command, there were also a Commission of the
Masses, a Commission of International Work, and, as hostilities wound
down and the signing of the peace accords drew closer, there emerged a
Political Commission to direct the work of the Frente Democratico Nueva
Guatemala (Democratic Front for a New Guatemala) in the 1995 elections.
Shortly after the formation of the three original committees, a 44-member
Political Council was formed, made up of 11 representatives from each of
each of the 4 constituent organizations. Its function was to elect by secret
ballot the URNG’s first National Directorate. It should be noted, however,
that neither the secretary-general of the PGT nor any of the three com-
manders in chief of the guerrilla factions had to stand for election, as this
was considered unnecessary.
We mentioned earlier that, unlike the guerrilla movements of the 1960s,
those formed in the 1970s functioned in a specific organizational structure.
One of the frequent self-criticisms of the guerrillas was that their ties with
the urban and rural masses became tenuous. The PGT had always criti-
cized its politico-military allies for this and the point was one of the differ-
ences communists had first with the FAR and then with the founders of the
EGP. Yet the EGP’s founders noted in their own documents the need to
select where they would operate by taking into account the characteristics
of the population and not just geophysical features; the FAR would come to
a similar conclusion in the 1980s. In fact, the three guerrilla fronts elabo-
rated a program of work with the masses to build organizations to perform
four tasks: (1) promote forms of struggle that supported the claims of spe-
cific social sectors in order to radicalize the population; (2) extend the guer-
rillas’ organization beyond its clandestine base; (3) construct a base of rural
and urban social support for the insurrection; and (4) develop a pool of
future leaders and staff for the various organizations.
The clandestine groups conceived of the social movements they were

either building or had taken over as “broad organizations” in which the
guerrillas would have to establish their influence. That implied recruiting
the labor, student, and peasant leaders and activists who were most sympa-
thetic to the revolutionary cause. These recruits would then afford the clan-
destine groups privileged access to the various organizations, maximizing
their influence. In general, and recognizing that each organization had a
slightly different approach, it was the Leninist conception of mass organi-
zations as the revolutionaries’ “conveyor belts” that dominated the clandes-
tine groups’ thinking about what we now call civil society. Even when the
members of a clandestine group were a minority in a mass organization,
this was enough to leave the latter with little or no autonomy. Table 3.1
Table 3.1 Revolutionary organizations and their affiliated mass organizations
Politco-Military Group Popular Organization
Partido Guatemalteco del Trabajo, PGT (1949) Federación Autónoma Sindical de

(Guatemalan Labor Party) Guatemala, FASGUA (1957)
Escuela de Orientación Sindical, EOS
(1975–1980)
Frente (organización estudiantil
universitaria)
Movimiento Nacional de Pobladores,
MONAP
Coordinadora de Estudiantes de
Educación Media, CEEM
Fuerzas Armadas Rebeldes, FAR (1968) Comité Nacional de Unidad Sindical,

(Rebel Armed Forces) CNUS, 1976
Central Nacional de Trabajadores, CNT
Ejército Guerrillero de los Pobres, EGP (1972) Comité de Unidad Campesina, CUC
(Guerrilla Army of the Poor) (1978)
Coordinadora Nacional de Pobladores,
CONAP
Frente Estudiantil Revolucionario Robin
García, FERG- educación media
Frente Estudiantil Revolucionario Robin
García, FERG- educación universitaria
Frente de Trabajadores de Guatemala,
FTG
Organización del Pueblo en Armas, ORPA (1979)

(Organization of the People in Arms)
Guatemala ● 51
sketches the links between the revolutionaries and their associated civil
society organizations.
The Peace Accords and Their Effect on the URNG

Officially, the URNG never accepted that it had been defeated in the
counterinsurgent offensives of 1979 and 1983. Even after the conclusion of
hostilities, in January 1997, the secretary-general of the URNG,
Comandante Rolando Moran (Ricardo Ramirez) asserted that the
armed struggle had not been defeated. Rather, he declared that negotia-
tions had started precisely because the state could not defeat the insur-
gents. Nevertheless, despite the extreme weakness of the Guatemalan
insurgency, nine years of negotiations came to an end on December 29,
1996 when the URNG, the Guatemalan government, and the UN
Mediating Mission signed the Acuerdo de Paz Firme y Duradero (Accord
for a Firm and Lasting Peace). By this act, 36 years of internal conflict drew
to a formal close.24
As we have already indicated, the process began in 1986, with the two
sides first meeting formally in October 1987. However, it was not until
March 1990 that a delegation from the National Commission for
Reconciliation, which was composed of leaders from various sectors of
Guatemalan society, the government, and representatives of the URNG,
signed the Acuerdo Basico para la Busqueda de la Paz por medios politicos
(Basic Agreement to Seek Peace by Political Means), the so-called Oslo
Accord. Then followed meetings between the URNG and representatives
from various sectors of Guatemala’s civil society (business, the churches,
academics, the popular movement) that led to agreements on procedures
(April 26, 1991) and democratization (July 25, 1991). After that, negotia-
tions stalled for over two years, until January 1994, when a framework
agreement for restarting talks was signed.
The next step was to set up a schedule for talks (March 1994) when the
parties also signed a global agreement on human rights. Other deals were
concluded later. These included
• the Agreement to Resettle Populations Displaced by Armed

Confrontations (June 1994); an undertaking to establish a truth com-
mission (June 1994);
• an agreement on native rights and indigenous identity (March 1995);
• an agreement treating economic and agrarian questions (May 1995);
• an understanding regarding the function of civil society and the role
of the military in a democracy (September 1996);
• the Accord for a Definitive Cease-fire, which also treated constitutional

amendments, the electoral system, legalizing the URNG, a calendar
for implementing the peace treaty, and the Basic Agreement itself
(December 1996).25
The 1991 democratization accord set out the agenda for future talks and,
more importantly, for a nation-building project in which the revolutionary
Left would abandon violent struggle for legality and peaceful and electoral
political competition. The new society would see the preeminence of civil
society; the development of democratic institutions; the effective establish-
ment of the rule of law and respect for human rights; an end to political
repression, electoral fraud and coercion, military coups, and antidemocratic
destabilization generally; civilian control of the military; the resettlement
of displaced populations; recognition of indigenous identity and native
rights; and the establishment of a practical social justice in which all
Guatemalans would share in the country’s wealth.26 The final document,
the Firm and Durable Peace Accord of December 1996, summarized all the
points agreed to earlier and added the stipulation that Guatemalans had the
right to know the truth regarding human rights violations and other acts of
violence that occurred during the war. There was also an appendix laying
out the spirit of the earlier (1995) agreement of the economy and agricul-
ture. This noted that as the rural population was especially affected by
poverty, injustice, and weak government institutions it was the duty of gov-
ernment and all sectors of society to join forces to address the problem of
rural underdevelopment.27
Why was the peace process so long and complicated? Obviously, there
were many obstacles and difficulties encountered along the way, but
the guerrilla’s extreme weakness was perhaps the most important cause.
The URNG never had the solidity and force of El Salvador’s FMLN, let
alone that of the Sandinistas who governed for a decade. The Left in
Guatemala, which was grouped around the URNG and whose numbers
were increased by the popular movements, always trailed behind the
regional peace efforts. In fact, it was thanks to the work of international
organizations like the UN and the various human rights organization that
the government came to negotiate with the guerrillas. Even then, however,
real progress only began after the combatants were “advised” that a contin-
uation of armed conflict would delay Guatemala’s entry into the commu-
nity of democratic nations—and their markets. With reference to their
political effects, the peace accords demanded a new perspective on two
issues essential to the identity of the Guatemalan revolutionary Left:
democracy and revolution. In part this was due to the conjuncture which
Guatemala ● 53
coincided with the collapse of what was then called “actually existing
socialism” and the new climate of world affairs that accompanied the fall of
Soviet communism. The conjuncture also tempered the Guatemalan gov-
ernment’s anticommunism, allowing more room for concessions. And with
socialism no longer on the horizon, the insurgents had to reformulate their
vision of democracy and change their meaning of the word “revolution.”
This new panorama offered a solution to the dilemma that the
revolutionary Left had faced on several occasions: should it fight for
democracy to open the way to revolution or should it make revolution to
make democracy possible? Participating in the negotiations that started in
1987 demanded accepting, at first implicitly and later explicitly, the former.
To accept this was to recognize that the revolutionary movement had lost
the historic opportunity for a revolutionary seizure of power, an objective
that had been the bedrock of its identity.28 For the URNG to abandon the
proposition of a revolutionary conquest of power and accept participating
with the framework of a representative democracy required a drastic
reformulation of the ends of the revolutionary Left. It demanded accepting
representative democracy as the starting point for social transformation,
instead of continuing to assume that revolutionary transformation was the
point of departure for the construction of new kind of democracy.
The URNG Becomes a Political Party

It took several years for the bulk of both the leaders and rank and file of the
URNG to accept that the peace talks with the Guatemalan government
were not a tactical ploy but a serious effort to end years of internal war. And
it was the course of the negotiations and of the agreements reached over the
course of those ten years that prompted a significant ideological turnaround
by the insurgent organizations. In mid-1995, just before that year’s presi-
dential elections, the URNG and the government had concluded agreements
on democratizing the country (which set out the issues that the participants
would negotiate), a truth commission, human rights, indigenous rights,
resettlement of the displaced, agriculture and the economy. They also
approved procedures and a timetable for future negotiations. That same
year the URNG published a manifesto that displayed its new ideological
profile.29
That document expressed the organization’s ideas regarding the social
and political changes for which it would fight. Naturally, the terms social-
ism, communism, and proletariat all disappeared, as did revolution,
agrarian reform, and imperialism. The document was actually surprisingly
moderate. It spoke of a new Guatemala that would grow from the
construction of a multicultural and multilingual nation, as well as of

demilitarizing the country and rooting out official corruption. To move
the country in this direction the UNRG envisioned nine targets for change:
1) modernize agriculture; 2) tax reform; 3) labor reform, notably the labor
code and the civil service law; 4) decentralize power and change the
relationship between the city, especially the capital, and the countryside;
5) educational reform; 6) reform public health; 6) restructure the public
service; 7) promote effective, sustainable development; 8) reform the social
security system; 9) adopt a new foreign policy that is independent, active,
and progressive. The scope of these proposals made it clear that despite the
gravity of the problems facing Guatemala, the URNG felt the country
could be saved “without traumatic changes or spectacular transformations.”30
Such was the ideological climate that prevailed while the Left was getting
ready to run its own candidates in the November 1995 presidential elec-
tions. The old divisions and disputes that had split the Left during the years
of armed combat still existed, however. One group of former dissident Left
activists, Octubre Revolucionario (Revolutionary October) and PGT- 6 de
enero (PGT-6th of January) participated actively in what would come to be
called the Frente Demcratico Nueva Guatemala (FDNG, New Guatemala
Democratic Front). They were quickly pushed aside by officials and mem-
bers of the URNG who were active in various social movements. At that
time, it was practically assured that the presidential candidate of the Left
would be Arturo Bauer Paiz, who had been a minister in the governments
of the revolutionary era of 1944–1954 and widely respected as a fighter for
social justice. However, the URNG met behind closed doors and to the
consternation of not a few of its followers declared that the candidate would
be Jorge Gonzalez del Valle, an economist known for his opposition to neo-
liberal policies. As a result, the follower of Bauer Paiz withdrew from the
campaign and joined whom the URNG had expelled from the FDNG to
form Unidad de Izquierda Deomocratica (UNID, Democratic Left
Unity).
The 1995 election results revealed that party fragmentation and voter
volatility characterized the Guatemalan political system as a whole, not just
the Left. On the one hand, the parties that had sustained the various
military dictatorships (MLN, PID, PR, CAN, CAO) had disappeared. The
two major parties that had squared off in elections at the end of 1985 and
the beginning of 1986, the Union del Centro Nacional (UCN, National
Center Union) and the Democratica Cristiana (DC, Christian Democrats)
were rendered almost insignificant, as was the party of President Jorge
Serrano, the Movimiento de Accíon Solidaria (MAS, Solidarity Action
Guatemala ● 55
Movement), after his failed attempt to dissolve congress and suspend the
courts in 1993.
There were, though, two major political forces that faced off in 1995:
the Partido de Avanzada Nacional (PAN, Party of National Advancement),
which put forward Alvaro Arzu, and the Frente Republicano Guatemalteco
(FRG, Guatemalan Republican Front), whose candidate was Alfonso
Portillo, a one-time member of the EGP. The PAN succeed in gaining the
support of the Comité Coordinador de Camaras del Agro Comercio
Industria y Finanzas (CACIF, Coordinating Committee of the Chambers
of Agriculture, Commerce, Industry and Finance), which, as its name sug-
gests, was the umbrella organization of Guatemalan big businesses. Its
chief opponent, the FRG, capitalized on the prestige of General Efrain
Rios Montt among the emerging bourgeoisie, urban middle classes, and
the campesinos who had served in the PACS organized under the general’s
rule. The Left was able to ally with what was left of the Partido
Revolucionario (Revolutionary Party), led by Rafael Arriaga (son of the
repressive [minister of defense in the government of Mendez Montenegro)
and to use its official registration to run as the FDNG. The election results
are found in table 3.2.
Table 3.2 shows that abstentions (53.2%) won without need for a second
round. However, counting only the votes that were cast required a runoff,
which Álvaro Arzú won. Looking at the Left, the FDNG’s nearly 7 percent
of the vote was a credible result for a group that had not yet abandoned
clandestinity and had to work through those of its supporters who could
Table 3.2 Results of the first round of presidential elections, 1995
Voters Number Percentage of eligible voters
Eligible voters 3,711,589 100.00

Total votes 1,737,033 46.80
Valid votes 1.544,636 41.61
Results Percentage of total votes
Spoiled or blank ballots 192,397 5.18

PAN 564,739 32.51
FRG 341,038 19.63
FDNG 119,056 6.85
Other parties 519,803 29.92
Source: Political Data Base of the Americas. Republic of Guatemala, Electoral Results,
1995 Presidential Elections, http://pdba.georgetown.edu/Elecdata/Guate/guate.
html>, accessed July 9, 2007.
operate legally. Further, the FDNG’s 6.85 percent of the vote won it a third
place. The remaining parties in the race took three-tenths of all votes cast,
but those were so widely dispersed that they had minimal effect.
During the following four years, the PAN government concluded the
peace treaty with the URNG that ended the long internal conflict.
Nevertheless, the PAN suffered the same fate that has befallen every gov-
erning party in Guatemala since the middle of the twentieth century: defeat
at the next election.
In those same four years, the URNG entered public, legal political life.
Ironically, the ex-guerrillas occupied the political space that Social
Democrats had long fought to open, much as happened in El Salvador and
Nicaragua. The former guerrilla command accordingly made its debut in
public life in control of the reformed and restructured forces of the Left.
However, the process of gaining control of these forces produced conflicts.
One of these saw Rafael Arriaga terminate his alliance with the URNG,
while another resulted in the FDNG organizing its electoral campaign
independently of others.Part of the broad social movement close to the
former guerrillas felt itself marginalized and Left the URNG, though not
the electoral alliance then forming to launch the candidacy of Álvaro
Colom.
Examining the results of the first round of the 1999 elections (table 3.3),
we see the rise of the FRG, which went from roughly 20 percent in 1995 to
over 43 percent, and the defeat of the PAN, which fell from 33 percent to
Table 3.3 Results from the first round of presidential elections, 1999
Voters Number Percentage of eligible voters
Eligible voters 4,458,744 100.00

Total votes 2,379,989 53.37
Valid votes 2,175,458 48.79
Results Percentage of total votes

FRG 1,037,775 43.60
PAN 660,404 27.74
ANN 268,001 11.26
FDNG 27,832 1.16
Source: Political Data Base of the Americas. Republic of Guatemala, Electoral Results,
1999 Presidential Elections (First Round), http://pdba.georgetown.edu/Elecdata/Guate/
guate.html>, accessed July 9, 2007.
Guatemala ● 57
27 percent. The Left, running as the ANN, came in a distant third, its
150,000 votes amounting to 11 percent of the vote; this rises to over 12
percent if the votes of the FDNG are added. An 8.5 percent fall in the num-
ber of blank or spoiled ballots can be attributed to the concentration of the
vote among three main parties.
In the next elections in 2003, there were 13 registered parties. Most of
them were small, recently founded, and with uncertain life expectancies.
The URNG was one of four parties (along with the PAN, FRG, and ANN)
had run in more than one election campaign. The FRG found itself in a
difficult situation, as its presidential candidate, Efrain Rios Montt, had not
been registered. Moreover, it faced the costs that came from its time in
office, a period characterized by corruption and preeminence of the “invis-
ible powers,”31 while the PAN continued the downward slide that had led
to its defeat in 1999. In 2000, a group of former officials from the Arzu
administration broke with the PAN and formed the Partido Unionista (PU,
Unionist Party). Oscar Berger, the PAN’s presidential candidate and the
most important opponent of the FRG, split from the party that nominated
him and headed a coalition composed of the Partido Patriota (Patriotic
Party) and two others. For the 2003 elections the URNG put forward as its
presidential candidate Rodrigo Asturias, the former comandante Gaspar
Ilon, on a ticket with Pablo Ceto. URNG dissidents, along with other polit-
ical forces that had regrouped in the ANN, coalesced early on around the
former mayor of Quetzaltenanngo, Rigoberto Queme. Once again,
Guatemala’s Left was unable to leave its insurgent past behind and form a
competitive party. Comandante Pablo Monsanto had abandoned the
URNG for a dissident group named the Corriente Revolucionario
(Revolutionary Current, CR) that along with two other small organiza-
tions, the Frente Democratico Social (FDS, Social Democratic Front) and
UNID, ran in a reorganized ANN which was a project for a pluralist, par-
ticipatory Left.
During the months before the November 2003 elections, the ANN
proved that it could not live up to its claims of pluralism and participation.
When it came time to choose congressional candidates, the FDS and
UNID, as well as Queme, the presidential candidate, felt as though they
had been steamrollered by the CR. Indeed the CR pulled the strings of the
nascent party and used its control to impose Monsanto at the top of the list
for national deputies.32 Other CR members also pushed aside potential
candidates from other parties in the alliance. These maneuvers proved
costly as Rigoberto Queme withdrew as the party’s presidential nominee,
leaving the ANN with only a congressional slate. When the results were in
the URNG had just over 69,000 votes and 3 legislative seats, while the
ANN legislative candidates received 124,000 votes and took 6 seats in

congress. The weakness of the URNG’s presidential ticket (Asturias-Ceto)
was best shown by the fact that the party took roughly 30,000 more votes
in legislative contests. But the URNG was weak even at the local level,
winning only 8 of 331 mayoralties. Thus the ANN significantly outper-
formed the URNG, even without a presidential candidate. They did, how-
ever, have in Nineth Montenegro, a charismatic human rights activist, a
magnetic figure who drew votes. Yet the ANN’s relative success was short-
lived as Montengro Left in May 2005 to form her own party, Encuentro
por Guatemala (Getting Together for Guatemala). With respect to the
URNG, their own assessment of their showing led them to the dispiriting
conclusion that “our election results constitute such a serious setback that
the party must now have a serious discussion of its principles and
practices.”33
In fact, the results were disastrous for the Left as a whole. Although in
1995, while still operating semi-clandestinely, the Left built a coalition
around the FDNG that captured 7 percent of the vote. In 1999 the ANN
coalition took 11 percent. But 2003 produced a split between the URNG
and the ANN that saw only 5 percent of Guatemalans voters support the
Left. These last results were particularly disastrous for the URNG, whose
2.58 percent share suggest that the party may be headed for extinction.
However, the ANN is little better off, as its star candidate in 2003, Nineth
Montnegro, has Left; indeed it could even lose its status as an official party.
Concerning Montengro’s new organization, Encuentro por Guatemala, it is
currently seeking registration as an official party.
Turning to the parties of the right, the FRG finally succeeded in
registering General Efrian Rios Montt as its presidential candidate. Despite
the former dictator’s appeal as a caudillo, however, his party’s record in
office was too much to overcome. The PAN, another former governing
party, fell to fourth place, while a coalition of small parties (Partido
Patriota—Patriotic Party, Movimiento Reformador—Reform Movement,
and Partido de Solidaridad Nacional—National Solidarity Party) had the
support of a substantial part of Guatemalan business and was able to ride
the coattails of the winning presidential candidate, Oscar Berger, to become
the country’s largest party. Second place went the Union Nacional del
Esperanza (UNE, National Union of Hope), whose presidential candidate,
Alvaro Colom, also finished behind Berger in the presidential runoff held
in December 2003. Table 3.4 presents the results of the first round of the
2003 elections.
Guatemala ● 59
Table 3.4 Results from the first round of the presidential elections
of 2003
Voters Numbers Percentage of eligible voters

Eligible voters 6,413,032 100
Total votes 2,937,169 45.8
Valid votes 2,683,779 41.85
Results Percentage of total vote
PP-MR- PSN 921,233 31.37
UNE 707,578 24.09
FRG 518,328 17.65
PAN 224,127 7.63
PU 80,943 2.76
URNG 69,297 2.36
ANN 123,853 *
Source: Political Data Base of the Americas. Republic of Guatemala, Electoral
Results, 2003 Presidential Elections (First Round), http://pdba.georgetown.
edu/Elecdata/Guate/guate.html>, accessed July 9, 2007.
* Did not run a presidential candidate; votes for legislative candidates.
Conclusion
The historical analysis presented in this chapter show that since the second
half of the 1990s the URNG’s political vision has changed in two ways.
First, power is to be gained through electoral struggle. Second, all propos-
als for social change most be based within the framework of a market econ-
omy. Adopting this new stance was only possible because the Guatemalan
Left had already made two significant ideological moves. The first was to
demote revolution from being the centerpiece of the Left’s politics and
make it more of a symbol shared by the once revolutionary Left. A second
adjustment demanded embracing representative democracy and dealing
regularly and peaceably with those who were once mortal enemies to be
dealt with only by force of arms.
Still, it must be noted that both the leaders and members of this Left
have Marxist ideological roots, even though its programs are now grounded
in a pragmatic evaluation of what is possible. It is here that we see the Left’s
communist past coexisting with its social democratic present and future.
And this sort of mixed, even contradictory, consciousness shows up most
clearly in moments of internal crisis. Both the Left’s dissidents and its
official leaders accuse one another of “right deviationism” or of “having

infiltrated neoliberal ideas into our ranks.” It is sufficient to recall the
formation of the Corriente Revolutionario, headed by Pablo Monsanto,
whose very name indicated that it opposed the line the older organization
was taking. In a sense, these splinters base their legitimacy on their claim to
be the defenders of revolutionary purity. Facing perpetual internal revolts
suggests that Guatemala’s Left can neither define a common vision for itself
and the country nor accommodate dissenters. At the root of this problem is
the maintenance of the tightly disciplined, rigidly hierarchical organiza-
tions that grew from crossing Leninism with a politico-military command
structure.
We can put this somewhat differently by saying that the political organi-
zations of the former Guatemalan guerrillas accept democracy for the coun-
try as a whole but preferred to keep power concentrated in the leader’s hands
internally. There are, though, some signs that this is changing. Rolando
Moran and Gaspar Ilón have died, their leadership styles dying with them.
The last of the three historic guerrilla comandantes, Pablo Monstanto, has
left the URNG and his new group, Corriente Revolucionario, of which he is
the unquestioned leader, remains very marginal. The fourth member of
what was once the high command of the URNG, the last secretary-general
of the PGT, Carlos Gonzalez (Ricardo Rosales), currently holds an
ambiguous position within the URNG. None of them had the brilliance or
moral authority of Schaffick Handal, secretary-general of the Salvadoran
Communist Party and later unsuccessful presidential candidate of the
FMLN;34 nor did Handal have his leadership questioned as theirs was
following the splits that rocked the PGT after 1978.
There is, however, a broad base of ideological and programmatic agree-
ment within Guatemala’s Left today. It insists that democracy cannot be
had without social justice, that the market must be regulated and limited in
its reach, and that a strong state is necessary to assure that the public inter-
est prevails over the private. And the Left has not abandoned its belief in
the utopia of a new society, although it moderated its programs for achiev-
ing this dream. These ideological and programmatic differences clearly
distinguish the Guatemalan Left from its right-wing counterparts, even if
the demands of practical electoral politics sometimes make the two camps
adopt similar positions.
This change of posture by the Left has been abrupt and rapid, and
it was not carried out in a climate of organizational stability. Rather,
these changes have come about in a context of conflicts arising from the
residue of a political culture of clandestinity. That outlook glorified a
mystique of militancy built around complete dedication to the revolution,
Guatemala ● 61
total self-sacrifice, and unconditional struggle. Therefore the passage

from “struggle and faith” to focusing on electoral calculations and
winning office produced a significant symbolic shock. Today’s typical
member of a left-wing party is what Panebianco35 called a careerist,
someone who neither fits well with nor is well regarded by the classic
“believers” who in the past were the heart of Guatemala’s leftist political
organizations.
We believe that the above explains why this process of change has been
accompanied by the emergence of violent internal confrontations that have
nearly always ended in divisions, expulsions, resignations, and conflicts,
occasionally serious ones, between officials and the rank and file. It is prob-
ably precisely these internal conflicts that have most seriously damaged the
credibility and drained the political capital of the parties descended from
the guerrillas. In the URNG’s “adaptation” to the imperatives of this new
political reality three elements stand out:
• its self-identification as a political formation of the Left, as can be

seen in its speeches, proclamations, and electoral platforms;
• the party’s incessant internal turmoil, where confrontation with those
who control power (generally those linked to the party’s secretary-
general) usually leads to expulsion, political irrelevance, and/or leav-
ing to form new parties that have to date had precarious existences;
• its inability to gain electoral support at the local level or to built coali-
tions in the legislature, unlike the FSLN in Nicaragua and the FMLN
in El Salvador.
Overall, the URNG’s move from the underground to the legal has left a
meager legacy. This is evident when we consider the cost paid by several
generations of Guatemalans to secure democratic government and its
attendant freedoms, on the one hand, and the country’s socioeconomic
reality of increasingly widespread poverty and social exclusion, on the
other. The end to the fighting, the disappearance of even the possibility
of revolution, the unviability of socialism and increasingly, even an
inability to define socialism in practice all combined to produce the
current crisis of the Guatemalan Left. As both the FSLN and FMLN
have been able to maintain their organizational integrity while con-
fronting this same crisis of socialism,36 we must ask why Guatemala’s
ex-guerrillas have so plainly failed.
Answering this question requires forwarding new hypotheses. With
respect to the Sandinistas, the most plausible explanation is that the FSLN
seized power and governed Nicaragua throughout the 1980s, giving it time
to embed itself in Nicaraguan society. It is difficult to imagine the Sandinistas
having the resources, influence, and media presence they enjoy today had
they not governed the country for ten years. Turning to the FMLN, the
simple truth is that the URNG never came near to having the military and
political power of the Salvadorans. This state of affairs can be explained in
terms of the following factors. First, Guatemala is far more ethnically
diverse and socially heterogeneous than El Salvador. Its geographic and cul-
tural fault lines are more marked, making political organization harder.
Second, it suffered under a dictatorship that ruled by a terror more cruel
and sophisticated than its Salvadoran counterpart: many leaders and activ-
ists in Guatemala’s revolutionary Left were simply physically eliminated by
the state. The most vulnerable and weakest of the three revolutionary
movements, the Guatemalan, was also the one that suffered the fiercest
repression.
Despite all that we have set out in this chapter, we do not believe that
there is no future for the Left in Guatemala. Renewal of the Left need not
mean that it abandon all that has shaped its identity. It is even possible that
the disappearance of Left’s historic standard bearers can open the way for a
new movement with new ideas and a more democratic structure. Moreover,
Guatemala has certain characteristics that it shares with Bolivia and
Ecuador, and which can favor the revival of the Left. Each of the three
shows high levels of electoral volatility, has a fractionalized party system,
and works with a permeable electoral system, which add up to opportuni-
ties for parties now on the margins to break through. Further, Guatemala
shares with the two Andean states a large indigenous population, a mobi-
lized civil society, a highly polarized society, and a political system that
suffers recurrent crises of legitimacy. Only time will tell if these traits can
be converted into political opportunities that permit Guatemala’s Left to
regain and even expand the political influence it had through most of the
second half of the last century.
Notes
Translated by David Close.
1. The PGT first proposed adopting armed struggle in 1955 and at its 1960 con-
gress laid out the possibility of “combining all forms of struggle.” These rec-
ommendations took concrete form in 1962 when the party openly participated
in the founding of the first Rebel Armed Forces (Fuerzas Armadas Rebeldes,
FAR), an organization that must be distinguished from the better-known FAR
founded in 1968. This first FAR was conceived as the military arm of the
Guatemala ● 63
PGT, in which both PGT members and revolutionaries who were not formally
communists would serve, but with the PGT retaining political control. In
part, it was the party’s insistence on directing the FAR that led the FAR to split
from the PGT in 1967. However, the PGT also continued backing electoral
struggle, putting forward candidates for election and by giving covert support
to Christian Democrats and social Democrats.
2. We cannot overemphasize the impact the Cuban Revolution had on a genera-
tion of young activists, rapidly politicized by the array of symbolic, discursive,
and organizational elements that the “new revolutionary Left” generated. See,
Salvador Martí i Puig, “Nacimiento y mutación de la izquierda revolucionaria
centroamericana” in La izquierda revolucionaria en Centroamérica. De la lucha
armada a la participación electoral, ed, Salvador Martí i Puig and Carlos
Figueroa (Madrid: Libros de la Catarata, 2006), 15–52.
3. Régis Débray and Ricardo Ramírez. “Guatemala” in Las Pruebas de Fuego, ed.
Régis Débray (Mexico City: Siglo XXI, 1975), pp. 285–286.
4. Humberto Alvarado, Apuntes para la historia del Partido Guatemalteco del
Trabajo, Colección Revolucionaria, editado por la Comisión para la
Conmemoración del cincuentenario de la revolución de octubre (edited by the
Commission for the Commemoration of the 50th Anniversary of the
Revolution of October 1944) (Guatemala City: Universidad de San Carlos de
Guatemala y la Asociación de Estudiantes Universitarios “Oliverio Castañeda
de León,” 1994), p. 55.
5. Débray and Ramírez, “Guatemala,” p. 290; Alvarado, Apuntes, p. 65.
6. Débray and Ramírez, “Guatemala,” p. 299. Luis Turcios Lima was, along with
Marco Aurelio Yon Sosa, one of the two disgruntled army officers who founded
the FAR.
7. Partido Guatemalteco del Trabajo, El camino de la revolución guatemalteca
(Mexico City: Ediciones De Cultura Popular, 1972).
8. Mario Payeras, Los fusiles de octubre ( Mexico City: Juan Pablos Editor, 1991).
9. Héctor Gramajo, De la guerra . . . a la guerra (Guatemala City: Fondo de
Cultura, 1995), pp. 154–155.
10. Unidad Revolucionaria Nacional Guatemalteca (URNG), Proclama Unitaria
de las organizaciones EGP, FAR, ORPA, PGT al pueblo de Guatemala (Mimeo),
February 1982, (UNRG, 2/1982).
11. Gramajo, De la guerra.
12. Carlos Figueroa Ibarra, “La izquierda revolucionaria en Nicaragua: Revolución
para la democracia, democracia para la revolución” in La izquierda revolucio-
naria en Centroamérica, ed, Martí i Puig and Figueroa, pp. 129–172.
13. Carlos Figueroa Ibarra, El recurso del miedo: Ensayo sobre Estado y terror en
Guatemala (San Jose, Costa Rica: Editorial Universitaria Centroamericana,
1991).
14. Mario Payeras, El trueno en la ciudad. Episodios de la lucha armada urbana de
1981 en Guatemala (Mexico City: Juan Pablos Editor, 1987).
15. Figueroa Ibarra, El recurso del miedo, p. 235. The creation of the PAC,
paramilitary groups composed of local people, involved the forced recruitment
of the inhabitants of a given area to carry out military functions. This greatly
increased the militarization of rural society and led to the PAC members’ par-
ticipation in human rights violations perpetrated by the army.
16. Growth poles presupposed concentrating an area’s indigenous population in
camps under the control of military commanders, in order to “uproot the pop-
ulation,” indoctrinate it, and “inoculate” it against insurgency.
17. Ricardo Falla, Masacres en la selva Ixcán, Guatemala 1975–1980 (Managua,
Nicaragua: CRIES-latino editores, 1992).
18. See the following URNG documents: Unidad Revolucionaria Nacional
Guatemalteca. Proclama Unitaria de las organizaciones EGP, FAR, ORPA,
PGT al pueblo de Guatemala (Mimeo), February 1982; Las maniobras políti-
cas de Ríos Montt y el papel del movimiento popular y democrático (Mimeo),
Guatemala, February 1983; Fracaso militar de la campaña “Victoria 82” de
Ríos Montt, Imposibilidad de la maniobra reformista, Seguridad del triunfo
del pueblo y la revolución en Guatemala (Mimeo), Guatemala, March 1983;
Ante el golpe de estado de los altos jefes militares del ejército de Guatemala
contra el general Ríos Montt (Mimeo), August 10, 1983; Informaciones sobre
la actual coyuntura política guatemalteca, Guatemala (Mimeo), June 1985; Al
pueblo de Guatemala, edición clandestina September 1985; Declaración
Política de la URNG en su V aniversario, Guatemala, February 7, 1987, in
URNG, Boletín internacional 2 (March 1987); Comunicado de la Unidad
Revolucionaria Nacional Guatemalteca con motivo de su VI aniversario
(Guatemala), February 7, 1988, edición clandestina.
19. Inforpress, 1995, pp. 9–11. Inforpress Centroamericana. Compendio del proceso
de Paz. Cronologías, análisis, documentos, acuerdos. Vol. I. Guatemala City:
Inforpress Centroamericana, 1995.
20. Octubre Revolucionario, Carta del Comité de Dirección de Octubre
Revolucionario a los militantes del Partido Guatemalteco del Trabajo (PGT-6
de enero) (Mimeo), March 1990, pp. 7–8.
21. Angelo Panebianco, Modelos de partidos (Madrid: Alianza Editorial, 1990).
22. We use this concept as does Panebianco in Modelos De Partido. The structure
of organizational power is based on the “resources of organizational power,”
which are the factors around which an organization’s vital activities, competi-
tion, relations with its environment, communication, formal rules, finance,
and recruitment, develop.
23. The PGT (National Directing Nucleus—NDN) was one of three factions, the
others being the January 6th (6 de enero) and the Central Committee (CC), to
emerge after a split in the party over the issue of armed struggle. In 1987, fol-
lowing the effective destruction of the NDN, the URNG brought the PGT-CC
in to replace the NDN. What seemed to be the continued presence of the PGT
in the URNG was accomplished by one faction of the party succeeding
another.
24. Fundación Casa de la Reconciliación, Recopilación cronológica. Acuerdos
firmados en la negociación por la paz en Guatemala. (Guatemala City: Casa de
la Reconciliación, 1997), p. 23.
Guatemala ● 65
25. Reconciliación, 1997, pp. 5–9.

26. Reconciliación, 1997, 99.
27. Reconciliación, 1997, pp. 348–349.
28. Panebianco, Modelos De Partido, p. 40 and pp. 67–68.
29. URNG, Guatemala, propuesta a la sociedad: Cuatro objetivos, nueve cambios,
cuatro prioridades (Mimeo), April 1995.
30. URNG, Guatemala, propuesta a la sociedad, p. 14.
31. During the second half of the 1990s and through the first five years of the
twenty-first century, the term “invisible powers” meant the multiple mafia-
style networks of extortion, which emerged after the peace agreements and
that certainly appear to be the current incarnation of what were once counter-
insurgent groups, though this cannot be proven. Among their activities one
finds a combination of economic crimes, human rights violations, and the
selective intimidation of left-wing political activists.
32. National deputies are elected from a nationwide list, separate from departmen-
tal ones.
33. URNG, Los acuerdos de paz. Análisis de su cumplimiento y perspectivas
(Mimeo), Guatemala City, May 2003.
34. Editors’ note: Handal’s reputation suffered greatly after leading the FMLN to
a poor showing the 2004 presidential elections, at which point his leadership
and even the appropriateness of the historic, revolutionary identity of the
FMLN in an electoral setting, came to be questioned.
35. Panebianco, Modelos De Partido.
36. Editors’ note: the chapter by David Close on Nicaragua, addresses this ques-
tion indirectly. For a more inclusive vision see, Martí i Puig, “La Izquierda
Centroamericana: ¿Renacimiento o Debacle?” in América Central, las democra-
cias inciertas, ed, Ana Sofia Cardenal and Salvador Martí i Puig (Madrid:
Tecnos, 1998), pp. 65–108.
CHAPTER 4
The Left’s Long Road to

Power in Uruguay
Martin Weinstein
Introduction
The case of the Tupamaros of Uruguay can be viewed as an example of
revolutionaries who rank somewhere in the middle in terms of their suc-
cess. They did not seize state power outright through an armed insurrec-
tion nor did they completely control the state through an outright electoral
victory of their own. Rather they gained access to state as members of a
broad coalition, the (Frente Amplio or Broad Front) that was victorious in
the 2005 elections. The “long road to power” however, involved the
Tupamaros making compromises in terms of their commitment to social-
ism, for as members of the Frente Amplio-Frente Amplio- Encuentro
Progresista (Broad Front-Progressive Encounter) they adopted a more
nationalist, pragmatic, and moderate program.
Background
Uruguay—that tiny nation of 3.3 million people frequently overshadowed
by its giant South American neighbors, Brazil and Argentina—has a lot to
teach us about politics and the struggle for social equity in Latin America.
To begin, Uruguayans enjoyed free secular education before the British,
and women had the right to vote before their French counterparts. The
right to divorce was granted 70 years before Spain and workers enjoyed an
eight-hour workday before it was established in the United States. All of
this was accomplished thanks to José Battle y Ordoñez whose liberal (in the
68 ● Martin Weinstein
best sense of the word) ideology would dominate Uruguayan politics for
the first three decades of the twentieth century and cast a giant shadow
over its institutions for three decades more. Aided by the resources gener-
ated by the insertion of Uruguay in the same British imperial orbit enjoyed
by Argentina, the country prospered amid democratic and progressive eco-
nomic, social, and political transformation. Unlike the Argentines, Uruguay
did not succumb to military intervention in the 1940s and 1950s when it
deservedly enjoyed its reputation as the “Switzerland of South America.”
Economic stagnation in the late 1950s and throughout the sixties unfortu-
nately did lead to the social, economic and political tensions that sadly saw
Uruguay join her neighbors in a descent into military dictatorship.
The bureaucratic authoritarian regime that ruled Uruguay from 1973 to
1984 was not the bloodiest in South America but, given Uruguay’s small
size, it could be considered the most repressive. Over 50,000 Uruguayans
would be arrested with between 5,000 and 6,000 ultimately imprisoned
and brutalized, giving the country, according to Amnesty International,
the dubious distinction of having more political prisoners per capita than
any other nation on earth in the mid-1980s.
The road back to democracy was long and difficult but when it was
finally accomplished Uruguayans restored their democratic institutions
with courage and enthusiasm. Since 1984 there have been five national
elections in Uruguay. All have been clean with the historic traditional par-
ties—Blancos and Colorados—winning the first four, but with the leftist
coalition known as the Frente Amplio improving its vote, actually finishing
first in the 1999 elections, but losing in the runoff required by the new
electoral system approved by plebiscite in 1996.
In the past six years, left-leaning presidents have taken office in five
South American countries, including Hugo Chávez in Venezuela in 1999,
Ricardo Lagos in Chile in 2000, Luis Ignacio Lula da Silva in Brazil in
2002 and again in 2006, Néstor Kirchner in Argentina in 2003 and Tabaré
Vázquez in Uruguay this year. The inauguration this past March of Tabaré
Vázquez of the Frente Amplio, a left-wing coalition of social democrats,
socialists, and communist founded in the early 1970s, is the latest and in
some ways, most intriguing case. Some three decades before, the govern-
ment, which at the time was a military dictatorship, kidnapped and tor-
tured hundreds of people, targeting especially Tupamaro guerrilla leaders.
Now, Senator José “Pepe” Mujica, a founder of the Tupamaros, presided
over the swearing in of the president and vice president during the inaugu-
ration ceremonies. In one part of the ceremony, Mujica was presented the
flag by the army’s Florida Batallion, the very same army installation under
which he was tortured and kept at the bottom of a well for several years.
The Left’s Long Road to Power in Uruguay ● 69
The Left, once repressed and marginalized, is now empowered with the
political capital and institutional authority to lead the country along a new
path of development. Why has this seemingly 180 degree reversal come to
pass in Uruguay and elsewhere in the region?
Explaining the Electoral Victory of the Left

In this context, the “Left” is not a new phenomenon in Latin America. For
over a century, the values and principles of the Left have formed the foun-
dation of Latin American society. Beginning with the contributions of
anarchist and socialist European immigrants at the turn of the century,
continuing with José Batlle’s precocious welfare state in Uruguay and the
sophisticated Marxist analysis of José Mariategui of Peru in the 1920s and
the role of Communist and Socialist Parties in promoting the ideal of social
justice, today’s Left is deeply rooted in a strong historical foundation.
However, with the rise of the cold war and the increasing U.S. hostility
toward anything that was remotely progressive, the Left in Latin America
was first, mildly, and then severely repressed. The list of casualties is long
and includes: The Arbenz regime in Guatemala; Goulart in Brazil; Allende
in Chile; and the destruction of democracy in Uruguay and Argentina. The
plague of repression that Latin America suffered from the late 1960s into
the early 1980s was a major blow to both the Left and the cause of democ-
racy in the region.
The rebirth of the Left is a story of both the failure of the bureaucratic
authoritarian regimes to find an economic model that resulted in stable
growth and the rejection of a nondemocratic mode of governance by
their citizens. This process was slow and painful but led to a resurgence of
democratic values—even by those groups that some might consider
revolutionary.
Democracy’s fragile comeback would be buffeted by economic policies
and international trends, which moved citizens to take another look at a
seemingly demoralized and demonized Left. This has especially been the
case in Uruguay. Uruguay’s European-style welfare state, which was a
strong presence throughout most of the twentieth century, gradually eroded
in the 1960s and 1970s, worsened by the debt crisis of the 1980s and the
conservative fiscal policies of the 1990s, and was under almost unsustain-
able pressure in the economic crisis of 1999–2002.
But we are getting ahead of the story . . . From the mid-1950s on, Uruguay
experienced economic decline and increased political polarization that was
compounded in the late l960s by the emergence of a new and important
political force—urban guerrillas. The existence of an organized revolutionary
movement officially calling itself the National Liberation Movement

(Movimiento de Liberación Nacional, MLN)—Tupamaros was an indica-
tion that growing sociopolitical division could not be contained at the insti-
tutional level and was spilling over into basic value conflicts concerning the
nature of the national community. It is not by chance that the most widely
used Tupamaro slogan was “Habrá patria para todos o patria para nadie”
that translates as: “There will be a fatherland for all or a fatherland
for none.”
Many commentators were surprised by the appearance of a revolution-
ary guerrilla movement in Uruguay. They felt that the literate, sophisti-
cated, relatively democratic, and still relatively comfortable society was not
the kind of sea in which revolution normally spawns. What they overlooked
was the fact that it is these very conditions that would impel more and more
individuals to challenge an increasingly repressive and ineffective govern-
ment and enable these individuals to make such a challenge effective.
The best information available indicates that the Tupamaros were orga-
nized in late 1962 or early 1963 around a nucleus of disenchanted members
of the Socialist Party.1
Their founder was Raúl Sendic, then a 36-year-old law student and mil-
itant member of the Socialist Party who had been active in the organization
of the sugar beet and sugarcane workers in Uruguay’s northeast. The name
Tupamaro has two possible derivations. The most widely accepted explana-
tion is that the name was derived from Tupac Amaru, an Incan Indian chief
who led an unsuccessful rebellion against the Spanish and was rewarded for
his efforts by being drawn and quartered in Cuzco’s main square. Another
explanation argues that the name was taken from Uruguayan history, the
term having been used in the 1820s and 1830s for the rebel bands that
continued to attack the large landowners after the defeat and self-imposed
exile of the nationalist hero, José Artigas.
In any event, the Tupamaros remained in a totally clandestine organiza-
tional phase until 1967 when they made their position and motives public:
For these reasons, we have placed ourselves outside the law. This is the only
honest action when the law is not equal for all; when the law exists to defend
the spurious interest of a minority in detriment to the majority; when the
law works against the country’s progress; when even those who have created
it place themselves outside it, with impunity, whenever it is convenient
for them.
The hour of rebellion has definitely sounded for us. The hour of patience
has ended. The hour of action and commitment has commenced here and
now [emphasis in original]. The hour of conversation and the enunciation of
theory, propositions and unfulfilled promises is finished.
We should not be worthy Uruguayans, nor worthy Americans, nor

worthy of ourselves if we do not listen to the dictates of conscience that day
after day calls us to the fight. Today no one can deny us the right to follow
this dictate, wherever it might lead. No one can take the sacred right of
rebellion away from us, and no one is going to stop us from dying, if neces-
sary, in order to be of consequence.2
The opening paragraph of this statement merits particular attention. The

Tupamaros indicate that they are profoundly aware that the rule of law is a
basic instrument through which an effective national community is built
and that the perversion of this instrument dooms the creation of an egali-
tarian national community. They, thus, take the position that they must
place themselves outside the law in order to build a viable nation-state.
Their position is deeply nationalist. Indeed, one may argue that the
Tupamaros were the only effective nationalist voice in Uruguay in the late
1960s and early 1970s.
The ideology of the movement was never espoused in an explicit, coher-
ent, single statement, although several documents, communiqués, and
interviews do give some basis for analysis. The Tupamaros believed in an
independent, integrated, national community for Uruguay and affirmed
that such independence and integration can only be built through social-
ism. The blueprint for socialism is vague, but includes nationalization of
the banking and export apparatus and a thorough land-reform program,
including expropriation of large and underutilized holdings.
They also believed that the political and economic power holders in a
capitalist, dependent nation such as Uruguay will not relinquish power
peacefully, and therefore concluded that armed revolution was necessary.
Violence is seen as a necessary tactic of this revolution, but is not promoted
as an end in itself. The movement’s spokesmen also believed that the final
victory will require mass action and that Tupamaro activity promotes this
possibility by (1) pointing out the corruption and inefficiency of the regime;
and (2) demonstrating that the Tupamaros are a parallel power within the
nation, thereby raising the consciousness of the public. Organized labor
and the university and high school populations were seen as the most
available sources of mass support for the guerrillas. It might be added as a
final consideration that the Tupamaros were always aware of potential for-
eign intervention and the demonstration effect offered by Brazil. In a docu-
ment written in March 1972, the point is made that Brazil offered “an
example which our local oligarchs might want to imitate”—a prophetic
observation.
During the mid and late 1960s, the Tupamaro strategy and ideology
became defined, and their impact became apparent. Adopting an urban
focus based on the obvious demographic and political reality that is the
Uruguayan city-state, the movement embarked on an escalating series of
robberies to secure money and arms. By 1969 the guerrillas had added
political kidnappings to their arsenal and in 1970 kidnapped and assassi-
nated Daniel Mitrione, a USAID (United States Agency for International
Development) official working with the Uruguayan police. The events sur-
rounding the kidnapping and killing of Daniel Mitrione are accurately and
spellbindingly recreated in the Costa-Gavras movie “State of Siege” that
starred Yves Montand as Mitrione.
During the remainder of 1970 and 1971 the guerrillas pulled off spec-
tacular kidnapping and robberies, and in September of the latter year freed,
in one jailbreak, all of the 100-plus guerrillas being held by the govern-
ment. However, instead of pressing its advantage, the movement decided
on a temporary truce while it supported the newly created leftist coalition,
the Frente Amplio, in the November 1971 elections. It is in this context of
increased confrontation, growing repression, and the new leftist alliance
that the 1971 election should be understood. The election would be a strong
test of the Uruguayan political system, and its implications and effects
would be profound.
On September 9, 1971, immediately after the spectacular escape of 109
Tupamaros from the Punta Carretas Penitentiary, President Pacheco put
the army in control of all antiguerrilla activity. This important new role for
the army did not have an immediate impact because of the truce declared
by the Tupamaros in the months surrounding the November 1971 elec-
tions. The Tupamaros ended the informal truce on April 14, 1972, with the
assassination of several officials in various sections of Montevideo. The
president immediately asked for and received a declaration of “internal war”
against the Tupamaros. In essence, Uruguay was placed under martial law,
and all constitutional guarantees of individual liberties were suspended.
The military, given carte blanche and unhampered by judicial or consti-
tutional restraints, proceeded to employ repressive techniques that moved
far beyond those that any administration had dared to employ in any sys-
tematic or sustained manner. Torture and drugs were weapons the
Tupamaros could not withstand. In the ensuing months, the army enjoyed
almost total success against the guerrillas, all but destroying their infra-
structure, capturing hundreds of active supporters, and detaining thou-
sands of other.
I would here hazard the hypothesis, with the advantage of hindsight,
that the decision to support the Frente Amplio and refrain from their usual
activity from October 1971 to April 1972 was a fatal mistake for the
Tupamaros. Apparently faced with the problem of expanding their base,

the Tupamaros took a calculated risk and supported the effort of various
liberal groups that made up the Frente.
But, as the guerrillas themselves emphasized, they did not believe that
the revolution could be made in Uruguay through elections. Permitting
elections to take place in an atmosphere controlled by the Pacheco
government and allowing his handpicked successor to take power in rela-
tive calm put them at a disadvantage. In addition, since the jailbreak in
September, the armed forces had been placed in control of antiguerrilla
operations and had been permitted to gear up for their role, unchallenged,
since then. Thus, the dramatic Tupamaro escalation on April 14 was met
by a firmly entrenched new administration backed by a well-equipped and
adequately prepared military that needed but three months to crush the
guerrilla movement—a movement that found itself abandoned by the
liberal groups that it had surfaced to support in the elections.
On June 27, l973 Uruguay would plunge into a military dictatorship
that would last for over 11 years during which tens of thousands would be
arrested, thousands would be fired from their jobs, and many more would
choose exile for both economic and political reasons. The long struggle to
recapture democracy is not the subject of this chapter, but it involved a
combination of the military’s bungling of the economy, the courage of the
Uruguayan people, and the systematic inhumane treatment of political
prisoners, especially those who were or were believed to be active Tupamaros
or militant communists. It would take a special legislation by the newly
restored democratic government to secure the release of several dozen
Tupamaro leaders who were seen as guilty of ‘blood crimes” by the military.
Luis Costa Bonino has perceptively summed up those decades:
One can say that the contemporary history of Uruguay has seen the fail-
ure of three conceptions of the country, of three fragmentary “national-
isms.” The first, the old model of the traditional country with a verbal
and rickety nationalism always supported by the crutch of co-participation
which was not capable of sustaining a durable democracy for the future.
The revolutionary nationalism that the MLN urged was, in spite of its
“Patria para todos,” a conspiratorial and antidemocratic nationalism,
symmetrical to that of the military’s ideology, an ideology where “tradi-
tional parties = oligarchy = North American imperialism” formed an
inseparable and ineluctable whole. From the right, the armed forces pro-
posed a homologous conspiratorial nationalism in which Parties and
Movements of the left = Parliament = Subversion = the Soviet Union and
international communism.3
The Tupamaros emerged from prison with a conciliatory political line.

This was not surprising given the fact that many politicians from the tradi-
tional (Blanco and Colorado) parties held them responsible for the spiral
into dictatorship They declared that the newly established democracy was
qualitatively different from the conditions of the late 1960s and 1970s and
that therefore public and open political action not armed struggle was their
proper role. In recognizing the current democratic rules of the game, they
did not eliminate armed struggle if future conditions made such a path
necessary. The movement’s relationship to its political arm in the 1971 elec-
tions, the 26 de Marzo Movement, led many to believe that the MLN-
Tupamaros would, by fusing itself with this group, seek formal entry into
the Frente Amplio. When the small but respected Christian Democratic
Party, as well as others within the Frente Amplio, strenuously opposed the
entrance of the Tupamaros, Raúl Sendic, the founder of the guerrilla move-
ment, called for the creation of a “Frente Grande,” implying that the Frente
Amplio was not seeking the widest possible coalition of progressive forces.
He, however, was in no shape to lead the movement; he went to Cuba for
corrective surgery on his tongue and mouth, which had been severely muti-
lated by wounds he received when he was captured in 1972.
The MLN was experiencing difficulty in adjusting to its new reality. As
one ex-Tupamaro put it:
The movement is paying the price of defeat, with the consequent isola-
tion from reality implied by 12 years in prison. And the other price that
is being paid has also been suffered by all revolutionary movements of
the left in the world: the crisis of the traditional models of the left. No
one now buys the Soviet model in the way they sell it, there are very few
that dream of building a new society with a model like that. Neither,
whether because of maturity or because of the time that has gone by, can
the reality of the Cuban revolution be taken as transplantable. We lack
the beacons we used to have whether because of our age or the stage that
our country or humanity in general lived through.4
In a press interview given to an Argentine journalist, Julio Marenales, one

of the founders of the movement, admitted that the Tupamaros had relied
too heavily on only one form of action—armed struggle—and that they
had not made the necessary effort to develop contacts and work within the
mass organizations of the society. He further indicated that additional self-
criticism would take place at the Tupamaros’ Fourth National Convention,
scheduled for September 1986. At their Third National Convention, in
1985, the Tupamaros defined their goals as land reform, nationalization of
the banking and export sectors, and a moratorium on the foreign debt. The
convention reiterated the movement’s desire to operate legally and in

accordance with the rules of a constitutional and democratic political sys-
tem. The leadership did remind all who would listen that the “dominant
classes have shown throughout history that they are willing to erase legality
and democracy every time the people threaten their interests and
privilege.”
Then Vice President Tarigo responded angrily to a statement by Julio
Marenales in which he indicated that guerrilla war would be valid in the
face of another advance of fascism in Uruguay. Tarigo angrily reminded all
who would listen that the appearance of the guerrillas in Uruguay in 1963
was a “struggle against democracy and not against fascism” and that the
people of Uruguay “without the help of the Tupamaros . . . knew how to find
a democratic solution that permitted the Tupamaros to leave jail and return
from exile.”5
In a meeting dubbed an “extraordinary convention” held in late July
1986, the MLN-Tupamaros postponed their Fourth National Convention,
scheduled for September, until 1987. At the same time a communiqué was
issued by José Mujica, the group’s secretary-general, which denounced the
lack of resolution of the human rights question. The statement went on to
warn that if the government and the people are held hostage, threatened, or
blackmailed by the military over human rights violations committed dur-
ing the dictatorship, then the ex-guerrillas might have to rethink their cur-
rent stance in support of the democratic game. This not-so-veiled threat
was immediately denounced by the mainstream press, which argued that
the Tupamaros were as misguided as ever because the government was
democratic and free to act on all questions. However, if the Tupamaros
were overreacting, so were their critics on this issue. It was clear to an objec-
tive observer that the threat of military intervention continued to hang over
the government as it tried to find a formula for the military’s human rights
violations that was acceptable to the guilty as well as those demanding
justice—a difficult formula, indeed.
The Tupamaros emerged as a freestanding political faction within the
Frente Amplio in the l989 elections. Their percentage of the Left’s vote
hovered in the mid-teens until the Left’s internal primary election of 2002
when they obtained 29 percent of the vote. In the 2004 Frente Amplio
primary they garnered 33 percent of the vote. In the Left’s historical presi-
dential and congressional victories later that year they received an impres-
sive 38 percent of the winning vote. Clearly, Mujica, Huidoboro, Marenales
and the other Tupamaro leaders decided that joining the Frente Amplio
was the path to follow after their release from prison with the return of
democracy. They were very careful at first to be one of a number of small
radical groups that were allowed under the Frente Amplio- Encuentro
Progresista umbrella. As their support and activities grew and as there was
increased identity or legitimacy to their movement, the Movimiento de
Participación Popular (MPP, Movement for Popular Participation), took its
place as a freestanding party within the leftist coalition.
With the approach of the 2004 presidential and parliamentary elections
the Tupamaros showed their skills at coalition building by agreeing to joint
parliamentary electoral lists with Senator Rafael Michelini’s small but
respected Nuevo Espacio party. This marriage helped enhance the MPP’s
image as a moderate, not radical, movement. The Tupamaros’ contribution
of 38 percent of the Left’s winning vote garnered them 2 ministries—Labor
and Agriculture in the Vázquez administration not to mention 38 percent
of the seats in the Senate and Chamber of Deputes that are allocated by
strict proportional representation.
Senator José Mujica, a founding member of the Tupamaros, engineered this

success story. Espousing a populist and nationalist ideology but with a
pragmatic and moderate tone, his charismatic personality established him
as a major political player. His strategy in the early years after his brutal
imprisonment and release by the restored democratic government of
Colorado president Julio Maria Sanguinetti, was to organize a political
movement, the MPP, with recruitment and organizational activities involv-
ing students, workers, and campesinos. The emphasis was on organiza-
tional activities and not on party organization. This was in keeping with
the Tupamaros’ origins as organizers of rural workers and was inspired in
part by the Landless Workers Movement (Movimento dos Trabalhadores
Rurais Sem Terra, MST) in Brazil. Ironically given their moderate tone,
the MPP was thus seen as a less extremist sector of the Frente Amplio and
not lumped with “los grupos radicales.” Mujica characterized the group’s
position as follows: “el MPP se ha corrido hacia la realidad, nos hemos corrido
hacia el sentido comun.” [The MPP has run toward reality,but we have run
toward common sense].6
The close identification of MPP voters with “Pepe” Mujica may prove
to be an Achilles heel for the movement. Mujica, who is not in good health
and may soon leave his position as minister of agriculture, cannot be
expected to vigorously lead the MPP in the years leading up to the 2009
elections.
In this context the presidential and congressional elections that took
place on October 31, 2004 marked a sea change in Uruguayan politics.
Throughout the year the polls showed that the leftist coalition known
as the Broad Front–Progressive Encounter (Frente Amplio- Encuentro
Progresista) was the largest party in the country. The question that remained
was whether it would secure the 50 percent + 1 vote it needed in order to
avoid a runoff with one of the traditional parties, the Blanco Party (Partido
Nacional, PN) or the Colorados. In the last two weeks before the election,
all of Uruguay’s polls indicated that the Frente Amplio had reached the
magical number needed to avoid a second round and that Tabaré Vázquez
would be president. Dr. Tabaré Vázquez (known as Tabaré) is a 64-year-old
oncologist who has been the political leader of the Frente Amplio leftist
coalition since he was their presidential candidate in 1994. Tabaré was
elected mayor (Intendente) of Montevideo in 1989 in what was a break-
through election for the Left. A longtime Socialst Party activist, Tabaré is
photogenic and charismatic and has carefully juggled his coalition that
includes social democrats, democratic socialists, socialists, communists,
and ex-Tupamaros.
The Left’s long but steady road to electoral victory interrupted by the
11-year military dictatorship from 1973 to 1984 is exemplified by
table 4.1.
Table 4.1 Electoral results for Leftist parties since 1971
Party 1971 1984 1989 1994 1999-I 1999-II 2004
Colorado Party 41.0 41.2 30.3 32.3 32.8 54.1 11.0

National Party 40.2 35.0 38.9 31.2 22.3 – 38.0
Frente Amplio 18.3 21.3 21.2 30.6 40.1 45.9 50.5
Nuevo Espacio – – 9.0 5.2 4.6 – –
Source: Adapted and extended from Jorge Lanzaro, “La izquierda uruguaya: transformaciones
estructurales y logicas de desarrollo politico.” 7
N.B. 1999-II reflects the runoff required by the 1996 constitutional reform.
The collapse of the Colorado Party vote did not automatically translate
into an overwhelming victory for the Left. Nevertheless, they avoided a
runoff and obtained majorities in both Houses of parliament by garnering
a majority in the first round.
The Vázquez government, which assumed office in March 2005, put
together a team of ministers that also included a moderate leftist econo-
mist, Danilo Astori, as minister of economics and the former head of
Texaco in Uruguay (the highest paid Uruguayan in the country at the time)
as minister of industry. Mujica was promptly tapped to be minister of agri-
culture. A new ministry (Desarollo Social-Social Development) was cre-
ated and given to Marina Arismendi, the daughter of the deceased longtime
leader of the Communist Party in Uruguay. (Support for the party has been
reduced dramatically in recent years.) She directs the Emergency Social
Plan with a budget of $100 million for each of the next two years and it is
intended to target the 60,000 Uruguayans living below the poverty line
with cash, job training, medical assistance and educational programs.
Vázquez reluctantly gave the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to the current
leader of the Socialist Party, Senator Reinaldo Gargano—a man not known
to have many smooth edges.
The Left’s victory in October carried over to the local and departmental
(state) elections that took place in early May. The Frente Amplio had cap-
tured the department of Montevideo in 1989 and held it since, but had
never won the Intendencia (Governorship) of any other department—that
is, until now. The Frente won in 7 departments out of a total of 19. Most
importantly, they won in Canelones, the increasingly urbanized depart-
ment directly to the east of Montevideo, and in Maldonado and Rocha,
home to Punta del Este and other tourist meccas of the country. The Left
also won in departments along the border with Argentina and in two very
traditional areas in the interior—an encouraging sign for future electoral
prospects.
In terms of policy, the economic situation continues to be a priority for
the government. The thrust is clearly to create more jobs and better wages
under the slogan “Uruguay: Pais Productivo.” Trade is seen as key, but
President Vázquez’s decision to postpone negotiations on a free trade
agreement (FTA) with the United States points to real contradiction’s
within the Left’s governing coalition. When the foreign minister opposed
his own president’s support for such a treaty, the Left’s split became very
public. Gargano is a member of Vázquez’s own Socialist Party and was
joined by the communists and other small radical groups within the coali-
tion. Apparently, Vázquez felt he could not alienate those who were against
the treaty in light of the need for their support if the public sector
restructuring that is high on his 2007 agenda has any chance of being
passed.
The question of human rights violations committed by the military dic-
tatorship (1973–1984) has become an increasingly salient political issue for
the new government. The Uruguayan military never engaged in the mass
killings their Argentine and Chilean comrades are so infamous for.
However, they did arrest thousands and subject them to brutal torture
while also imposing a draconian rule on Uruguay’s citizens from 1973 to
1985. The number of disappeared in Uruguay totaled a few dozen, with
some 140 Uruguayans sharing the same fate in Argentina. The whereabouts
of these individuals had never been clarified by the Uruguayan military
until the more proactive stance of the Vázquez government produced an
official army report leading to the discovery of a few bodies. Some
Uruguayan former military and police have been extradited for trials in
Argentina and Chile. A new chapter in this issue began to be written in late
2006 when ex-president and dictator Juan Maria Bordaberry and his foreign
minister Juan Blanco were arrested for complicity in the murders of two
exiled politicians—Senator Zelmar Michelini and Blanco deputy Hector
Gutiérrez Ruiz in Buenos Aires in June l976. These arrests stimulated
unions and human rights groups to start a campaign to overturn the
amnesty law (Ley de Caducidad) that was passed in Uruguay in l986 and
upheld in a national referendum in 1989. Civil- military relations became
strained enough over the human rights issue that President Vázquez dis-
missed the army commander after he held a series of unauthorized meeting
with opposition politicians, apparently over the direction of human rights
inquiries. We have not seen or heard the last word on this subject.
The historic victory by Vázquez and the Left also has regional implica-
tions. It was seen by many as further strengthening the hand of Brazilian
president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva as he sought to turn Mercosur (the
Southern Cone Common Market consisting of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay,
and Uruguay) into the major voice of Latin American economic integration
and the chief interlocutor with both the European Union and the United
States in trade negotiations. Recent conflict between Argentina and
Uruguay over the building of two giant pulp-paper plants on the Uruguayan
side of the Uruguay river that separates the two countries has, however,
complicated Mercosur’s future.
Conclusion
The Left’s long road to power in Uruguay does not change the fundamental
questions that have faced this nation. Sustainable economic growth; pro-
viding jobs at a decent wage; a pension system and public sector too large
and expensive for this small country; and a final accounting over the human
rights abuses of the dictatorship are the challenges that any government in
Uruguay must face regardless of its ideological proclivities. The Left brings
new energy and hopefully fresh eyes to these issues. Its success will be good
for Uruguay and for their continued political power.
Notes
1. The literature on the Tupamaros is rather extensive. For the early period see
Carlos Nuñez, “The Tupamaros: Armed Vanguard in Uruguay,” Tricontinental
(Havana) 10 (January–February 1969), pp. 43–66 and M. Rosencof, La
Rebelión de los Caneros (Montevideo, Uruguay: Aportes, 1969). For later activity
and documents see: Antonio Mercader and Jorge de Vera, Tupamaros: Estrategía
y Acción–Iinforme (Mexico, D.F.: Ediciones Era, 1971); Actas Tupamaros (Buenos
Aires: Shapiro Editor, 1971); A. Labrousse, Los Tupamaros: Guerrilla Urbana en

el Uruguay (Buenos Aires: Tiempo Contemporaneo, 1971); Maria Esther Gilio,
The Tupamaro Guerrillas: The Structure and Strategy of the Urban Guerrilla
Movement (New York: Saturday Review Press, 1972); Donald C. Hodges, ed.,
Philosophy of the Urban Guerrilla: The Revolutionary Writings of Abraham
Guillén (New York: William Morrow and Co., 1973); and José A. Moreno and
Arturo C. Porzecanski, “The Ideology of Uruguay’s Tupamaros,” unpublished
essay in the Departments of Sociology and Economics, University of Pittsburgh,
1972. For articles in English see: S. Connoly and G. Druehl, “The Tupamaros:
The New Focus in Latin America,” Journal of Contemporary Revolutions 3, 3
(Summer 1971), pp. 59–68; F. M. Poland, “Uruguay’s Urban Guerrillas,” New
Leader 54, 19 (October 4, 1971), pp. 8–11; R. Moss, “Urban Guerrillas in
Uruguay,” Problems of Communism 20, 5 (September–October 1971),
pp. 14–23.
2. “Carta Abierta a la Policía,” printed in Epoca, December 7, 1967. Reprinted in
Luis Costa Bonino, Crisis de los Partidos Tradicionales y Movimiento
Revolucionario en el Uruguay (Montevideo, Uruguay: Ediciones de la Banda
Oriental, 1985), p. 102 and Mercarder and de Vera, Tupamaros: Estrategía y
Acción, p. 131. Author’s translation.
3. Costa Bonino, Crisis de los Partidos, p. 83.
4. Leo Harari, as reported in Aquí, March 11, 1986.
5. Búsqueda, January 23, 1986.
6. Comment made on the television program, “Sala de Redacción,” Channel 5,
June 6, 2004. Cited in Jorge Lanzaro, La izquierda Uruguay, entre la oposición y
el gobierno, (Montevideo, Uruguay: Editorial Fin de Siglo, 2004).
7. Paper presented at the XXII Congress of the Latin American Studies Association,
Miami, FL, March 2000.
CHAPTER 5
The Colombian Contradiction:

Lessons Drawn from Guerrilla
Experiments in Demobilization
and Electoralism
Suzanne Wilson and Leah A. Carroll
D
espite over two decades of negotiations between the guerrilla
movements and the various governments of Colombia, and despite
the formers’ participation in electoral politics since the 1980s,
Colombian revolutionaries have failed to realize major electoral successes.
As of 2006, Colombia stands as one of the few South American countries
not to have elected a leftist or center-left leader. Along with Colombia’s
unique political history, an important part of the explanation relates to the
persistence of the armed conflict that has made the paths of leftist parties
very difficult.
Unlike Central America, Colombian peace processes demobilized and
incorporated only a portion of the country’s guerrillas into legal parties.
For almost 25 years, the government’s various negotiations with the coun-
try’s largest guerrilla group, the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de
Colombia (FARC, Armed Revolutionary Forces of Colombia) have all
eventually failed and produced backlashes, including the creation of right-
wing paramilitary groups in the 1980s and the election of a rightist presi-
dent, Álvaro Uribe, in 2002 and 2006.1 Despite fewer guerrilla kidnapping,
many guerrilla fighters have not demobilized, their military structures
remain intact, and political violence continues unabated.2 Though the
mostly urban based, legal Left (in which former guerrillas are a minority)
82 ● Suzanne Wilson and Leah A. Carroll
has resurged since 2002 and become united in their opposition against
Uribe, leftist parties still have to contend with being labeled “guerrilla
auxiliaries” and having their members assassinated.
After describing the Colombian national context before 1982, this chap-
ter analyzes the different demobilization and peace processes that have
occurred from 1982 to 2006 and their impacts on the Colombian Left.3 We
divide these years into five periods. The first period (1982–1985) was a
euphoric moment, when all the major guerrilla groups (except the Ejército
de Liberación Nacional [ELN, National Liberation Army]) signed cease-
fire agreements. The government incorporated social movements (espe-
cially those in combat zones) into the peace process. The FARC attempted
a guerrillas-to-politicians transition via a cease-fire, the shift of some mem-
bers to legal political work, and the creation of the Unión Patriótica (UP,
Patriotic Union party). The second period (1986–1989), however, saw
“mixed signals.” The government enacted a major democratic reform, the
direct election of mayors, and the FARC backed the UP’s electoral efforts.
Nevertheless, the guerrilla-military war resumed, the FARC reclandesti-
nized, and paramilitary violence (often aimed at UP members) escalated.
During the third period (1990–1994), five smaller guerrilla movements
either partially or completely demobilized. Four demobilized in time to
help rewrite Colombia’s constitution in 1991. Many demobilized guerrillas
helped form political parties including the Alianza Democrática M-19 (AD
M-19, M-19 Democratic Alliance party) . The party gained short-term elec-
toral success, but, in doing so, adopted moderate, antiguerrilla rhetoric,
and allied with elite segments. The fourth period (1995–2002) witnessed
the armed conflict’s amplification, unsuccessful peace talks with the FARC,
and leftist parties’ minimal success. The final period (from 2002 to mid-
2006) saw right-wing control combined with the Left’s regeneration. Uribe
pursued “democratic security” policies that cracked down on guerrilla
groups but waived civil liberties. Ironically, his first administration helped
generate the coalescence and electoral success of a leftist party, the Polo
Democrático Alternativo (PDA, Democratic Alternative Pole).4 We con-
clude with insights derived from these various demobilization and peace
processes.
The Colombian National Context before 1982

Although Colombia generally has had democracies, its political institutions
historically have been elite-dominated and centralized. Attempts to contain
the centrifugal forces of regional separatism guaranteed that the two dom-
inant parties, the Liberals and the Conservatives, would monopolize
The Colombian Contradiction ● 83
political power. Presidents appointed governors and governors appointed

mayors based upon their ability to generate votes for provincial assembly
members.5 These political traits excluded the Left from local power and
prevented it from becoming powerful enough at the national level to elect
a critical mass of senators or representatives.
Long-standing inter-elite competition between the Liberal and
Conservative Parties reinforced three characteristics: stable electoral insti-
tutions; political institutions largely co-opted by factional elite interests;
and recurring partisan civil wars.6 In the mid-twentieth century, the largest
of these wars, La Violencia, claimed almost 200,000 lives.7 The National
Front (1958–1974), a bipartisan political pact ending La Violencia, further
excluded nonelites from political power.
During the 1960s and early 1970s, insurgents established Colombia’s
four main guerrilla movements. Started in 1964, the Cuban-oriented ELN
possessed strongholds among peasant settlers in the Middle Magdalena
Valley.8 It survived near decimation in the mid-1970s and grew to 382 com-
batants by 1984. Founded in 1966, the FARC had 1,834 fighters by 1984.
Its greatest strength was among recent peasant settlers in the Eastern Plains.
Launched in 1967, the Maoist Ejército Popular de Liberación (EPL, Popular
Liberation Army) had 430 members by the mid-1980s with strongholds
among teachers, banana workers, and peasant colonists. Colombia’s other
principal guerrilla group in the mid-1980s was the Movimiento 19 de Abril
(M-19, April 19th Movement), begun in 1972. Though much of its leader-
ship broke away from the FARC or the Communist Party, another M-19
faction broke off from the Alianza Nacional Popular (ANAPO, National
Popular Alliance) political party. Although it only had 981 fighters in 1984,
the M-19 cultivated widespread sympathy. Its populist ideological origins,
constituency among urban students, and penchant for media-friendly
actions (e.g., stealing Simon Bolívar’s sword in 1974) differentiated the
M-19 from the other guerrilla groups.
Together, Colombia’s elite-controlled democratic system, bipartisan
rule, and varied guerrilla groups set the stage for the subsequent
peace processes, demobilizations, and endeavors at guerrilla-to-politician
transitions.
1982–1985: Democratic Reform and

Peace Negotiations
By the early 1980s, military-guerrilla confrontations and security-force
human rights violations against civilians reached such intense levels that
Belisario Betancur (1982–1986) won the presidential election on a peace
ticket, ushering in a reform era. In 1982, his administration initiated peace

negotiations with guerrilla groups.9 It offered amnesty and material benefits
to demobilized fighters, freedom for jailed guerrillas, a national dialogue
with major political actors (including guerrilla groups), and state resources
for the social movements, including those in areas with a significant guer-
rilla presence. Betancur coupled his peace process with support for demo-
cratic political reforms, including the direct elections of mayors.
The government’s peace efforts achieved cease-fires with three of
Colombia’s four main guerrilla movements (all but the ELN) as well as with
a smaller guerrilla group (the Auto Defensa Obrera or Workers’ Self-Defense
Group). These cease-fire agreements, however, did not require these groups
to demobilize or completely disarm. One group, the FARC, designated sev-
eral commanders to focus on political action, even as they remained active
in the FARC leadership. In 1985, it founded a political party, the UP, which
the Communist Party, other leftists, and some traditional party members
quickly joined. In recently settled provinces (e.g., Caquetá, Guaviare,
Putumayo, and Arauca) and regions with strong rural worker movements
(e.g., Urabá), the peace processes promoted social movements and opened
local spaces for leftist participation.10 By 1985, the level of violence, includ-
ing guerrilla-military combat and security forces’ human rights violations
against civilians, had dropped.11
Betancur’s peace negotiations, however, eventually failed. Many elite
groups, especially rural ones, bitterly opposed them. High-ranking military
leaders openly criticized Betancur’s peace process, refused to support it, and
continued counterinsurgency actions. When security forces began attack-
ing guerrilla members and encampments, the cease-fire agreements started
to erode. In mid-1985, the M-19 and EPL renounced their agreements with
the government. The peace process ended in, de facto, November 1985,
when the M-19 guerrilla group took over the national Supreme Court
building. The army counterattacked, rather than negotiate, killing over
100 people, including 12 Supreme Court justices and several top M-19
leaders.12
1986–1989: Mixed Signals of Reform and Backlash

With diminished support for the peace process, the next president, Virgilio
Barco (1986–1990), adopted a harder line with the guerrillas. While his
administration still met with guerrillas and implemented decentralizing
reforms (e.g., the direct election of mayors in 1988), it deemphasized
allocating resources to social movements as a road to peace, pressed harder
for demobilization, and devoted much less political capital to guerrilla
negotiations than Betancur’s administration had. By the end of Barco’s

term, FARC-government relations were bitter, with each side accusing the
other of cease-fire violations and violence against civilians.
In 1986, however, hopes for the government-FARC peace process still
existed and helped the UP achieve electoral success. In the March 1986
municipal and legislative elections, its candidates, including two former
FARC commanders, won five Senate seats and nine House seats in the
national congress.13 The party gained 18 seats in 11 provincial legislatures
and 335 seats in 187 municipal councils. It won a plurality or majority in
18 of these councils, all of which were rural. The party became the main
political force in Arauca and Guaviare provinces. In May 1986, the UP’s
presidential candidate, a former judge, Jaime Pardo Leal, won 4.5 percent
of the national vote, the highest percentage that a leftist presidential candi-
date ever had won to date.14
During the 1980s, the coca economy quickly expanded and this was
exploited by both the guerrillas and paramilitary forces. Almost nonexis-
tent in the mid-1970s, coca hectares grew to approximately 16,000 in 1985
and to about 42,000 in 1989.15 Coca growing often took place in newly
settled, sparsely populated areas, many with a guerrilla presence. The
increase in coca cultivation made territorial control more important and
provided funds to armed actors. Although the guerrillas negotiated with
traffickers for better prices for coca-growers, they received “taxes” from
coca farming, coca-paste production, and transportation in areas under
their control. While the paramilitaries also collected “fees” from coca-
growing areas, they also received significant funds from cocaine refiners
and exporters.16 Along with regional elites and sectors of security forces,
drug traffickers backed and organized paramilitary groups in the 1980s.17
In the mid-1980s, the paramilitaries expanded and stepped up their vio-
lence. They were especially active in regions with a guerrilla presence or
strong social movements that threatened landowners’ political power.
Paramilitary violence helped fuel political homicides, which grew from 630
in 1985 to 2,007 in 1990.18 Paramilitary groups were responsible for most
of these homicides and for over 80 percent of the ones against political and
social movement leaders from 1988 to 1990.19
They especially targeted UP activists. By late 1986, the paramilitaries,
along with security forces, had assassinated 3 UP congressmen, 1 provincial
deputy, 11 city council members, 1 judge, 130 party activists, 34 support-
ers, and 24 guerrillas who supported the cease-fire.20 By October 1987, the
UP death toll included 471 party members, 4 congresspersons, and its
presidential candidate, Jaime Pardo Leal.21 One leftist candidate said, “The
slogan we kept hearing was, ‘Elected on Sunday, dead on Monday.’”22
This slogan seemed to reflect what happened in March 1988, when

Colombia held its first direct mayoral elections. Assassins killed over 100
UP candidates for municipal councils and 29 of the 87 UP candidates
for mayor.23 While 256 UP candidates gained municipal council posi-
tions, only 16 UP candidates won mayorships in Colombia’s 1,009
municipalities.24
The FARC responded in kind to the state’s mixed signals and activists’
killings. In a well-publicized incident in June 1987, the FARC ambushed an
army convoy in southern Caquetá, killing 27 soldiers.25 The incident led to
the definitive collapse of the government-FARC cease-fire agreement signed
in 1984. The FARC began assassinating elites linked to paramilitary activ-
ity, even though this “solution” only intensified the violence against the
noncombatant Left.26 At the same time, it continued to support social
movement activism and electoral activity, although its links to social move-
ments were not as strong as when it initially began peace talks during the
Betancur administration.27 Its strategy of simultaneously supporting armed
struggle and electoral/social movement participation resulted in political
marginality and government officials believing they have been deceived by
it.28 Because of Colombia’s low judicial prosecution rate for murders, the
FARC’s approach encouraged paramilitary attacks with impunity on
amnestied guerrillas, leftist candidates, and social movement activists.29 In
early 1987, many amnestied FARC fighters (including its two commanders
in congress) rejoined the armed struggle and the FARC withdrew its active
support from the UP in 1989.30
Colombia’s first guerrilla-to-politician transition was problematic from
both the Right’s and Left’s points of view. The military and elites saw the
peace processes as “coddling” guerrillas and pointed to their failure to
demobilize guerrilla groups. By the end of the 1980s, guerilla groups’ (espe-
cially the FARC’s and ELN’s) ranks had grown from 3,682 in 1984 to
around 12,000 by 1990.31 The Left denounced Barco’s hostile responses to
social movements and lamented the UP’s members’ assassinations, and the
party’s short-lived electoral successes. The party’s deadly experiences would
haunt subsequent peace negotiations, leftist political parties, and guerrilla-
to-politician transitions over the next two decades.
1990–1994: The Constitutional Assembly and

Smaller Groups’ Demobilization
After the FARC’s strategy of “combination of all forms of struggle” failed,
a bifurcation occurred within the guerrilla movement as a whole. Guerrilla
groups opted for either electoral participation or continued armed
struggle—but not both. Their chosen strategy tended to correspond to the

group’s size, military strength, and, to some extent, constituency. The
demobilized groups were smaller or weaker militarily; several had urban or
worker-based constituencies. Conversely, many peasant-based and militar-
ily strong groups (e.g., the FARC, the ELN, and a dissident EPL group)
remained armed, eschewed electoral politics, and opted not to participate
in the 1991 Constitutional Assembly.
President César Gaviria (1990–1994) continued peace initiatives that
Barco had begun shortly before leaving office. From 1989 to 1991, four
groups (or significant parts of their membership) signed peace agreements.
In the early 1990s, all the M-19 (791 members), the EPL´s main faction
(2,149 fighters), all the 205-member Partido Revolucionario de los
Trabajadores (PRT, Workers Revolutionary Party), and all the tiny (around
140 fighters) indigenous Quintín Lame (QL) group demobilized.32 The
government offered the demobilized groups amnesty for political crimes,
employment projects, and their groups’ spokespersons’ presence in the 1991
Constitutional Assembly.
In 1994, 430 fighters from the Corriente de Renovación Socialista
(CRS), a faction from the Unión Camilista-Ejército de Liberación Nacional
(UC-ELN, Camilist Union-National Liberation Army) guerrilla group,
laid down their arms.33 The CRS’s demobilization agreement gave it two
seats in the House of Representatives, state resources and development
projects in localities where they had ties to social movements (especially
peasant-based ones), and the formation of special peace jurisdictions in 195
municipalities.34
Many former guerrillas went on to participate in electoral politics. In
1990, the demobilized M-19 formed a coalition with the Movimiento
Democrático Colombia Unida (United Democratic Colombia), an alliance
of social movements.35 Together, with members from other demobilized
groups, they started the AD M-19. Paramilitaries assassinated the AD
M-19’s first presidential candidate and demobilized M-19 leader, Carlos
Pizarro, in April 1990.36 Pizarro’s replacement, (another demobilized M-19
chief), Antonio Navarro Wolff, denounced armed struggle and adopted a
moderate, social democratic discourse, aimed at urban electorates.37 In the
May 1990 presidential elections, Navarro Wolff received almost a million
votes or over 12 percent of the total vote.38 The party accepted President
Gaviria’s subsequent offer to head the Ministry of Health.
In the December 1990 elections for Constitutional Assembly delegates,
the AD M-19 received almost 27 percent of the vote and won 19 seats, mak-
ing it the second largest group in the assembly after the Liberal Party.39 The
AD M-19 formed a coalition with other delegate blocs, including the Unión
Cristiana (Christian Union) and the Movimiento de Salvación Nacional

(National Salvation Movement), led by a well-known Conservative, Álvaro
Gómez. With AD M-19 backing, the constitutional assembly passed sig-
nificant democratic initiatives, including direct elections of governors, elec-
tion of senators by national proportional representation, due process
protections for citizens in war zones, a new ballot designed to impede vote-
buying, and ground-breaking cultural, political, and land rights for indig-
enous and Afro-Colombian groups (including guaranteed congressional
seats for these groups).40
The AD M-19’s alliances during its stint in the constitutional assembly
and their participation in the Gaviria administration when it began imple-
menting unpopular neoliberal “reforms,” however, cost them their opposi-
tional identity and distanced them from their base. Along with internal
party divisions, the perception of the AD M-19 as being too conciliatory
with traditional political groups had negative effects at the ballot box.41 In
the October 1991 congressional elections, the AD M-19 gained only 9.4
percent of the national vote for senators and a little over 10 percent of the
vote for representatives’ seats.42 Nine AD M-19 members (including Vera
Grabe, a demobilized M-19 guerrilla), however, did win Senate positions
and 13 AD M-19 candidates secured House seats. In the March 1994 legis-
lative elections, the party merely received 2.6 percent of the national vote
and only held onto one Senate and two House seats.43 Several months later,
the AD M-19 presidential candidate, Antonio Navarro Wolff, received only
3.8 percent of the total vote in the May 1994 elections.44
Although the EPL pursued a different path from the M-19, it also made
pacts with elite segments. Some disbanded EPL members joined the AD
M-19 and successfully ran as that party’s candidates, including two AD
M-19 senators in 1991. Others retained their separate identity as EPL mem-
bers and formed a political party, called Esperanza, Paz, y Libertad (main-
taining the EPL acronym) or Hope, Peace and Liberty. To avoid the UP’s
fate, many EPL members who stayed in the rural areas such as Urabá nego-
tiated pacts with local paramilitary groups. The FARC and the still-active
EPL dissident group, however, accused former EPL fighters of being trai-
tors and assassins began killing them.45 Two years after their demobiliza-
tion, almost 200 Esperanza, Paz, y Libertad members had been killed.46
The still-active guerrillas’ accusations became a self-fulfilling prophecy
when EPL members sought military and paramilitary protection. In some
cases, they even became full-fledged paramilitary members.
The QL guerrilla movement took another course. The group had close
ties to the indigenous Nasa community (known for its well-organized,
militant struggles to recover land from large estate owners in the
Cauca province). Many demobilized QL fighters joined indigenous social

movements, including the newly founded Movimiento Alianza Social
Indígena (ASI, Indigenous Social Alliance Movement).47 With middle-class
support and two Senate seats guaranteed to indigenous Colombians by the
new constitution, ASI (and its demobilized QL members) achieved a
guerrillas-to-politicians transition that allowed them to be both faithful to
their rural base and electorally successful.48 In 1991, ASI won one at-large
Senate seat (along with gaining one of the two Senate seats reserved for
indigenous Colombians), and, in 1992, it secured 38 municipal council
positions and one provincial legislative seat.49 The party gained 8 mayor-
ships, 127 municipal council positions, and 6 provincial legislative seats in
1994.50 Like other leftist movements, however, ASI members risked being
killed. Armed actors assassinated hundreds of indigenous leaders in the
1990s, including several ASI mayors.51 On December 1992, 50–60 gun-
men massacred 20 rural Nasa land occupiers at El Nilo ranch in Caloto,
Cauca.52
The CRS’s ballot box experiences reflected its later demobilization date.
The CRS tried to compete locally and replicate the AD M-19’s electoral
experiences.53 Unlike the AD M-19, the CRS had few urban and national
alliances and never achieved significant electoral successes. Like other
demobilized groups, it also suffered attacks. During the negotiation pro-
cess, assassins killed 118 CRS members and 6 more during the follow-
ing year.54
Although the PRT received a seat in the constitutional assembly, it did
not become a political party. Former PRT members joined the AD M-19,
participated in regional politics, or worked with human rights or peace
movements, especially in the departments of Sucre and Bolívar.55 Their
1994 Senate candidate, who ran as part of the AD M-19, was not elected.
Although paramilitaries and security forces killed many demobilized guer-
rillas, they targeted UP members more often. For example, from 1991 to
1994, 18 AD M-19 leaders were killed, as opposed to the 83 UP leaders.56
In 1990, paramilitaries killed the UP presidential candidate, Bernardo
Jaramillo.57 Keeping in mind security concerns, party leaders did not
replace him with another candidate. By 1993, security forces or paramili-
taries had killed 1,163 UP members and “disappeared” another 1,234 party
activists.58
In March 1990, the UP fractured and six of its nine national council
members resigned their posts.59 Even though most UP leaders refrained
from openly disparaging the FARC, several national UP principals (who
the press dubbed as “perestroikos”) publicly criticized the FARC and advo-
cated its total demobilization.
The assassinations and the internal divisions undermined the UP at the

ballot box. In the 1991 congressional elections, one UP candidate won a
Senate seat and three UP members gained representative positions.60 In the
1994 congressional elections, only one UP candidate, Manuel Cepeda,
secured a congressional seat.61 Soon after the 1994 elections, however, para-
militaries killed this sole UP senator.62
Although the Gaviria administration oversaw guerrilla peace agreements
and the constitutional assembly, it simultaneously waged war on active
guerrilla groups. Security forces bombarded the FARC’s national head-
quarters, “Casa Verde,” in December 1990.63 The military’s attack was sym-
bolic because Casa Verde had been a site for peace negotiations in the 1980s
and the attacks took place on the same day as the constitutional assembly
elections.
In late 1992, after several prominent guerrilla attacks and failed govern-
ment attempts at negotiation with the FARC, ELN, and dissident EPL
group, army officials confronted Gaviria with concerns that his govern-
ment was too “soft.”64 Soon after that, he declared a full-scale war on guer-
rilla groups, removed legal impediments to counterinsurgency efforts,
suspended parts of the new constitution, and declared a “state of internal
unrest” (equivalent to a “state of siege”).65
As the possibilities for a negotiated peace with guerrilla groups became
more remote, combat levels climbed. Guerrilla-military combat fatalities
rose from an annual average of 520 in 1986–1989, to 1,720 in
1990–1993.66
Thus, as in the 1980s, the Colombian government in the early 1990s
negotiated peace agreements with one guerrilla group at a time, rather than
simultaneously with all of them. This tactic divided these groups into
“good guerillas” and “bad guerrillas,” with state discourses emphasizing
peace with some and war against others. From 1990 to 1994, five guerrilla
groups demobilized. Many former guerrillas joined legal parties, especially
the AD M-19. Accommodationist agendas and internal divisions, however,
ultimately sabotaged the party’s electoral success. The two largest guerrilla
movements (the FARC and ELN) did not turn in their arms and Colombia’s
internal conflict continued.67
1995–2002: Failed Peace Talks and

Accelerated Armed Conflict
Despite President Ernesto Samper’s (1994–1998) promises to initiate dia-
logues with guerrilla groups, he made little progress toward peace. During
the mid-1990s, Colombia returned to a situation similar to the pre-Betancur
reform period: a full-scale confrontation between the military and the
guerrillas, few peace initiatives, and a weak legal, electoral Left. This time,
though, paramilitary groups were present, the guerrilla groups were more
powerful, and the illegal drug trade helped fuel the conflict.
Throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, the armed actors’ numbers and
violence grew. In 1997, paramilitary groups unified in a national confed-
eration, Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC, United Self-Defense
Forces of Colombia). From 1997 to 2000, the paramilitaries more than
doubled in size, growing from a little less than 4,000 to over 8,000.68
Guerrilla fighters increased their numbers from 14,000 to 22,000 from
1996 to 2000.69
The guerrillas and the paramilitaries brutally competed for territorial
control, especially in regions with illegal drug crops, natural resources, or
strategic transportation routes.70 While the guerrillas committed numerous
killings and most of the kidnappings, the paramilitaries were responsible
for most massacres, noncombatant deaths, and forced disappearances inthe
late 1990s and early 2000s.71 Guerrilla kidnappings rose from 710 (July
1996–June 1997) to 1,933 (July 2001–June 2002).72 Paramilitary extraju-
dicial executions, killings of street people, and disappearances grew from
1,378 (July 1996–June 1997), to 1,882 (July 2001–June 2002).73 From July
1996 to June 2001, the paramilitaries were responsible for 66 percent of the
massacres.74
The expansion of coca and opium poppy cultivation fueled the armed
actors’ growth and violence. In the mid-1990s, Colombia overtook Peru
and Bolivia to become the world’s largest coca cultivating county.75 Opium
poppy cultivation and the heroin industry emerged in the 1990s.
Paramilitary and guerrilla (especially the FARC) groups’ income swelled as
coca- or opium poppy-growing areas spread.76 Hectares with coca cultiva-
tion increased from 37,100 in 1992 to 160,119 in 1999 while hectares with
opium poppies grew from nothing in 1990 to 6,500 in 1999.77 Paramilitary
groups also continued their direct participation in the more lucrative
parts of the illegal drug trade, cocaine and heroin processing, and
exporting.78
Although military expenditures increased from 2.16 percent of the GNP
in 1996 to 3.5 percent in 1999, the armed forces could not contain the
guerrillas’ military expansion.79 From 1996 to 1999, the FARC handed
them several stinging defeats, including a 1996 takeover of the Las Delicias
military base in Caquetá province. The guerrillas killed 27 soldiers and
held 60 other soldiers hostage, releasing them almost a year later.80
Following these defeats, Pastrana won the presidency (1998–2002),
promising peace talks, and soon after his election, he began negotiating
with the guerrillas. His administration agreed to the FARC’s demands,
including a demilitarized zone (zona de despeje) to hold the peace talks.
Although the U.S. press usually described the zona de despeje as

“Switzerland-sized,” it covered only five sparsely populated municipalities
in southern Colombia.81 Despite opposition from military and antireform-
ist elites, formal peace negotiations between the FARC and the government
began in 1999.
The peace talks, however, wore on while guerrilla attacks and kidnap-
pings multiplied. In 2000, Pastrana announced his support for Plan
Colombia, an antinarcotics package with significant U.S. funding (mostly
going to the Colombian military) and counterinsurgency elements.82 The
plan focused on aerially fumigating illegal drug crops and eliminating the
FARC’s presence in Southern Colombia. In early 2002, after three years of
negotiations and mutual recriminations, Pastrana terminated the peace
negotiations and ordered the FARC out of the demilitarized zone.
From 1999 to 2002, Colombia’s other active guerrilla group, the ELN,
reversed its mid-1990 expansion and began to militarily weaken as para-
militaries assaulted many of its strongholds (e.g., Barrancabermeja). It
intermittently met with the Pastrana administration, which agreed to
establish a demobilized zone for the talks in 2000. Soon after, however,
paramilitary groups helped organize local protests and road blockades that,
along with military opposition, eliminated the possibility of an ELN demil-
itarized zone. Since then, despite several meetings, the ELN and the gov-
ernment have failed to finalize any concrete peace talks.
Meanwhile, as the FARC expanded and the peace talks broke down, the
electoral Left splintered and faltered. In 1997, after several years of inactiv-
ity, the AD M-19 held a national conference in a failed attempt to revive the
party.83 In 1998, the AD M-19 won only 0.15 percent of the presidential
vote and 0.3 percent of the vote for the Senate vote, gaining no Senate
seats.84 In the same elections, two former M-19 and AD M-19 leaders,
Antonio Navarro Wolff and Gustavo Petro Urrego, won House seats, but
ran on a ticket from a newly formed alliance of social movements, called
the Movimiento Vía Alterna (Alternate Way Movement).85 The Left fur-
ther fractured when trade unionists, academics, former UP members, and
social movement members began the Frente Social y Político (FSP, Social
and Political Front) in 2000.
Other demobilized guerrillas and their parties also faced problems. In
1996, paramilitaries, security forces, or active guerrillas threatened and
killed demobilized PRT, EPL, and CRS members in Sucre province. From
January–August 1997, 23 CRS members and 16 Esperanza, Paz, y Libertad
members were assassinated.86 In the 1997 local and provincial elections, all
the PRT’s candidates were murdered and not replaced. In the same elec-
tions, the CRS withdrew its candidates from races in three provinces due to
death threats and killing of its members by paramilitaries and the FARC.
Although Esperanza, Paz, y Libertad members running on the AD M-19
ticket won several mayoral and city council races in 1997, EPL, PRT, and
CRS candidates were unsuccessful in the 1998 Senate elections.87 The
CRS, PRT, and EPL did not achieve significant electoral successes in the
1990s and 2000s, but many of their members worked in social movements,
especially at the local and regional levels.
The UP killings did not abate and the party continued to feel their
effects. By 2000, the UP had only 2 mayors, 30 council members, and 4
provincial representatives.88 In 2002, the UP lost its personería jurídica or
legal recognition as a party because it did not have the requisite 50,000
votes and an elected congressional representative in an election. By early
2004, assassins had killed 3,000 UP members.89
Ironically, the Left’s overall failure created the one bright spot in the
guerrillas-to-politicians transition during this period as “ethnic par-
ties expanded in the space abandoned by a discouraged and demoralized
[L]eft.”90 ASI increased its number of municipal councilors from 127 in
1994 to 200 in 1997, won the first governorship for the Left and an indig-
enous party in 1997, and in 1998 successfully elected two candidates to
congressional House seats, one indigenous-jurisdiction senator, and one at-
large senator.91
In the 2000 municipal and provincial elections, independent candi-
dates, many of them indigenous, received approximately 2 million votes.92
That year, ASI candidates won 11 mayorships, 8 provincial deputy seats,
and 146 local councilships.93 In 2000, independent candidates won four
governorships in Southern Colombia, including Colombia’s first indige-
nous governor, Floro Tunubalá, who won in Cauca with backing from ASI
and the Autoridades Indígenas de Colombia (AICO, Indigenous Authorities
of Colombia).94 In the late 1990s, ASI, however, became divided internally.
Francisco Rojas Birry, an ASI national senator elected in 1998, led a break-
away faction from ASI shortly before the 2000 elections, and successfully
ran as candidate for the regionally based indigenous group, Movimiento
Huella Ciudana or Citizen Path Movement.95 This breakaway group
included many former QL guerrillas.
Hence, government-FARC peace negotiations failed again and talks
with the weakened ELN did not even begin. Downplaying democratic
reforms and resources for social movements and emphasizing demilitarized
zones for talks and demobilization, Pastrana’s negotiation strategy differed
from Betancur’s in the 1980s. During the 1995–2002 period, the FARC
and paramilitaries increased their size and military activity. The former
now emphasized territorial military expansion rather than social movement
strategies.96 As in the 1980s and early 1990s, assassins, many of them

paramilitaries, continued to kill UP members. Unlike these earlier periods,
the electoral Left (with the exception of an ethnic party, ASI) achieved few
electoral successes, becoming even further divided.
2003–mid-2006: Uribe’s Rise and

the Left’s Resurgence
As guerrilla kidnappings continued to increase and their highway block-
ades prevented urban Colombians’ intermunicipal travel by car, key seg-
ments of the middle class and elites started demanding hard-line solutions.
In 2002, a rightist, Álvaro Uribe, won the presidency, promising to militar-
ily defeat the guerrillas. Although the first Uribe administration (2002–
2006) did not attain this goal, guerrilla kidnappings and road blockings
did diminish, and urban Colombians were able to venture outside of the
cities.97 Along with the economy’s recovery after the late-1990s and early-
2000s recession, these gains buoyed Uribe’s political standing, especially
among the middle classes and elites, and allowed him to push through a
constitutional amendment in 2004 that would allow for reelection of a
president.98
The first Uribe administration oversaw the highly publicized paramili-
tary demobilizations. In late 2002, AUC declared a cease-fire and, in 2003,
met with government officials in Santa Fe de Ralito, Córdoba, to discuss
disarming. The 2005 Uribe-endorsed “Peace and Justice Law” granted gen-
erous conditions to demobilized paramilitaries. These included minimal
punishment for offenses (including murder and drug trafficking), protec-
tion from extradition to the United States, and no requirement to reveal
information about paramilitary groups’ past crimes, organizations, or
financial support. In mid-2006, the government announced that the para-
military demobilizations had succeeded with 41,026 paramilitary fighters
having turned in their arms.99
Critics, however, decried the law’s lenient punishments.100 They cri-
tiqued its failure to dismantle paramilitary organizational structures,
amnesty for drug traffickers from jail time in Colombia or the United
States, and the paramilitaries’ retention of political, economic, and military
control of much of the country, especially in northern Colombia and the
Atlantic Coast.
Uribe’s antiguerrilla security policies also were scrutinized. In 2003,
with U.S. support and funding, Uribe started Plan Patriota or the Patriotic
Plan, emphasizing aerial fumigation of illegal crops and military takeovers
of FARC-controlled areas in Southern Colombia (especially in the former
despeje zone). These policies often trampled on the civil liberties of civilians
in the war zones. Security forces jailed suspected insurgents without due
process, paid citizen informers, and, often, did not distinguish between
guerrilla fighters and noncombatants when implementing these policies.101
These factors led to a backlash that eventually helped the Left in the 2003
elections.
Along with a backlash against Uribe’s policies and the aerial fumigation,
the weakening of traditional parties, the economic recession of the late
1990s and early 2000s, the resurgence of social movements and the legal
Left’s abandonment of the “combination of all forms of struggle” doctrine,
combined to help the Left electorally.102 Inspired by the independent can-
didates’ successes in the 2000 elections, Luis Eduardo (“Lucho”) Garzón,
the former president of Colombia’s largest labor federation, and nine con-
gresspersons (including former M-19 members Navarro Wolff and Petro
Urrego) helped start the Polo Democrático (PD, Democratic Pole) move-
ment in 2002. Drawing on his labor base and having a former M-19
guerrilla, Vera Grabe, as his vice-presidential candidate, Garzón, the
PD-supported presidential candidate, received 6 percent of the national
vote in 2002.103 In the fall 2003 elections, minus a breakaway faction, the
PD regrouped as the Polo Democrático Independiente (PDI, Independent
Democratic Pole) party, and won several important victories, including
Bogotá’s mayorship and 10 departmental assembly seats.104
Momentum from the Left’s electoral victories, a 2003 law doing away
with small parties, and opposition to Uribe united Colombia’s fractious
Left for the first time since the early 1980s (when another hard-line presi-
dent, Julio César Turbay Ayala, was in power).105 In late 2005, almost all
the Left (including the Rojas Birry breakaway faction from ASI) united to
form the PDA party. In the 2006 legislative elections, the PDA won 4
representative seats and 11 Senate seats, receiving over 10 percent of the
vote.106 In the 2006 presidential elections (when 55% of the Colombian
electorate abstained from voting), Uribe won reelection with 62 percent of
the vote.107 The second-highest vote earner was the PDA presidential
candidate, Carlos Gaviria, who received 2,608,914 votes (over 22%), a his-
toric high for the Colombian Left. He had significant support in many
cities and several rural areas, many which did not have major guerrilla
presence.
Despite these successes, the PDA has had to contend with death threats
(including ones against former M-19 leader and current PDA senator,
Gustavo Petro Urrego) and their members’ killings.108 Although activists
with no guerrilla affiliation vastly outnumber demobilized guerrillas in the
PDA leadership, the conservative press and columnists have labeled the
PDA as “camouflaged communists” or “guerrilla terrorists,” maintaining

cold war binary views of “either you are with us or the guerrillas.”109
As the UP experience demonstrates, these labels can have deadly
consequences.
In sum, the period 2002–2006 had contradictory trends. While the
national government was rightist, growing criticism of its leniency with the
paramilitaries, fumigation policies, and disregard for civil liberties helped
cement the electoral Left’s unity and success. By cultivating broad alliances
and avoiding the problems of “combination of all forms of struggle,” the
PDA managed to avoid the UP’s fate of extermination and political mar-
ginalization.110 When the PDA announced shortly after the 2006 presiden-
tial election that it would reject any offer to be part of Uribe’s governing
coalition and intended to form a shadow cabinet, the PDA made it clear
that the party did not want to repeat the AD M-19’s experiences of coopta-
tion in the 1990s.111
Conclusions
This chapter has analyzed almost 25 years of attempts to end Colombian
insurgencies via peace talks, demobilizations, and guerrilla-to-politician
transitions, and their legacies for Colombian leftist parties. The initial
experiment in guerrilla-to-politicians transitions, the mid-1980s peace pro-
cesses, was unsuccessful in two respects. First, although Betancourt’s dem-
ocratic reforms and government assistance to social movements had
important, long-lasting results, his attempts to negotiate an end to guerrilla
insurgencies eventually failed. Second, after a short period of electoral suc-
cess, the FARC’s attempts to transition into a political party, the UP, were
unsuccessful. Its “combination of all forms of struggle” strategy produced
electoral marginality, and the resulting deadly attacks on amnestied guer-
rillas, UP candidates, and social movement activists were tolerated, de
facto, by the government.
The next attempt at guerrilla-to-politicians transitions, the 1990–1994
demobilizations, had mixed results. On the one hand, they did not include
the ELN, the FARC, and an EPL faction, who carried on their insurgen-
cies. On the other hand, this time, the government insisted on demobiliza-
tions rather than cease-fires as negotiations’ end point. Five guerrilla groups
(or segments of them) laid down their arms and made the long-term transi-
tion to politicians. Before internal divisions and the perception of being too
conciliatory with elite segments took their toll, one party, the AD M-19,
founded by the demobilized M-19 members, had astounding short-term
electoral successes and substantial input in rewriting Colombia’s

constitution.
In the 1990s, while individual members from demobilized groups joined
the AD M-19, specific groups’ fates varied. The tiny QL indigenous guer-
rilla group had one of the more successful transitions to politician experi-
ences. Many of its demobilized members joined ASI, which, before splitting
in 2000, achieved notable electoral victories in the 1990s. Since the split,
the demobilized QL fighters and their allies have continued to achieve elec-
toral success via PDA senator Francisco Rojas Birry. Demobilized EPL,
CRS, and PRT fighters, however, did not fare so well, failing to achieve
widespread electoral success. Active insurgencies labeled them as traitors
and, along with paramilitaries, killed many of them.
Overall, Colombia’s attempts at peace negotiations, demobilizations,
and transition from guerrillas to politicians have had varied results. Despite
attempts at negotiations, the FARC and ELN remain active insurgencies.
Because Uribe aims to defeat them militarily, their transition to unarmed
politicians seems distant. The UP lost its recognition as a political party
and assassinations decimated its ranks. Although many demobilized
fighters from the 1990s joined the PDA, they are a minority within the
party. Some demobilized guerrillas (e.g., Antonio Navarro Wolff and
Gustavo Petro Urrego), however, are visible party leaders or held congres-
sional seats.
These “guerrillas-to-politicians” transitions offer the following lessons.
First, even though security forces and armed actors threatened or assassi-
nated UP members as well as ex-guerrillas who demobilized in the 1990s,
UP members, who ran for office while the FARC remained an active insur-
gency, were more likely to be killed than the latter who demobilized all at
one time. Also, in the 1990s, the demobilized guerrillas avoided govern-
ment accusations of treachery. During the mid-1980s peace processes, the
FARC did not formally demobilize its membership before engaging in
political action and forming the UP. Rural elites, threatened by both the
FARC and UP, helped form and back paramilitary groups who, along with
security forces, assassinated many UP members. Furthermore, when the
FARC commanders returned to combat and the military-FARC conflict
resumed, government officials felt deceived. In the 1990s, even though
paramilitary, security force, and guerrilla violence hit demobilized guerril-
las (especially Esperanza, Paz, y Libertad, the PRT, and the CRS) hard,
they were less likely to be murdered than UP members. The government
considered these guerrilla demobilizations to be successful and officials did
not feel betrayed.
Second, in the long run, ex-guerrillas were the most stable and successful
at the ballot box when they joined broad-based coalitions in which they are
a minority. In the 1990s, many ex-QL members joined ASI, an electorally
successful coalition which cultivated alliances with urban and middle-class
constituencies, along with rural ones.112 Colombia’s most successful leftist
party since 1982, the PDA, had a significant participation from demobi-
lized guerrillas, but the majority of its members came from never-armed
groups. The PDA has built broad-based alliances with other leftist political
parties, social movements, and many labor unions.
Third, demobilized guerrillas have been most likely to thrive electorally
over time when elite allies have been subordinate within a coalition or party
and the ties to oppositional social movements are sufficiently strong to pre-
vent the loss of their oppositional agenda. In contrast to the AD M-19 in
the 1990s, the PDA has avoided overt alliances with traditional parties or
elites, maintaining close ties to peace, women’s, and labor movements.
Unlike many other South American countries in 2006, Colombia has
not elected a leftist government, despite the PDA’s success. In large part,
this has been due to the armed insurgency’s persistence. The guerrilla’s
strong presence fueled many upper- and middle-class Colombians’ fears
and has allowed the “guerrilla terrorist” label to be applied freely to leftist
political parties building support for right-wing solutions.
In some Latin American cases (e.g. Mexico) where guerrilla movements
are strong but do not pose a significant national military threat, a pro-
longed “mixed signals” stage may result. This stage includes human rights
violations coinciding with reformist social movements and leftist electoral
gains. In most cases, this ambiguous mixed signals stage is not sustainable
over the long-term. It will “resolve” itself toward either peaceful democrati-
zation or a rapid descent into counterreform and war. Like Peru in the
1980s and early 1990s, the latter seems to have taken place in Colombia
over the past 25 years. In both cases, powerful armed insurgencies gained
strength, provoking first “dirty war,” then a de jure reversal of democratic
reforms, and an attempt (mostly successful in Peru but not Colombia) to
defeat the insurgency militarily.
In other South American countries (e.g., Chile and Argentina during
their transitions to democracy in the 1980s), the lack of threat from insur-
gencies (who no longer presented a serious menace to elites after years of
dictatorship) facilitated peaceful reform. In Colombia, however, guerrillas
still maintain considerable regional strength, threatening elites (especially
rural ones).
In the Colombian context, a negotiated solution may be the only route
to peace. If such a resolution does not come out of a powerful leftist electoral
mandate or out of international mediation (e.g., the Salvadoran and

Guatemalan cases in the early 1990s), it may arise only after both sides have
grown weary of fighting and many more civilian Colombians have gotten
caught in its deadly cross-fire.
Notes
1. Romero discusses how peace negotiations have produced backlashes: Romero,
Paramilitares y autodefensas 1982–2003 (Bogotá, Colombia: IEPRI and
Editorial Planeta Colombiana, 2003).
2. Adam Isacson, “La seguridad: ¿Una debilidad electoral para Uribe?” El
Espectador, March 27, 2005 <http://www.ciponline.org/colombia/050327isac.
htm> (June 2, 2006).
3. This article is based on more than 18 years of fieldwork and interviews by the
two authors. In 1992–1993, Carroll conducted extensive fieldwork in rural
areas of Colombia that had leftist mayors, with follow-up interviews in 1995
and 2005. In 2006, Wilson spent six months in Bogotá, Colombia, interview-
ing PDA leaders and activists and former members of demobilized groups from
the 1990s. She observed major PDA events and the 2006 presidential
elections.
4. Cesar A. Rodríguez Garavito, “La nueva izquierda colombiana: orígenes, car-
acterísticas y perspectivas” in La nueva izquierda en América Latina: Sus orígenes
y trayectoria futura, ed. Cesar A. Rodríguez Garavito, Patrick S. Barreto,
and Daniel Chavez ( Bogotá, Colombia: Grupo Editorial Norma, 2004),
pp. 191–238.
5. Jonathan Hartlyn, “Colombia: The Politics of Violence and Accommodation”
in Democracy in Developing Countries, Vol. 4, Latin America, ed. Larry Diamond,
Juan J. Linz, and Seymour Martin Lipset (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner
Publishers, 1989), pp. 290–334. In Colombia, municipal governments function
both as city and county governments. So, Colombian mayors’ responsibilities
include those of county executives and mayors.
6. Hartlyn, “Colombia.”
7. For an estimate of deaths during La Violencia see Marc Chernick, “Negotiating
Peace amid Multiple Forms of Violence: The Protracted Search for a Settlement
to the Armed Conflicts in Colombia” in Comparative Peace Processes in Latin
America, ed. Cynthia J. Arnson (Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center
Press; Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1999), pp. 297–318.
8. The qualitative details about the guerrilla groups’ histories are from Eduardo
Pizarro, “Revolutionary Guerrilla Groups in Colombia” in Violence in Colombia:
The Contemporary Crisis in Historical Perspective, ed. Charles Bergquist, Ricardo
Peñaranda, and Gonzalo Sánchez (Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources,
1992), pp. 169–194; Rodríguez Garavito,“La nueva izquierda colombiana.”
Estimates of the groups’ sizes during the 1980s are rare. Our figures are from
the Ministerio de Gobierno de Colombia, “Política de paz del Presidente Betancur.
PAZ. La paz es un derecho pero también es un deber,” April 1985, p. 2,

courtesy Marc Chernick.
9. Our discussion of the 1980s government-guerrilla negotiations draws on Marc
W. Chernick, “Negotiated Settlement to Armed Conflict: Lessons from the
Colombian Peace Process,” Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs
30, 4 (Winter 1988–1989), pp 53–88 and Chernick, “Negotiating Peace.”
10. Carroll, Leah. “Backlash against Peasant Gains in Rural Democratization:
The Experience of Leftist County Executives in Colombia, 1988–1990,”
Berkeley Journal of Sociology 39 (1994–1995), pp. 133–187.
11. Romero, Paramilitares y autodefensas, p. 29.
12. See Chernick, “Negotiating Peace,” p. 176.
13. Data and information about the March 1986 elections are from Constanza
Vieira, “Film Documents ‘Red Dance’ of Annihilation,” Inter Press Service,
January 24, 2004 and Registraduría Nacional del Estado Civil (Bogotá).
(Municipal Council Elections, 1986) and Chernick “Negotiated Settlement,”
p. 75.
14. See Registraduría (Presidential Elections, 1986) for number of votes for Jaime
Pardo Leal.
15. For coca hectares’ estimates, see Jaime Eduardo Jaramillo, Leonidas Mora,
and Fernando Cubides, Colonización, coca y guerrilla, second edition
(Bogotá, Colombia: Alianza Editorial Colombiana, 1989), p. 103 and and
Ministerio de Defensa figures presented in Romero, Paramilitares y autodefensas,
p. 103.
16. Bruce Michael Bagley, “Drug Trafficking, Political Violence and U.S. Policy
in Colombia in the 1990s,” Colombia in Context Working Papers, 2001, <http://
socrates.berkeley.edu:7001/Colombia/workingpapers/working_paper_bagley.
html> (June 17, 2006).
17. Romero, Paramilitares y autodefensas.
18. See Comisión Colombiana de Juristas’ figures about political homicides, cited
in Romero, Paramilitares y autodefensas, p. 90
19. Romero, Paramilitares y autodefensas, p. 90, presents Comisión Colombiana de
Juristas’ political homicide statistics. We calculated the 80 percent statistic
from Presidencia de la República data, presented in Romero, Paramilitares y
autodefensas, p. 92.
20. See Vieira, “Film Documents,” for number of UP assassinations by late 1986.
21. See Facts on File World News Digest. “UP[´s] President Assassinated,” Facts on
File World News Digest, October 16, 1987 for UP assassinations by October
1987.
22. Alan Riding, “Colombian Voting Marred by Political Killings,” New York
Times, March 15, 1988.
23. See Riding, “Colombian Voting” for UP death tolls in the March 1988
elections.
24. See Registraduría (Municipal Council and Mayoral Elections, 1988) for UP
electoral results.
25. See Jaramillo et al., Colonización, p. 218 for number of soldiers killed.
26. Romero, Paramilitares y autodefensas.

27. Eduardo Pizarro, “Revolutionary Guerrilla Groups in Colombia,” pp. 169–194.
28. The Colombian Communist Party also endorsed the simultaneous use of var-
ious tactics—armed struggle, electoral action, and social movement activity.
The party referred to this as the “combination of all forms of struggle,” or in
this volume’s terms, “guerrillas and politicians” rather than “guerrillas to
politicians.”
29. See Steven Dudley, Walking Ghosts: Murder and Guerrilla Politics in Colombia
(New York: Routledge, 2004), p. 187 for a discussion of Colombia’s low judi-
cial prosecution rate.
30. Dudley, Walking Ghosts, pp. 94–95.
31. See Ministerio de Gobierno, “Política de paz del Presidente Betancur,” p. 12 for
1984 guerrilla figures and Ministerio de Defensa figures cited by Cynthia
Arnson, “Summary of Conference Presentation by Alberto Chueca Mora” in
The Social and Economic Dimensions of Conflict and Peace in Colombia, ed.
Cynthia J. Arnson, Latin American Program Special Report (Washington,
DC: Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, 2004) for 1990
guerrilla figures.
32. See Comisión de la Superación de la Violencia, Pacificar la paz: lo que no se ha
negociado en los acuerdos de paz (Bogotá, Colombia: IEPRI, CINEP, Comisión
Andina de Juristas, and CECOIN, 1992) and Jaime Zuluaga Nieto, “De guer-
rillas a movimientos políticos (Análisis de la experiencia colombiana: El caso
del M-19)” in De las armas a la política, ed. Ricardo Peñaranda and Javier
Guerrero (Bogotá, Colombia: Tercer Mundo Editores and IEPRI, 1999),
pp. 33, 43 for demobilized guerrilla numbers.
33. In addition to the 430 fighters, 200 jailed CRS members and another 200
unarmed CRS members participated in the demobilization process. See EFE
News Agency, “Socialist renewal current signs agreement with government,
lays down weapons,” EFE News Agency, April 9, 1994 for number of demobi-
lized CRS members.
34. Cristina Escobar, Clientelism, Mobilization, and Citizenship: Peasant Politics
in Sucre, Colombia. Doctoral dissertation (San Diego: University of California,
1998), pp. 420–432.
35. Lawrence Boudon, “Colombia’s M-19 Democratic Alliance: A Case
Study in New-Party Self-Destruction,” Latin American Perspectives 28, 1
(2001), p. 75.
36. Mauricio Aranguren, Mi confesión: Carlos Castaño revela sus secretos (Bogotá,
Colombia: La Oveja Negra, 2001).
37. Nieto, “De guerrillas a movimientos políticos,” pp. 1–74.
38. See Registraduría Nacional del Estado Civil (Presidential Elections, 1990) for
votes for Navarro Wolff.
39. See Registraduría Nacional del Estado Civil data cited in Boudon, “Colombia’s
M-19 Democratic Alliance,” p. 78, for December 1990 elections.
40. Marc W. Chernick, and Michael F. Jiménez, “Popular Liberalism, Radical
Democracy, and Marxism: Leftist Politics in Contemporary Colombia,
1974–1991” in The Latin American Left: From the Fall of Allende to Perestroika,
ed. Steve Ellner (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1993), p. 75.
41. Boudon, “Columbia’s M-19 Democratic Alliance.”
42. October 1991 election data is from Registraduría (Senate, House of
Representatives, and Gubernatorial Elections, 1991).
43. For March 1994 election data, see Boudon, “Columbia’s M-19 Democratic
Alliance,” p. 79 and Registraduría Nacional del Estado Civil (Senate and House
of Representative Elections, March 1994).
44. For May 1994 election data, see Registraduría Nacional del Estado Civil
(Presidential Elections, 1994).
45. See Romero, Paramilitares y autodefensa, pp. 178–179 for a discussion of demo-
bilized EPL members and their fate in rural areas such as Urabá.
46. For number of demobilized EPL members killed, see Uribe figures cited in
Romero, Paramilitares y autodefensa, p. 150.
47. In 1991, Quintín Lame, a regional indigenous social movement (the Consejo
Regional Indígena de Cauca or Regional Indigenous Council of Cauca), and
local nonindigenous organizations founded ASI, see Donna van Cott, From
Movements to Parties in Latin America: The Evolution of Ethnic Politics (New
York: Cambridge University Press, 2005).
48. Virginia Laurent, Comunidades indígenas, espacios políticos y movilización elec-
toral en Colombia, 1990–1998: Motivaciones, campos de acción e impactos
(Bogotá, Colombia: ICANH, 2005).
49. See Boudon, “Columbia’s M-19 Democratic Alliance,” p. 40 and van Cott,
From Movements to Parties, pp. 201–207 for ASI electoral data in 1991 and
1992.
50. See van Cott , From Movements to Parties, pp. 201–207 for ASI 1994 electoral
data.
51. See van Cott, From Movements to Parties, p. 207 for ASI members’ killings.
52. Latin America Weekly Report, “Killing of Indians Prompts Land Vow: New
Landgrabbing Move by the Drug Traffickers,” Latin America Weekly Report,
February 13, 1992, p. 10 discusses the El Nilo ranch massacre.
53. Fernando Hernández Valencia, “La búsqueda del socialismo democrático,” in
El regreso de los rebeldes: de la furia de las armas a los pactos, la crítica, y la espe-
ranza, ed. Luís Eduardo Celis and Hernán Darío Correa (Bogotá, Colombia:
CEREC and Corporación Arco Iris, 2005), pp. 62, 66.
54. CRS member quoted in Escobar, Clientelism, Mobilization, and Citizenship,
pp. 389–399 and pp. 420–432.
55. For a discussion of demobilized PRT members’ electoral participation and PRT
electoral results, see Vera Grabe, “Peace processes 1990–1994,” Accord: An
International Review of Peace Initiatives 14 (2004), <http://www.cr.org/accord/col/
accord14/peaceprocesses.shtml> (3 July 2006), Eduardo Pizarro, “Las terceras fuer-
zas en Colombia hoy: entre la fragmentación y la impotencia,” in De las armas a la
política, ed. Ricardo Peñaranda, and Javier Guerrero (Bogota, Colombia: Tercer
Mundo Editores and Instituto de Estudios Políticos y Relaciones Internacionales,
IEPRI), 1999 and Chernick; “Negotiating Peace.”
56. See Consejería Presidencial para la Paz figures in Departamento Nacional de

Planeación. La paz: El desafío para el desarrollo (Bogotá, Colombia: Tercer
Mundo Editores, 1998), p. 77 for numbers of killed AD M-19 and UP
members.
57. Aranguren, Mi Confesión.
58. See Vieira, “Film Documents” for numbers of assassinated UP members.
59. See Dudley, Walking Ghosts for a discussion of internal UP divisions.
60. Registraduría Nacional del Estado (Senate, House of Representatives, and
Gubernatorial Elections, 1991) lists UP electoral results in 1991.
61. See Registraduría Nacional del Estado (Senate and House of Representative
Elections, March, 1994) for UP electoral results in 1994.
62. Aranguren, Mi Confesión.
63. Latin America Weekly Report, “Raid on Casa Verde,” Latin America Weekly
Report, December 27, 1990.
64. Chernick, “Negotiating Peace.”
65. The “state of internal unrest” decree permitted the president to enact measures
without legislative approval, to remove governors and mayors suspected of sup-
porting guerrillas, and to restrict the media. See Maria Isabel Garcia, “Labor,
Leftist Parties Oppose State of Emergency,” Inter Press Service, November 9,
1992 for a discussion of the “state of internal unrest.”
66. For numbers of guerrilla-military combat fatalities, see Ministerio de Defensa
statistics cited by Nazih Richani, Systems of Violence: The Political Economy of
War and Peace in Colombia (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2002 ), p. 46.
67. The EPL dissident faction’s numbers and strength diminished in the 1990s,
especially after 1994 when the government imprisoned its leader, Francisco
Caraballo, see Grabe, “Peace Process.”
68. See Ministerio de Defensa, presented in Romero, Paramilitares y autodefensas,
p. 101 for paramilitary numbers.
69. For guerrilla numbers, see Ministerio de Defensa figures, cited in Arnson,
“Summary of Presentation by Alberto Chueca Mora,” pp. 2–9.
70. Suzanne Wilson, “Terrains of Fear: A Comparison of the Colombian
Paramilitaries (1997–2002) with the Argentine Death Squads (1976–1983),”
unpublished manuscript, 2006.
71. U.S. Department of State, Colombia Country Report on Human Rights Practices
for 2001, (Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, March 4, 2002)
<http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2002/18325.htm> (June 11, 2003)
72. See Comisión Colombiana de Juristas, Garantías en creciente ausencia: situación
de derechos humanos y derecho humanitario en Colombia, 1997–2003 (Bogotá,
Colombia: Comisión Colombiana de Juristas, 2003), pp. 80–81 for guerrilla
kidnappings.
73. See Comisión Colombiana de Juristas, pp. 30–31 for paramilitary killings.
74. See Comisión Colombiana de Juristas, p. 25 for paramilitary massacres.
75. Bagley, “Drug Trafficking.”
76. Richani, Systems of Violence.
77. See Dirección Nacional de Estupefacientes, “Observatorio de Drogas,” <http://

odc.dne.gov.co/general/home.jsp> (June 24, 2006) for coca and opium poppy
hectares.
78. Bagley, “Drug Trafficking” and Richani, Systems of Violence.
79. See Richani, Systems of Violence, p. 45 for military expenditures’ growth.
80. See Associated Press, “Key dates in 288 days of captivity,” Associated Press,
June 15, 1997 for number of soldiers killed and kidnapped during the attack.
81. See Adam Isacson, “ Was Failure Avoidable? Learning From Colombia’s 1998–
2002 Peace Process,” North South Center Working Paper No. 14 (Washington,
DC: Center for International Policy, March 2003) for details about the FARC-
government and ELN-government negotiations in the late 1990s and early
2000s.
82. Isacson, “Was Failure Avoidable.”
83. Boudon, “Colombia’s M-19 Democratic Alliance,” p. 85.
84. See El Tiempo, pp. 1–2 and Pizarro, “Las terceras fuerzas en Colombia hoy,”
313 for AD M-19 electoral results in 1998.
85. See Rodríguez Garavito “La nueva izquierda colombiana” for a discussion of
the Colombian Left in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
86. Amnesty International. “Ejecuciones extrajudiciales, ‘desapariciones,’ ame-
nazas de muerte, tortura y otros tipos de violencia política en el departamento
de Sucre,” June, 1996, <http://www.amnestyusa.org/spanish/regions/americas/
document.do?id=62C3BDF9E9EBCB43802569A600608DA5> (July 9,
2006) and Yadira Ferrer, “New Violence Mars Election Campaign,” Inter Press
Service, August 22,1997 discuss PRT, CRS, and EPL members’ deaths in
1996–1997 and their effects on the 1997 local and regional elections.
87. See Pizarro, “Las terceras fuerzas en Colombia hoy,” pp. 312–313; Registraduría
Nacional del Estado (County Council and Mayoral Elections, 1997) for 1997
electoral results.
88. See Steven Dudley, “Rebels Launch Political Effort in Colombia; thousands
Attend Public Rally for New Clandestine Movement,” Washington Post, April
30, 2002 for UP electoral results in 2000.
89. See Vieira, “Film Documents,” for numbers of dead UP members.
90. van Cott, From Movements to Parties, p. 203.
91. See van Cott, From Movements to Parties, pp. 203–205 for ASI electoral
results.
92. Luis I. Sandoval. “Invierno y primavera en la política colombiana,” Revista
Foro 57 (March 2006), pp. 12–24 discusses 2000 electoral results and num-
bers.
93. See van Cott, From Movements to Parties, p. 204 for specific ASI electoral
results in 2000.
94. van Cott, From Movements to Parties, pp. 205–206 discusses independent
indigenous candidates in the 2000 elections.
95. van Cott, From Movements to Parties, p. 206.
96. Chernick, “Negotiating Peace.”
97. Isacson, “La seguridad.”
98. Toby Muse, “With landslide win, Colombia’s Uribe looks to 4 more years
combating violence, boosting economy,” Associated Press, May 29, 2006.
99. See Alto Comisionado para la Paz, “Primer informe de control y monitoreo a
los desmovilizados,” <http://www.altocomisionadoparalapaz.gov.co/noticias/
2006/julio/julio_07_06.htm> (12 July 2006) for the number of demobilized
paramilitaries, a total that has generated controversy. When the paramilitar-
ies declared a cease-fire in 2002, the Colombian Ministerio de Defensa (cited
in Romero, Paramilitares y autodefensas, p. 101) estimated their numbers to be
a little over 8,000. Why the paramilitary numbers soared during the demobi-
lization process is not clear.
100. For an example of critics, see Amnesty International, “Americas: Colombia”
in Amnesty International Report, 2006, <http://web.amnesty.org/report2006/
col-summary-eng> (June 2, 2006)
101. Amnesty International, “Americas: Colombia.”
102. Rodríguez Garavito, “La nueva izquierda colombiana.”
103. See Deutsche Presse-Agentur, “Uribe’s presidential win met with optimism in
Colombia,” Deutsche Presse-Agentur, May 27, 2002 for PD (Polo Democrático
(PD) or Democratic Pole party) electoral results in 2002.
104. See Registraduría (Municipal Council and Mayoral Elections, 2003) for 2003
PDI electoral results.
105. Acto legislativo 01 de 2003 (Reforma Política) mandated that political parties
with fewer than 2 percent of valid votes in a national election would lose their
charters as parties. Rodríguez Garavito, “La nueva izquierda colombiana.”
106. See Registraduría Nacional del Estado Civil (Bogotá), election results (Senate
and House of Representative Elections, 2006) for March 2006 election
results.
107. See El Tiempo, “Uribe y el Polo hirieron de muerte al bipartidismo,” El
Tiempo, May 29, 2006, pp. 1–2 for May 2006 presidential elections’ results.
108. PDA, “Amenazas contra integrantes del Polo Democrático Alternativo en
Antioquia,” Comunicado, June 14, 2006 and PDI, “Aesinados dos integrantes
del PDI,” Comunicado, January 15, 2005; “Petro insta al vicepresidente Santos
a que informe de dónde vienen las amenazas contra su vida,” Comunicado,
November 10, 2005; and “Asesinado miembro del Polo Democrático
Independiente en Barrancabermeja,” Comunicado, November 18, 2005).
109. See Registraduría Nacional del Estado (Senate and House of Representative
Elections, 2006) and links for senators and representatives on the PDA Web
site <http://www.polodemocatico.net.co>. Out of the ten PDA senators
elected in 2006, only one was a former guerrilla—Gustavo Petro Urrego, a
former M-19 member. Six were labor leaders or labor lawyers, two were for-
mer Liberal Party politicians, and one was from the leftist political party, the
MOIR. Of the eight PDA representatives elected to the House of
Representatives in 2006, none were former guerrillas. Three PDA representa-
tives were labor leaders, one was a neighborhood organizer, two were
independent professionals, one was a former Liberal municipal council mem-
ber, and one was an indigenous activist. See Romero, Paramilitares y
autodefensas for a discussion of how cold war discourses persist in Colombia,

and Rafael Nieto Loaiza, “Detrás de la pinta está la carne,” El Tiempo, May 4,
2006, <http://eltiempo.terra.com.co/opinión/colopi_new/rafaelnietoloaiza/
ARTICULO-WEB-NOTA_INTERIOR-287300.html> (June 2, 2006) is
an example of a conservative columnist who has labeled the PDA as “guerrilla
auxiliaries.”
110. Rodríguez Garavito, “La nueva izquierda colombiana.”
111. Semana, “La oposición está de moda,” Semana, June 2006, <http://www.
polodemocratico.net/article.php3?id_article=1315> (June 28, 2006).
112. Laurent, Comunidades indígenas.
CHAPTER 6
Guyana’s PPP: From Socialism

to National Democracy
Kalowatie Deonandan
Introduction
Amongst the cases in this volume, the People’s Progressive Party (PPP),
now the PPP/Civic1 in the Republic of Guyana 2 is an exception. For despite
its adherence to a Marxist ideology, the party’s struggles for ending colo-
nialism and exploitation were fought within the parameters of the union
movement and formal party structures, not by guns and bullets. Electoralism
was embraced from the very beginning and armed struggle eschewed.
Hence, the PPP is included in this volume as a comparative case to deter-
mine whether there are differences in strategies and policies amongst revo-
lutionary movements that had espoused divergent paths (bullets versus
ballots) once they enter the formal political arena.
Though the PPP disavowed the military option, it nevertheless shares
profound similarities with the armed revolutionary movements analyzed
here. Of major significance to this study is the fact that it adhered to an
ideology common to them all, one founded on the principles of Marxism.
In addition, the PPP fought for independence and democracy while
excluded from political power for almost 30 years through the machina-
tions of an authoritarian regime and its international allies. In this way, the
party’s fate paralleled that of many of the armed Marxist movements that
fought dictators from jungle hideouts for decades. Like its military coun-
terparts, the PPP was not in control of the state apparatus for most of its
existence and was not in a position to implement formally its political
108 ● Kalowatie Deonandan
agenda. However, while the party was returned to office by the ballot
in 1992, not all of the armed movements followed a similar path.
Some, such as the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN,
Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional), achieved victory by military
means initially and then opted for electoralism subsequently, while
others, such as the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN)
and the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Union (URNG, Unidad
Revolucionaria Nacional Guatemalteca) laid down their arms as part of
negotiated peace settlements then entered the formal electoral arena,
though with less success than the PPP. Still others, such as the African
National Congress (ANC), not only fought the armed struggle but even-
tually prevailed electorally.
Interestingly too, the PPP, because of its unique history and racial
makeup has many traits in common with its African counterparts that its
regional neighbors in Latin America do not. Like its equivalents in Africa,
its roots are in the anticolonial struggles, and like them it has the added
challenge of integrating race into its analyses and strategies. Reflecting this
connection was South Africa’s awarding posthumously to the late PPP
leader, Cheddi Jagan, its most prestigious national medal to leading inter-
national personalities, the Order of Companions of O. R. Thambo, in rec-
ognition of his “exceptional contribution to the struggle against racial
oppression and colonial exploitation.”3 As such, the PPP represents a
“bridge” between the two continents and the cases. For these reasons, its
inclusion here allows for unique comparisons to be drawn.
In light of the concurrency in ideology between the PPP and the other
cases, it is interesting to inquire how it was possible for the former to return
to power in 1992 and sustain electoral wins ever since, while not all the
other revolutionary movements have been as successful at the ballot box.
Take for example, the FSLN, which as Close notes, until its recent electoral
victory in 2006, seems to have been in a state of permanent opposition after
its early wins in the period following the revolutionary seizure of power. As
this chapter argues, several factors contributed to the PPP’s victory includ-
ing, the changes in the global arena, the role of international players, the
influence of the movement’s founder and leader Cheddi Jagan and the
impact of domestic factors. However, as this analysis will also demonstrate,
despite its alternative route, that is electoralism over armed struggle, the
PPP’s victory like that of the majority of cases in this study, was not just a
victory for democracy, narrowly defined in terms of electoral success, but
also a victory for neoliberalism. What the PPP experience shows is that
regardless of the original strategies for socialist transformation, be it revo-
lutionary or electoral, in an age marked by the hegemony of one superpower,
Guyana’s PPP ● 109
the victory of capitalism over communism, and the concomitant rise of

neoliberalism, the choices available to political leaders on the left are
severely constrained, and as such, the original mandate of their movement
becomes diffused at best, or lost at worst.
In the case of the PPP, what emerges is that on winning office the par-
ty’s conduct differed very little in terms of its policies and actions from
many of its armed counterparts now in control of state power and facing
similar material conditions. Though theoretically grounded in the ideals
of socialism, the PPP’s project evolved into essentially a reformist one. In
a commentary written on the occasion of the PPP leader’s death in 1997,
Kevin Davey described the shift thus: “Cheddi was a Caribbean Sisyphus,
a man who after fifty years forced the stone to the top of the hill. By then
the view had changed dramatically. And Cheddi’s project had become
‘structural adjustment with a human face.’”4 Accompanying the party’s
embrace of economic liberalism was the modification of its ideological
program whereby socialism was tempered and transformed into the pro-
ject for “national democracy,” as Jagan labeled it. Compounding the diffi-
culties stemming from this move to the right were problems relating
to centralization in leadership, one-party dominance, racism and even
corruption.
Before examining these themes it is must be pointed out that while this
is a study of the PPP, Guyana has several political groupings and parties
which espouse or have espoused socialism. The two most prominent, and
which have dominated the political landscape from the period of colonial-
ism to the present ( a two-party contest somewhat akin to FRELIMO and
RENAMO in Mozambique), have been the PPP founded and led by Cheddi
Jagan until his death in 1997, and the People’s National Congress (PNC),5
now PNC/Reform, founded and led by Linden Sampson Forbes Burnham
until his demise in 1985. The PNC, however, controlled state power for
almost 30 years, from 1964 to 1992, generally through manipulation of the
ballot box, corruption and outright fraud. The return to free and fair elec-
tions since 1992, all won by the PPP, thus offers the opportunity to evaluate
the latter and its performance since the transition.
Early History
The story of the PPP is rooted in the history of Guyana, a country that gained
its independence from Britain in 1966. It is a history that has been dictated by
the imperatives of colonialism, imperialism, racism, and oppression.
Initially called British Guiana, it was renamed Guyana upon indepen-
dence and in 1970 it became a Republic within the Commonwealth.
Critically important to the fate of the nation and the fortunes of its political
parties is the fact that Guyana is a multiethnic society, a reality captured in
description of the country as “The Land of Six Peoples.” According to the
most recent census in 2002, its population consists of 43.4 percent East
Indians (Indo-Guyanese), 30.2 percent African Guyanese (Afro-Guyanese),
16.7 percent Mixed, 9.2 percent Amerindians, 1 percent Chinese and 0.3
percent Other.6 While the percentages of East Indians and African Guyanese
have declined from earlier censuses, they still remain the numerically domi-
nant groups. This racial makeup has been exploited by political leaders and
international players for their own objectives to the detriment of the nation.
Appeal to racial loyalty has been a key feature of Guyanese politics,
especially where the two largest ethnic groups are concerned. Political sup-
port for the two dominant political parties, the PPP and the PNC is largely
determined along racial lines as the former is supported primarily by Indo-
Guyanese and the latter by Afro-Guyanese. This division is also reflected
in the political leadership as neither party has ever been led by a member of
the opposite ethnic group.
The nature of the Guyanese economy has also been an important factor
in the political direction of the nation. By the nineteenth century, the econ-
omy rested on sugar production (later, rice, bauxite, and gold were added to
the mix), and much of this industry was controlled by two British compa-
nies that eventually merged, Booker Brothers and John McConnell and
Company. By the 1970s, Bookers’ monopoly over sugar had extended to its
control over most of the nation’s economy and even politics. According to
one analyst: “Bookers was to Guyana what the United Fruit Company was
to Guatemala.” 7 Such was the company’s stranglehold on the state that
Guyanese referred to their country as “Bookers’ Guiana” rather than British
Guiana. In his well-known 1964 study, Capitalism and Slavery, the
Caribbean scholar and statesman Eric Williams proclaimed it “[s]trange,
that an article like sugar so sweet and necessary to human existence should
have occasioned such crimes and bloodshed!”8 It was the injustices of the
sugar plantation economy that gave rise to the PPP and Cheddi Jagan.
Jagan first emerged on the political scene as a union activist and this
background signaled the approach he was to take throughout his life to
bringing about political transformation in Guyana. His opting for union-
ism was perhaps not surprising as during the 1930s, the entire British
Caribbean was in the throes of massive union protests and revolts with
concomitant repression by the British. In 1945 he became the treasurer of
the Manpower Citizen’s Association (MPCA), a sugarworkers union.
However, he left soon after, charging that the organization was acting more
in the interests of owners than workers. Two years later, in 1947, along with
his white American-born wife Janet and several trade unionists, he founded the
Guiana Industrial Workers Union (GIWU ) that presented as the legiti-
mate representative of the sugarcane workers. The GIWU’s role in strikes,
marches, protests, and general activism on behalf of the sugarworkers,
gained its co-founders prominence, recognition and popularity. Seeking to
realize greater political changes beyond what the union movement alone
could bring, Jagan then founded the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) in
1950 and “tied the Indian sugar unions to it as a working class block.”9
Realizing too that he could not oust British imperial power and build a
strong and united country with the support of only half the country (that
is just the East Indian population) he moved strategically and invited a
talented Afro-Guyanese lawyer, Linden Sampson Forbes Burnham to be
chair of the new party.
With the two dominant groups symbolically united under one banner,
the PPP contested its first elections in 1953 and won easily. Its success,
wrote Guyanese scholar Clive Thomas, “was based largely on its achieve-
ment of a broad unity among the masses of the two dominant ethnic groups
(the Indo- and Afro-Guyanese.)”10 Victory, however, was short-lived as a
mere 133 days later the British intervened and ousted the government. The
ostensible rationale for intervention was that the PPP, a declared Marxist
Party, was inciting violence and was attempting to create a communist out-
post in the region.11 The immediate events which actually precipitated
British actions was the PPP’s efforts to introduce a Labor Relations Bill and
its call for a general strike across the sugar industry.
With the intervention came the imposition of an appointed legislature
which was to rule Guyana until 1957, at which time elections were again
permitted. During this period, in 1955, the unity forged between Jagan and
Burnham also ended as the latter (with the encouragement of the British and
the Americans who saw him as less radical than Jagan) left the PPP to form
a new political party, the PNC. This split also signaled the end of racial
unity and start of racial strife from which the country has yet to recover.
Restoration of the ballot also meant the return of the PPP to power, both
after the 1957 and the 1961 elections, though the voting was largely along
racial lines. However, in subsequent contests between 1964 and 1992, the
PPP was completely excluded from office primarily due to PNC fraud tactics
and its manipulation of the electoral machinery. For the British and the
Americans, however, Burnham was the preferred leader and under his rule
independence from Britain was granted in 1966. The end of colonialism,
however, did not bring an end to the deeper ills plaguing Guyana.
The Jagan-Burnham rupture had indelibly divided the PPP and the
country along racial lines. Most prominent blacks left the party and joined
the PNC, while Indians remained with the party. The PNC held on to
power (though Burnham died in 1985 and was replaced by Desmond
Hoyte) for the next three decades through outright fraud. It was only in the
1992 elections that the PPP again emerged victorious. In the following sec-
tion, the international and domestic forces, that facilitated this reemergence
are discussed.
The Transition: Explaining the

1992 Electoral Victory
The International Context
Pivotal to the PPP’s fate has been the role of international actors. It was a
factor in the party’s exclusion from power in the 1950s and 1960s, and a
major factor in its return.
It was under the supervision of international observers that electoral
democracy was restored to Guyana. Ironically, it was Cheddi Jagan, ousted
by the machinations of the British and Americans who himself lobbied
these same players to help orchestrate his comeback. He sought the assis-
tance of the U.S.–based Carter Center, requesting that it send observers to
the 1992 elections.12 The presence of the Center’s representatives was criti-
cal to ensuring that the elections were free and fair and undoubtedly
responsible for the PNC/Reform’s acceptance of the outcome, despite its
initial refusal to do so.
International developments were also major factors. As with the other
cases studied, the end of the cold war and the defeat of world socialism are
factors that cannot be underestimated in terms of the role they played in
influencing the transition to electoralism amongst radical forces in the
developing world. First, it meant that such groups had now lost their major
source of moral and material support and hence they had to alter their
practice and even theory. Some opted for a renunciation of the armed strug-
gle, others for an embrace of the free market, and still others for both.
Because the PPP never advocated an armed strategy, its reorientation was
more in evidence in its theoretical shifts and its adoption of a more market
oriented development strategy.
In addition, and this holds true for almost all the cases in this study,
capitalism’s victory over communism “heralded . . . a relaxation of American
obsession with anticommunism. In Guyana this favored a focus on civil
and political rights that enhanced considerably the moral and ethical claim
of the PPP to the right of governance.”13 The West’s, specifically the United
States’ paranoia over communism was replaced with an emphasis on
democracy—meaning free and fair elections, and these were laid out as
preconditions for financial aid and other forms of support. As such,

acceptance of electoral fraud as per the Burnham years would no longer be
palatable or justifiable. This situation was quite ironic, as Hinzen noted for:
“The very principle of democratic governance used to condemn him [Jagan]
was used later by the United States to justify his legitimate claim to execu-
tive authority . . .”14 It is interesting to speculate whether Jagan had an easier
time convincing the powerful Western states that he and his party were
committed to democracy since the PPP had never been an advocate of
armed struggle. For unlike Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega and the FSLN,
which still raise the ire of the United States, and against whose electoral
victory the United States still actively campaigns (as the 2006 Nicaraguan
elections show),15 Jagan was eventually “embraced,” for lack of a better
word, by his former enemies. As a matter of fact, he was treated for his fatal
heart attack in the United States’ Walter Reid hospital.
The Domestic Context

Undoubtedly domestic factors also played a powerful role in the PPP’s
return to office. The death of Burnham in 1985 had led to expectations
that there would be a loosening of the authoritarian ropes. Indeed, while
Burnham’s successor, Desmond Hoyte, continued with many of the PNC’s
fradulent practices, he was forced to respond to domestic and international
pressures to ensure fairness in the voting system in the 1992 elections. This
paved the way for the PPP. Hoyte was impelled in part by the changing
global tide, especially the growing emphasis in the West on democracy and
free and fair elections. Adding to the impetus was Guyana’s desperate eco-
nomic conditions that meant the country could not afford to be considered
a pariah amongst nations. As a matter of fact, Hoyte had already been
forced to abide by the demands of the Western powers by signing an IMF
package designed to restructure Guyana’s debts.
Relatedly, demographic factors within Guyana also must be considered
in the PPP’s victory. As noted earlier, Guyana is a country divided along
racial lines whereby Indo-Guyanese who are in the majority form the base
of the PPP’s support, while Afro-Guyanese are drawn to the PNC. Given
this scenario, under conditions of free and fair elections, the PPP will gar-
ner a larger share of the vote, as it has been doing since 1992.
The role or status of other domestic political groups contributed to the
PPP’s win. As Clive Thomas explained, in the post–cold war period, “a
number of alliances were formed with other political parties and
groups . . . [which] helped to intensify the campaign for free and fair
elections.”16 Relatedly, the weakness of the other political parties, a subject
to which this analysis will return, also explains the PPP’s return to power
as none were capable of mounting a significant challenge to it. Aside from
the PNC, other parties on the spectrum have only been able to capture one
or two seats in all the elections held since the transition.
It is also possible that the PPP’s prior experiences with electoralism also
facilitated its success, Unlike its counterparts who have been fighting guer-
rilla wars in the jungles, the PPP had conducted its struggles all along on
the electoral battlefield. Hence, the requirements of this process were not
alien to it. In this way it had a major advantage over the armed guerrilla
movements that had to learn the art of politics by the ballot box, including
organizing, campaigning, fundraising and so on.
Finally, explanations of the PPP’s resurgence must take into consider-
ation the role of the party’s founder and leader—Cheddi Jagan. He was last
in office in 1964, yet he was able to maintain the leadership of his party and
keep his base loyal. It has been suggested that for armed revolutionary
movements, keeping such loyalty is somewhat easier. Because of the vio-
lence involved in the struggle, the common injustices endured, the neces-
sity for secrecy and trust amongst combatants, and the brutality of the
counterinsurgency state, there is a unity and discipline forged amongst the
membership due to their shared experiences. This unity is invaluable and
provides much needed political capital to the leaders of the insurrection. (It
continues to be critical once they enter the formal political arena though it
has also been suggested that it can lay the basis for undemocratic practices).
For the PPP, there was no battlefield unity. Maintaining a united party
depended a great deal on the leader himself.
In Jagan’s case it has been frequently noted that he had the good fortune
to possess that rare and difficult to define quality, charisma, that enabled
him to captivate an audience (similar claims were also made of his oppo-
nent Forbes Burham who was famed for his oratory powers). In a study of
the Guyanese leader included in a volume on charismatic leaders of the
Caribbean (amongst them Fidel Castro and Michael Manley), the author
suggested that to his supporters Jagan was “almost a mythical figure to be
revered.”17 Perhaps the display at his funeral ceremony in March 1997 helps
to illustrate this. Commenting on the thousands who lined the streets for
the procession, the Guyana Chronicle wrote: “They came from all races,
classes, creeds—men, women, and children, the rich, the poor, the dis-
abled, the strong, the old and the young, waving black flags, clutching his
portraits, strewing the path of the truck carrying his casket with flowers,
and showering the coffin with petals.”18 For his cremation, it was estimated
that approximately 100,000 people, over 10 percent of the nation’s total
population, were present.19 Of course, it can be argued that it is blasphemous
to speak ill of the dead, even if they are politicians, hence the paeans to
him. Nevertheless, it has been 10 year since Jagan’s death, yet he continues
to have an iconic status amongst his supporters. While Guyana was granted
independence under Burnham, it is Jagan who is more often cited as the
father of the nation.
Another aspect of Jagan that “contributed to his extraordinary success,”
was, as Hinzen remarked, his “strategic pragmatism, a facet of him that was
evident from the birth of PPP.”20 Though, as discussed later, this also
brought him much criticism. It was this pragmatism that led him to invit-
ing the Afro-Guyanese Forbes Burham to join the party in an effort to
unite the two races in a multiracial nationalist movement; It was this that
led him to court the Americans in his bid to regain power despite the lat-
ter’s machinations in the 1950s and 1960s to oust him from office. He was
able to change with the times. America was the only superpower, the Soviets
were no more, Guyana was a poor country in need of a great deal of eco-
nomic assistance, and the time was ripe for him to appeal to the new
emphasis on democracy (free and fair elections) being preached in the
United States. However, as shall be discussed below, some of these same
qualities that earned Jagan much adulation and success also deleteriously
affected the PPP in the post-1992 period.
The Transition Takes Effect: The PPP in Power

The PPP’s win in 1992 represented many positive changes for Guyana. The
mere fact that the party was able to claim its victory marked a significant
advance in the country’s democratic development. While the elections were
marred by some level of violence, aggravated by the PNC’s unwillingness to
accept the results, the situation was eventually resolved with the assistance
of international mediation. As the New Statesman’s Kevin Davey com-
mented: “Nobody predicted the political stability and civil peace that. . .
characterized the first 12 months of PPP/Civic government. . . . Most
observers imagined that PPP retribution and PNC resistance would be the
order of the day.”21 What has been less satisfactory for many has been the
policies implemented by the PPP and the practices to which it has adhered
once in office.
The PPP’s electoral victory had brought with it high expectations.
However, while the party tried to address many of the country’s social and
political ills, it demonstrated that although its origins are rooted in a radi-
cal ideology, its practice duplicated that of established political parties else-
where. That is, in seeking to maintain power, the PPP modified its
ideological orientation and its economic and political stances to appeal to
the largest segment of voters and to placate powerful international

players. Admittedly, the party came to power facing many significant
constraints, but there is little evidence that the PPP sought to do politics
by different means. This becomes evident when the party’s ideological
stance along with its practices in the economic and political spheres are
examined.
Ideological Shift
While the end of the cold war in part facilitated the PPP’s victory, it also
signaled the tempering of the party’s socialist commitments, as it did for
many of the revolutionary movements examined in this volume. It was a
process initiated by Jagan himself, the Marxist and nationalist whose writ-
ings and speeches provided the basis for the party’s theoretical direction. In
his early writings, Jagan was staunch in his defense of socialism as a means
of ending injustice and poverty. In 1966, in his famous treatise analyzing
the Guyanese condition, The West on Trial, he wrote:
[B]ehind the ideal of freedom of . . . all . . . freedoms . . . lies the reality of

poverty and the suffering of tens of millions of human beings. Until the
problem of “freedom from want” is tackled, the other freedoms . . . can have
little meaning . . . Men, parties, notions, systems and faiths can only be
judged by their attitude to this, the fundamental problem of our time. It is
only when the system of exploitation ends and poverty is abolished that men
will really begin to be free. . . .
For the Western imperialists and their local collaborators in economi-
cally poor countries, freedom means freedom to maintain the status quo and
to exploit the working people. . . . This kind of capitalist democracy, how-
ever, disguised . . . leads to increased exploitation, suffering and misery for
millions of people.22
Consistent with this belief, he wrote in 1988, just before the end of
the cold war, that socialism was the only means of liberation for the
oppressed. He argued that
Only socialism with a planned economy can bring an end to unemploy-

ment, underemployment, hunger and insecurity, only socialism, with its
moral and ethical principles and values can bring an end to exploitation
of man, national chauvinism, racial and political discrimination. Only
under socialism can national unity and rich culture representing all eth-
nic groups be developed. 23
However, as noted earlier, though it embraced socialism, the PPP neverthe-

less rejected violence as a means of change and argued against the views of
traditional Marxists for whom unionism is narrow, economistic, and weak

in transformational potential. The PPP’s position is not surprising given
that the party was born in the union movement. Important too in its ratio-
nalization for nonviolence was the nature of its support base. Drawn pre-
dominantly from amongst the peasantry, small rice-producers, traders,
shopkeepers, sugarworkers and even fractions of the country’s large com-
mercial and landed interests, these groups, while they may have endorsed
the PPP’s Marxist ideology for economic and/or ethnic reasons, are also
known for conservative tendencies—unlike for example organized labor
groups, students, and intellectuals. It is highly unlikely that they would
have endorsed an armed project. Furthermore, as racial strife in the country
intensified, Jagan feared that an armed uprising in such a context could
degenerate into a civil war along racial lines.24
The PPP promoted itself a party committed to socialism. However, once
in power, there was a decisive ideological shift that Jagan explained in a
1997. Interview with the journal NACLA, just a month prior to his death.
What his government was doing in Guyana, he said, was part of a “national
democratic project,”25 in essence, conveying that socialism was off the
agenda. This move to the Right was further emphasized by his claim that
he was procapitalist, and pro-foreign investment but not at the cost of the
social state as businesses going to Guyana had to respect the environment,
unions and the right to bargain collectively.26 The change in the PPP’s plat-
form has since been entrenched in the party’s program and was reaffirmed
at its Twenty-Eighth Congress in 2005. In its program, the party declared
that “[b]ased on a profound analysis of the concrete situation, the PPP has
concluded that to ensure Guyana’s path to development, there is need for a
National Democratic State . . . which will embrace political and ideological
pluralism . . . and a mixed economy.”27 Quoting from one of Jagan’s earlier
speeches on the subject, it continued, “This is a state that represents the
interests of all classes, groups and social strata. It is an inclusive state.”28
The PPP’s shift to a more social democratic program was not unique for
revolutionary movements in this new global environment. Its actions had
parallels those of revolutionary movement across Africa and the Americas
as the examples in this volume demonstrate.
For Nalini Persram, this shift in the PPP’s position is not surprising. In
her opinion, from the beginning, Jagan’s ideology was less Marxist and
more rooted in the ideals of Western liberalism as it emphasized statehood
and nationalism as the route to emancipation. From the beginning Persram
suggests:
The concepts of modernity and Westernization, for example, go unchal-

lenged [in Jagan’s thoughts and writings]: Guyanese nationalism is an
ideology that unproblematically advocates the state as the vehicle for

emancipation from colonial domination and the political expression of
the postcolonial nation. The notion that the colonized are part of a lib-
eral world history, that they have a right to the Western inheritance of
statehood and to participate in the rationale of industrialization are not
thrown in to question. . . . 29
As a matter of fact, Jagan himself stated in the aforementioned NALCA

interview, “Our concept of Guyana Socialism was premised on plural,
peaceful, multiparty states with mixed forms of ownership. This was mis-
understood at the height of the Cold War hysteria.”30 From this comment,
it would seem that his ideological shift to a “national democratic project”
was perhaps not as difficult for him as it would have been for other Marxist-
revolutionary leaders.
Not surprisingly, as we shall see below, this ideological readjustment, so
at odds with the socialist ideals was nevertheless consistent with Jagan’s
history of pragmatism. Having inherited an IMF economic recovery pack-
age to deal with Guyana’s economic ills, he proceeded to align his ideology
to fit with the economic imperatives of the program and this then pre-
cluded his party from being judged on the degree to which it was adhering
to its socialist commitments.
Economic Shifts
Reflecting the shift to a condition of “national democracy” were the
economic policies implemented by the PPP from 1992 and on. It these
policies that led to Davey’s lamentations, quoted at the beginning of this
chapter, that “Cheddi’s project had become structural adjustment with a
human face.”
Jagan came to power two years after the cold war had ended, with the
former USSR having very little interest in continuing its involvement in
Guyana, with capitalism claiming “the end of History,” and with Guyana
steeped in an economic quagmire. The country was ranked as one of the
poorest in the Western hemisphere; its national debt was approaching $3
billion, allegedly the largest per capita debt burden in the world at the time;
and it was spending over two-thirds of its foreign earnings on interests
alone.31 The staggering debt burden combined with other economic woes
such as corruption, decayed and underdeveloped infrastructures, and over-
all economic chaos, meant that the nation was at the mercy of the interna-
tional community to bail it out. As a matter of fact, the previous PNC
government under Desmond Hoyte had already been compelled to sign a
structural adjustment package, the Economic Recovery Programm (ERP)
developed by the World Bank and the by the IMF in 1988 to stabilize the
economy that had significantly contracted during the 1970s and 1980s.
Heirs to this inheritance, the PPP and its leaders would be significantly
constrained by it economically and challenged by it ideologically. This lat-
ter fact is evidenced by Jagan’s rationalization of the PPP’s move to a
national democratic from a socialist one. From 1998 and on the PPP
government itself was compelled to sign new IMF restructuring packages.
Part of this restructuring involved the development of an official Poverty
Reduction Strategy, a precondition set by the international financial insti-
tutions (IFIs) and which countries must meet before they would be consid-
ered eligible for debt relief under the Heavily Indebted Poor Country
Initiative (HIPC), and then later, the Enhanced HIPC.
The ERP and its successors were standard restructuring prescriptions to
reduce dramatically the government’s role in the economy. Amongst other
things, it called for the removal of price controls, liberalization of the
exchange rate, nationalization of state-owned enterprises, reduction in pub-
lic sector employment, reform of banking laws and the implementation of
measures to attract private investments.32 As a result, dozens of parastatal
enterprises privatized, amongst them those producing some of Guyana’s
principal export products—rice, timber, gold, bauxite, and fishing. While
the packages did make for growth initially, 7 percent by 1997, this declined
to 0.5 percent by 2001 (though it had climbed slightly to 1.9 percent33 in
2004), and the government continued to face serious challenges in its
efforts to contain the deficit.34 According to the most recently available
data, despite the restructuring, “combined unemployment and underem-
ployment is estimated at about 30 percent, and even though Guyana had
negotiated almost $256 million in debt forgiveness through the HIPC and
other poverty alleviation measures in 2004, the country’s indebtedness has
since climbed to over 200 percent of GDP.35
In light of this grim economic picture and the country’s continued
need for assistance from IFIs, there is little likelihood of the PPP moving
away from a market oriented development strategy. As a matter of fact,
in their analyses of the economy, what the IFIs recommend is that
Guyana go deeper and faster towards marketization. As the World Bank
stated:
Reviving economic growth to pre-1997 levels will require an improved

business environment to attract investment not only in traditional sec-
tors but also in new areas with untapped potential. Moreover, an expan-
sion of the private sector is urgently needed to create more employment
opportunities (currently, economic activity is centered around the public
sector and the private sector is at an embryonic stage). While the govern-
ment has taken some steps to provide incentives to private investors,
there is room for a more systemic improvement in the investment cli-
mate. . . . [S]ignificant progress in private sector activity will require a
harmonization of tax incentives across investor types . . . and an

acceleration of privatization along with strengthening of the regulatory
framework (e.g., property rights).36
While in opposition, the PPP, in keeping with its socialist goals, had
strongly advocated nationalization of key industries. This had had the
incongruous result of Jagan offering “critical support” to the Burnham
regime (in large part due to pressures from the Soviet Union37) when the
latter nationalized important industries such as bauxite. Once in office,
however, the PPP pushed forward with its own privatization measures as
per the demands of the IFIs and in keeping with global trends emphasizing
development through marketization strategies. Signaling this change in
PPP policy was Jagan’s, assertion in a speech at the Carter Center, that he
considered the “private sector as the engine of economic growth.”38
The PPP’s economic program has resulted in the return of old corporate
players to Guyana, some of whom were the party’s strongest critics and had
actively campaigned for Jagan’s overthrow in earlier years. Included in
the group is Booker Tate Ltd., (formerly the corporate giant Booker
McConnell,39 the virulent anticommunist, anti-Jagan force in the country
during the colonial period). The company was brought back in 1990 to
manage the huge state-owned Guyana Sugar Corporation (GUYSUCO),
the country’s largest employer and the industry that provides the primary
source of national revenue. Booker Tate’s relationship with the government
has been “unusual” at best as it had a legal action pending against the latter
over compensation issues for its nationalization by the PNC in the 1970s;
in 2003 the company dropped the suit after it returned to manage
GUYSUCO.40
Other global corporate players include the large Anglo-Dutch conglom-
erate Demerara Timbers, a logging company which was given access to over
1.2 million hectares of prime rainforest and several other forestry compa-
nies from Malaysia and Canada. According to author Marcus Colchester41
and the environmental group Greenpeace,42 details of the nature of the
contracts awarded are kept secret, and very little royalty or taxes have been
paid by these companies to the Guyana government. Furthermore, some
companies, such as Malaysian-owned UNAMCO and the Malaysian-
Korean giant Barama, have not only been enjoying tax free investments,
but have been accused of logging illegally, violating indigenous rights, fail-
ing to adhere to basic health and safety regulations and having a preference
for expatriate workers over national ones.43 These developments are not
limited to the logging sector but are duplicated in mining as well, as the
Omai example shows.
Canadian mining interest Cambior Inc. and U.S. Golden Star Resources
won the rights under the PPP to develop the largest opencast goldmine in
the world in Guyana (the country’s gold44 and diamond mining sectors
are dominated by foreign firms). The joint venture, the Omai Gold
Mines was involved in producing over 70 percent of the Guyana’s gold,45
but the gains to the economy have been questioned. While the company
paid the requisite 5 percent in royalties, it closed its operations in 2005
claiming that the deposit had been exhausted and that it was not finan-
cially feasible to pursue further explorations. The closure came just before
the mine was due to begin paying taxes. Omai also gained notoriety for one
of the worst mining disasters in South America. In 1995, a breach occurred
at a waste tailing pond at the mine resulting in millions of gallons of toxic
effluent containing cyanide spilling into the massive Essequibo major river
system.
Still, despite the criticisms of the Omai operation, discussions are under-
way between the government and the mining executives to begin explora-
tions anew at Omai. The company argues that due to high world prices,
explorations which were previously economically prohibitive were now
financially viable. Any new explorations would of course be under a new
contract and hence the company would likely again get another decade of
tax-free holiday. In addition to these new explorations, the PPP government
established in 2005 a new joint venture with Cambior, the Omai Bauxite
Mines, with the objective of privatizing the state-held bauxite mining and
processing operation, LINMINE.46
Under the PPP, not only have international corporate giants been given
a strong foothold in the economy, but at the same time the party’s support
base, especially rice producers and sugarcane workers are becoming more
and more financially squeezed by the domestic and international economic
policies affecting their sector. Under the terms of the ACP (Africa,
Caribbean and Pacific) Convention for example, the European Union has
been major purchaser of one of Guyana’s primary exports, rice, absorbing
as much as 90 percent of the country’s exports. However, with the imple-
mentation of recent EU safe guards, this preferential market access will
come to an end in 2008, with an estimated 30 percent reduction of
Guyanese rice sale to the EU predicted.47 These problems are duplicated in
the sugar sector (which employs over 6% of the workforce),48 and in both
sectors they are compounded by internal problems such as severe droughts
and floods, poor management, slow technological advancements and fore-
closures by banks. Predictably, the consequences for workers have been dev-
astating as they face growing unemployment, financial insecurity and
poverty. Politically, for the PPP, this has meant growing disenchantment
with the party amongst its supporters, most of whom are drawn from the
rice and sugar workers, However, despite their discontent, they are not leav-
ing the party en masse because of their fears that doing so would lead to
racial domination by the other party or race.49
In sum, what the PPP’s economic direction tells us is that the party has
become almost indistinguishable from mainstream political parties in lib-
eral democracies, especially those facing the challenges of poverty, under-
development and growing competition for markets for its products. Their
economic program is one duplicated throughout the developing world,
reflecting the hegemony of the market ideology globally.
Political Shifts
Though the economic strategies of the PPP show few remnants of the par-
ty’s socialist origins, there have been some progress in terms of democrati-
zation on the political front. However, when issues such as race and
leadership are examined, some of the shortcomings of the PPP in the polit-
ical sphere become evident.
One of the most notable features of the transition in Guyana has been
the return to free and fair elections. Since 1992, the country has undergone
three other national elections. While the first three were marked by varying
levels of violence and unrest, with the PNC refusing to accept the results,
the most recent, in August 2006, overseen by international observers was
generally evaluated to be free of violence, corruption, and manipulation.
Overall, it can be argued that the election of 2006 was a signal of the coun-
try’s political maturity as it represents an acknowledgment by the political
actors of the supremacy of the constitution and the rule of law on matters
relating to political succession. According to the Council of Hemispheric
Affairs, for a society marred by years of electoral abuse and violence, this is
not an insignificant accomplishment, and some credit should be given to
the PPP government President Bharat Jagdeo.50
Adding to the strength of Guyanese democracy is the increasing number
of new political parties entering the electoral fray. Almost a dozen political
parties occupy the political landscape, with the most recent being the AFC
(Alliance for Change). This variety can be seen as a positive reflection on
the health of the political system as it contributes to the political debate,
provides alternative voices and offers the potential to dilute the racial divi-
sions entrenched in the two dominant parties. However, while the increased
number of political players may enhance democracy, there are also other
signs pointing to the contrary.
Guyana is a relatively small country in terms of population (about

three-quarters of a million). Hence, a wide array of political parties can also
be more of a divisive force. At the moment, however, these parties do not
show signs of posing such a threat. As a matter of fact, the problem is the
opposite, for aside from the two dominant parties, the others are all quite
weak in terms of their electoral presence as they have only been able to
garner one or two seats each. The lion’s share of the seats are still distrib-
uted between the PPP and PNC. As Hinds explained, while these smaller
parties rise in popularity in the interim between elections, this does not
carry over to the election period when “electoral support for the two major
parties is . . . a vote simultaneously for racial security and against the threat
of domination by the other party or race.51 In other words, there is fear by
one race that voting for a third party will split the vote, give victory to the
party of the other race and hence threaten the former’s security.
One-Party Dominance
While Guyana has a two-party dominant system in that the PPP and the PNC
are the major political players, since the transition in 1992, the PPP has been
in control of state power, albeit by democratic means. The party’s position
became even more solidified in the wake of the results of the past election.
The newly created AFC, which supporters had hoped would be able to
woo voters away from both the PPP and the PNC, succeeded in doing so
only from the PNC while the PPP held on to its electoral support. One
party that had been perceived earlier as a rising force and was the Working
People’s Alliance (WPA) founded and led by the black Marxist intellectual
Walter Rodney in 1979. The WPA was a multiracial organization with a
more traditional Marxist analysis of the Guyanese condition, emphasizing
class and not race, and advocating force to oust the PNC. It explicitly
rejected Jagan’s position of offering “critical support” to Burnham’s
nationalization policies and his participating in elections that were obvi-
ously rigged. The growing popularity of the WPA meant that neither the
PPP nor the PNC could ignore its presence. The party’s rallies attracted
huge crowds from both races, particularly from amongst the young, radi-
cal, and educated classes. For its leader, the charismatic Walter Rodney,
there was a swell in enthusiasm for the potential he offered for ending both
the racial divide and the stranglehold of the PNC on the country. Such was
the threat that Rodney posed that he was brutally assassinated by the
Burnham regime barely one year after the WPA was launched. Since the
death of Rodney, the party has been in decline, so much so that it did not
participate in the 2006 elections. The newcomer to the political scene, the
AFC, is its polar opposite, being more pro-Western and pro-market. It won
two seats in its first electoral outing, the most any of the smaller parties
have won thus far. One of the lessons of the WPA is that it demonstrates the
danger of a movement which relies heavily on one individual, an issue very
much of salience to the PPP and its leadership.
Centralization of Leadership
Though Jagan’s integrity, charisma, and pragmatism were important to
keeping the PPP united during the period in the political wilderness, other
aspects of his leadership have posed problems for his party in an age where
transparency is stressed. In particular, his leadership style has been criticized
as being more authoritarian than democratic and this has had implications
for his party and its future.
Soon after PPP was elected in 1992, one WPA activist stated (referring
to the failed attempt to building a government of National Reconstruction
which would include the WPA) stated that “Jagan behaved as if we were
still in the era of one-man government. . . . I don’t believe that’s the way to
introduce a culture of democracy in Guyana.”52 David Hinds echoed this
sentiment, with the observation that he, Jagan, had an “authoritarian
attitude” to leadership (which Hinds found was something endemic in
Guyanese culture given the history of Forbes Burnham).53 The PPP leader’s
preference was for ad hoc decision-making and he relied strongly on per-
sonal relations and friendships forged over time. Referring to the difference
between Jagan’s style of politics and that of the current president Jagdeo,
one party supporter noted that the latter has formally incorporated many
sectors of the society (business and religious leaders) into government by
having them head relevant commissions for example, but Jagan’s preference
was for a more informal and personal approach, to “pick up the phone and
call them” as a form of consultation.54
A more formal expression of Jagan’s preference for being in control was
his continued adherence to the Burnhamite constitution that had central-
ized powers in the presidency. Drawn up during the period of authoritarian
rule in the 1980s, this document accorded sweeping powers to the execu-
tive including the power to appoint and dismiss the prime minister and vice
president, dissolve the legislature, make appointments, veto all legislative
bills, and modify laws to bring them in conformity with the constitution.
It also granted the president immunity from several types of criminal or
civil prosecution in regard to actions he may undertake in his private capac-
ity. While in opposition, Jagan had criticized this centralization, but once
in office, he adopted a different approach. He argued that it was not the
powers that were problematic, but the way in which they had been exercised,
and he made no attempt at constitutional change. In reference to both

Burnham and Jagan’s affinity for power to be concentrated in their hands,
Hinds commented that they ”function[ed] less as first among equals and
more as generals and commanders-in-chief. This unlimited authority is
both formal and informal.”55 Modifications to the constitution came only
in 2001 when President Jagdeo implemented the recommendations of an
all-party constitution reform commission and abolished the excessive
powers of the president. However, according to Hinds, while “the PPP’s
constitution is less explicit about the unlimited power of the leader, its
historical adherence to the Stalinist form of party organization ensures
that actual power is concentrated at the top.”56
Relatedly, Jagan’s towering presence historically within the party and
his iconic status both in life and death, have meant that succession and
renewal have been problematic issues for the party. One of the drawbacks
of leadership which relies on charisma and the personality of one individual
is that he or she is not easily replaceable and hence the future of the move-
ment remains unclear. Although it has been almost a decade since Jagan’s
death, the PPP still invokes his name to legitimize policy, silence critics and
unify the party. His presence also still looms large in the society so much
so that even editorials criticizing present day PPP policies do so from the
standpoint that the party has been deviating from “Cheddi’s vision.”
Jagan’s memory is also being perpetuated by the dominant (and some
say domineering) presence of his American-born wife Janet. Critics charge
that her continued prominence in the party perpetuates a personal and top-
down approach to governing. After Jagan’s death, she contested the 1997
elections as the party’s presidential candidate and won. To many, her vic-
tory was attributable in some measure to the memory of her husband
amongst the voters. She stepped down soon after citing ill-health (she is
over 80 years old), passing the torch to the current President Bharat Jagdeo.
While leadership may have changed hands, there is, nevertheless, still a
great deal of centralization in terms of leadership selection. It has been sug-
gested that Mrs. Jagan plucked Mr. Jagdeo from obscurity (he was a junior
finance minister) to replace her because she saw him as someone who is
malleable and whom she could influence. She is considered by opponents as
the power behind the throne57 as is seen from this assessment of her influ-
ence in the party: “She does not seek the leadership of her party, but the
party knows she owns it, and she is in control, so they know she must have
her decisions implemented . . .”58 If criticisms of Mrs. Jagan’s influence are
true, it will be interesting to see how the party changes when she is no lon-
ger on the scene and when the invocation of “Cheddi’s vision” no longer has
significance for the younger generation. Indeed, upon the death of Jagan,
there were fears by some, and expectations of others, that the “party would
go down in shambles.”59
Race
Aside from the issue of leadership where there is evidence of contradictions
between the PPP’s claims to being a socialist party representing the inter-
ests of the masses and the practices of its leadership, there is also the issue
of the race, and there too exists contradictions between PPP theory and
practice. In the 1992 elections, the PPP campaigned on a platform of
national unity and committed itself to building a multiclass, multiethnic
party. Besides, Jagan had consistently declared that while race was rele-
vant, “[c]lass is more fundamental than race” in any analysis of the
Guyanese condition and in the development of strategies for societal prog-
ress.60 Moreover, in 1992, the PPP also pledged not to approach politics
and governing as a zero-sum gain, where the victor takes all, but to be
more broad-based in the composition of its government. Two major steps
were taken to meet this commitment. First, it tried to contest the elections
by forming an alliance with the WPA. The unity never materialized as
apparently the power-sharing terms were unacceptable to the WPA. Once
in office, the PPP again attempted a rapprochement with the WPA, offer-
ing the party’s leader, Clive Thomas, a prominent black academic, a cabi-
net post—the Ministry of Planning and Production. Again, the deal did
not materialize. Reportedly, because too many constraints were being
placed on the appointment the WPA refused and in the end the post was
never created.
Another attempt to bridge the ethnic divide was the incorporation of
the “Civic” component into the PPP. In general, this strategy involved a
power-sharing arrangement with members of the “Civic” composed of
Indian PPP supporters and African professionals61 (whom the party knew
were sympathetic to its bid for power.) For example, the leader of the
“Civic,” Samuel Hinds, is an Afro-Guyanese. He is also the prime minister
(a largely symbolic post) as well as the minister of energy and mines. (This
strategy was also duplicated by the PNC with its incorporation of
Indo-Guyanese professionals as part of the “Reform” component of the
PNC/Reform).
Despite these attempts at racial integration, the PPP remains an Indian
party and the ”Civic” has not won it any significant crossover votes.62 While
Jagan spoke of ethnic unity, critics say his actions belied his words and that
he did not exert enough effort to diversify the party or stop appeals to racial
loyalty. One such critic is the novelist Jan Carew who, when Jagan assumed
office in 1992, was quoted as saying: “After 28 years of discrimination, it is
inevitable that the government will be accused of Indianising Guyana . . . . Of

course, that is unfair. Jagan is a man without racial animus, but he must
do more.63
Accusations of “Indianising” were evident in the charges that the gov-
ernment was trying to purge the Public Service, largely consisting of Afro-
Guyanese. On assuming power, the PPP replaced, or reassigned to positions
of lesser responsibility, or suspended from duty, several high-ranking public
servants, mostly Afro-Guyanese, though some Indo-Guyanese loyal to the
PNC were affected as well. Amongst those replaced were the heads of the
state-owned media, the Guyana Broadcasting Corporation, the National
Newspapers Limited, the Television Broadcasting Company and the Public
Communications Agency. While some changes are to be expected of any
new government, especially one taking power after 28 years and facing
rampant public service corruption, there were charges that this was blatant
partisanship, made more blatant by the fact that many of the replacements
were filled by Indo-Guyanese loyal to the PPP. Aggravating this issue is the
fact that subsequent PPP governments have been involved in massive down-
sizing of the Public Service and this has been interpreted as the PPP nega-
tively targeting those sectors in which Afro-Guyanese are employed. To be
fair, much of this downsizing has come about as part of the demands of IFIs
to reduce the size of the state and to address the corruption problem.
However, what this issue shows is that, in Guyana, all politics is viewed
through the lens of race, and all parties exploit this to their advantage.
What makes this particularly disheartening is that the parties, in this case
the PPP, which have explicitly committed themselves to an alternative
vision of society and to an alternative modus operandi have fallen to pray to
many of the same ills that govern political parties everywhere as they seek
to win and keep power.
Conclusion
For one fleeting moment in 1992, with the return of free and fair elections,
with the PPP victory, and with the end of the 28-year–PNC authoritarian-
ism, Guyanese hoped that they were on the cusp of a new and better era.
And indeed, while the society has made gains in terms of democratic
advances and in terms of economic growth in some sectors, the promises of
PPP socialism have not materialized. Guyana, like so many countries in the
developing world, several of which are the foci of this volume, has been
trapped by the legacy of its history, by the triumph of neoliberal economics
and by the limitations of its political leadership. Upon the death of Cheddi
Jagan (and Jamaica’s Michael Manley whose life had paralleled Jagan in
many ways and who died at the same time) it was written that theirs were
the “stories of battling the odds and there can be no doubting the personal
dangers they endured, and the sacrifices they made. But theirs is also a
story of the failure of the nationalist project to challenge the priorities of
capitalism.”64
However, while the PPP government may have moved far from its social-
ist roots in practice domestically, internationally it still tried to project an
image of itself as the champion of the underclass. Nowhere was this more
evident than in Jagan’s call for a New Global Order in the wake of the cold
war’s end. Highlights of this new order were his calls for debt relief or for-
giveness, a Regional Development Fund (for both North and South such as
a New Deal type of works program), the establishment of a Corps of
Development specialists to assist the South, the restructuring of the IMF
and the World Bank, and an overall emphasis on human development.
During Jagan’s lifetime, while his efforts to advance such an order were
politely received and even endorsed by many, his goal remained more of an
idealist’s dream. Yet today, some elements of this vision have been trans-
lated into reality, such as his call for debt forgiveness programs, of which
Guyana has been a beneficiary.
Notes
1. The PPP was renamed the PPP/Civic. References to the party will use these two
names interchangeably.
2. The name Guyana will be used throughout this text even in reference to the
colonial period when the country was called British Guiana.
3. “South Africa Honours Cheddi Jagan,” The Jamaica Observer, May 10, 2005
<ht t p://w w w.ja m a ic aobser ver.c om /ne w s/ht m l /20 050510T0 0 0 0 0 0 -
0500_80208_OBS_SOUTH_AFRICA_HONOURS_CHEDDI_JAGAN.
asp> (January 10, 2007).
4. Kevin Davey, “O Tempora,” New Times 121 (1997), <http://www.gn.apc.org/
demleft/newtimes/article25.html> (February 18, 2001).
5. The PNC is now called the PNC/Reform. Referencs to the party will use the
two names interchangeably.
6. The Republic of Guyana, Bureau of Statistics, “Census 2002 Final Summary and
Results,” August 2005 <http://statisticsguyana.gov.gy/cen02.html> (March 10,
2006).
7. Chaitram Singh, Guyana: Politics in a Plantation Society (Stanford, CA: Hoover
Institution Press and Stanford University, 1988), p. 6.
8. Eric Williams, Capitalism and Slavery (London: Andre Deutsch Ltd., 1964), p. 27.
9. Hassan Mahamdallie, “Obituary: Independence Days,” Socialist Review 207
(April 1997) <http://pubs.socialistreviewindex.org.uk/sr207/obit.htm> (July
2005).
10. Clive Y. Thomas, “State Capitalism in Guyana: An Assessment of Burnham’s

Co-operative Socialist Republic,” in Crisis in the Caribbean, ed. Fitzroy
Ambursley and Robin Cohen (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1983),
p. 27.
11. See Cheddi Jagan, Forbidden Freedom: The Story of British Guiana (London:
Lawrence & Wishart Ltd., 1954). The British argued that the PPP was
attempting to control the movement and to use it for its own political
purposes.
12. David A. Carroll and Robert A. Pastor, “Moderating Ethnic Tensions by
Electoral Mediation” (Atlanta, GA: The Carter Center, June 1993) <http://
www.cartercenter.org/documents/1205.pdf > (July 2, 2006).
13. Percy C. Hintzen, “Cheddi Jagan (1918–97): Charisma and Guyana’s
Challenge to Western Capitalism,” in Caribbean Charisma: Reflections on
Leadership, Legitimacy and Populist Politics, ed. Anton Allahar (Kingston,
Jamaica: Ian Randle Publishers; Boulder and London: Lynne Rienner, 2001),
p. 147.
14. Hintzen, “Cheddi Jagan,” p. 122.
15. Council on Hemispheric Affairs, “The Upcoming Nicaraguan Elections,”
(Washington: Council on Hemispheric Affairs, August 10, 2006) <http:www.
coha.org> (August 15, 2006).
16. Clive Y. Thomas, “Interview with Clive Thomas: The IMF Comes to Guyana,”
Against the Current (Interviewed by Dianne Feeley and David Finkel)
September 2000 <http://www.guyanacaribbeanpolitics.com/guyanafeatures/
interview_clivethomas.html> (February 18, 2001).
18. “Farewell Warrior,” Guyana Chronicle, March 11, 1997 <http://www.guyana.
org/GuyNews/president_death.htm> (February 9, 2001).
19. Guyana News and Information, 1997 <http://www.guyana.org/GuyNews/
Jagan_Funeral/cremation3.htm> (February 9, 2001).
21. Kevin Davey, “Jagan Makes Up for Lost Time,” New Statesman and Society 6
(November 19, 1993), p. 10.
22. Cheddi Jagan, The West on Trial: The Fight for Guyana’s Freedom, revised edi-
tion, (London and New York: 1966, 1967, and 1972), pp. 358–361.
23. Cheddi Jagan, “Race Class and Nationhood: The Indo-Guyanese Experience,”
paper presented at the Genesis of a Nation Activity, on the Occasion of the
150th Anniversary of the Arrival of Indians to Guyana, May 1988, <http:jagan.
org/articles5c.htm> (February 9, 2001).
24. Author Interview, Dr. Nanda Gopaul, a former union activist now the
permanent secretary of the civil service, Georgetown, Guyana, November 3,
2005. According to Gopaul, given the authoritarian grip that the PNC had on
the country, young party loyalists like himself were frustrated and were will-
ing to take to the streets. He stated that just prior to 1992 he and others
approached Jagan to consider, in his words, “every means possible,” aside from
the ballot box as it was proving futile in challenging the PNC regime. Jagan,
he reported, rejected the idea outright as it did not fit with his vision of how to
realize change in the Guyanese context.
25. Cheddi Jagan quoted in, “NACLA Report on the Americas: Interview with Dr.
Cheddi Jagan,” interview by Fred Rosen and Mario Maurillo, NACLA 31, 1
(February 1997), <http://jagan.org/articles4c.htm> (February 9, 2001).
26. Jagan quoted in, “Interview with Dr. Cheddi Jagan.”
27. PPP, For a Democratic and Prosperous Guyana: Programme of the People’s
Progressive Party (Georgetown, Guyana: People’s Progressive Party, Freedom
House, July 2005).
28. PPP, For a Democratic and Prosperous Guyana.
29. Nalini Persram, “The Importance of Being Cultural,” Small Axe 15 ( March
2004), pp. 88–89.
30. Jagan quoted in, “Interview with Dr. Cheddi Jagan.”
31. Quoted in Davey, “Jagan Makes Up for Lost Time, pp. 10–11.
32. U.S. Department of State, “Background Note: Guyana,” <http://www.state.
gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/1984.htm> (January 27, 2007).
33. U.S. Department of State, “Background Note: Guyana.”
36. The World Bank Group, “Guyana: Country Brief,” <http://lnweb18.world-
bank.org/External/lac/lac.nsf/Countries/Guyana/113D6E9973AEDB628525
69040050F087?OpenDocument> (Retrieved February 2, 2007).
37. According to Rupert Lewis, Burnham’s “programme of nationalization” com-
bined with “his anti-imperialist and socialist rhetoric” led to Guyana being
assessed in Havana and Moscow as having two left wing parties with
the PNC . . . gaining recognition as a ruling party seriously committed
to transformation and internationalist solidarity [despite its authoritar-
ian control]. Jagan was thus pressured to support the PNC in its anti-
imperialist posture, that is, its nationalization policies.
Rupert Lewis, Walter Rodney’s Intellectual and Political Thought (Kingston,
Jamaica: The Press University of the West Indies and Detroit, MI: Wayne
State University Press, 1998), p. 213.
38. Cheddi Jagan, “Guyana’s National Development Strategy,” Global
Development Initiative, Advisory Group Meeting, Atlanta, GA: The Carter
Centre, June 6, 1996, <http://jagan.org/articles3b.htm> (February 2, 2007).
39. Booker McConnell was nationalized by the PNC as part of that government’s
transition to a state-planned economy.
40. Derek MacCuish, “Guyana: Experience of Economic Reform under the World
Bank and IMF Direction” (Montreal: The Social Justice Committee; Ottawa:
Halifax Initiative Coalition, October 2005) <http://www.s-j-c.net/media/pdf/
GuyanaEconomicReform.pdf> (December 15, 2006).
41. Marcus Colchester, Guyana: Fragile Frontier (Gloucestershire, UK: Latin
American Bureau, 1997).
42. Greenpeace, “An Overview of Asian Companies in Guyana,” <http://archive.

g reenpe ac e.org /c om m s/97/fore st /a sia n _ c ompa n ie s _ g uya na .ht m l>
(January 27, 2007).
43. Greenpeace, “An Overview.”
44. Gold is one of the two main industries in the mining sector (bauxite being the
other).
45. The Guyana Office for Investment, “Mining,” <http://www.goinvest.gov.gy/
mining.html> (February 2, 2007).
46. The Guyana Office for Investment, “Mining.”
47. The United Nations Environmental Program, “The Guyana Rice Industry,”
<http://www.unep.ch/etu/etp/events/Agriculture/guyana.pdf> (January 27,
2007).
48. MacCuish, “Guyana: Experience of Economic Reform.”
49. David Hinds, “Guyana’s Dominant Political Culture: An Overview,” in
Modern Political Culture in the Caribbean, ed. Holger Henke and Fred Reno
(Jamaica: University of the West Indies Press, 2003), p. 362.
50. Brittany Bond, “Jagdeo’s Win in Guyana: An Uninspiring Victory”
(Washington: Council on Hemispheric Affairs, September 7, 2006)
<http://:www.coha.org > (November 12, 2006).
51. Hinds, “Guyana’s Dominant Political Culture,” p. 362.
52. Quoted in Davey, “Jagan Makes Up for Lost Time,” p. 11.
54. Author Interview, Gopaul.
57. Author Interview, Derek Bernard, Opposition MP, PNC Reform, Georgetown,
Guyana, November 4, 2005.
58. Frederick Kissoon, “The Window Opens Again,” Kaiteur News, April 6–13,
2001, p. 6, quoted in Hinds, “Guyana’s Dominant Political Culture,” p. 363.
59. Author Interview, Gopaul.
60. Jagan, “Race Class and Nationhood.”
62. Hinds, “Guyana’s Dominant Political Culture,” p. 360. According to Hinds,
the same holds true for the PNC and Reform.
63. Quoted in Davey, “Jagan Makes Up for Lost Time,” p. 10.
64. Mahamdallie, “Obituary: Independence Days,” Socialist Review.
CHAPTER 7
Revolutionaries in Power:
The Evolution of the African
National Congress
Gary Prevost
Introduction
This research on the African National Congress (ANC) is done in the
context of the question of what happens when a revolutionary, rebel move-
ment succeeds in taking state power. It is now 13 years since 1994, when as
the result of national elections negotiated with the former National Party
(NP) rulers, the ANC took the reins of governmental power. This analysis
will place the challenges of the ANC in the context of rebel movements in
Latin America that have taken power and it will address several theoretical
questions.
First, when a revolutionary movement gains power what are the terms of
its arrival at power? Is the old order thoroughly defeated or does it retain
power in certain sectors? Second, what is the international context of the
transition? Does the revolutionary movement have powerful friends or ene-
mies? Third, what is the level of unity within the revolutionary movement?
Are there factions with different approaches to the construction of a new
society? Fourth, how well does the revolutionary movement, forged in part
in clandestine operations, transform itself to democratic norms? Fifth, does
the revolutionary movement have sufficient expertise to manage state
power? How willing is it to use professionals from the old system and by
what means does it control them? Sixth, how flexible is the revolutionary
134 ● Gary Prevost
movement in adjusting to a changed environment? Does it alter its

ideological stance, and if it does, what are the dangers to the movement if
it strays too far from its long-stated principles?
To approach these issues in the South African context it is necessary to
look at the events preceding 1990. For the 30 years leading up to 1990 the
ANC and other forces in the liberation struggle conceived of the defeat of
South Africa’s apartheid regime in revolutionary terms. It was the perspec-
tive of the ANC and others that the reform-oriented path to power embod-
ied in the resistance campaigns of the 1950s had reached a dead end in
1960, with the massacre in Sharpeville being the turning point. The adop-
tion in 1960 of an armed-struggle strategy by the ANC and the PAC (Pan
African Congress) did not come without previous consideration.
Many within the movement, including Nelson Mandela, had doubted
that the Gandhian-style resistance campaign would succeed.1 From 1960
onward the vision of the liberation forces for South Africa was clearly in the
camp of the armed liberation forces worldwide embodied in the
Tricontinental Conference convened in Havana in 1966, and in the words
of Che Guevara that the duty of revolutionaries worldwide was to create
“one, two, three Vietnams.”2 The forces of the National Liberation Front in
Vietnam were seen as at the forefront of a war against imperialism for
national liberation and without question, upon victory, the construction of
socialism. For many, but not all of the liberation movements, the countries
where Communist parties were in power, headed by the USSR, were seen
as in the leadership role. The liberation movements saw themselves as
clearly a part of the socialist camp worldwide.3 Having said that, it was not
true that all of the political forces within the ANC made the full turn
to socialism. There have always been highly traditional elements within
the ANC closely linked to tribal chiefs in the rural areas. It is also impor-
tant to note that the primary exile offices of the ANC were not in the USSR
but rather in London where leaders like Oliver Tambo and his assistant,
Thabo Mbeki (now president of South Africa) were under the strong
political influence of the British Labor Party rather than Soviet-style
socialism.4
In the case of South Africa the image of the heroic guerrilla was embod-
ied in the armed wing of the ANC, Umkhonto we Sizwe, known as the
MK, which operated both inside and outside of South Africa. Of course, as
we study the liberation struggles of the 1960s through the 1980s we fully
understand that the armed struggle of the MK was but one aspect of the
liberation movement.5 Even as the MK was launched by the ANC in the
early 1960s, they did not rule out other forms of struggle. However, for
many years mass protests and street actions were made difficult in the wake
The African National Congress ● 135
of the repression of the apartheid government in response to the escalation

of tactics by the liberation movements. With the rebirth of the mass
struggles in the Soweto events of 1976 down to the unbanning of the ANC
and the release of Nelson Mandela in 1990 the struggle took on a multifac-
eted character with the rise of the crucial new actors such as the Untied
Democratic Front (UDF), Congress of the South African Trade Unions
(COSATU), Congress of the South African Students (COSAS), and a myr-
iad of other local and national struggle organizations.
In the unfolding of these various new formations can be found the seeds
of the direction of politics in South Africa post-1994, but the current polit-
ical stance of the ANC was not dominant as the transition dawned in
1989–1990. Interviews with current activists and a review of the public
record from the late 1980s showed that there was a belief that South Africa
was a country where either the apartheid regime would hold on to power by
ever more repressive means or the liberation forces would triumph and
South Africa would be fully transformed politically, economically, and
socially.6 However, it should be noted that behind the scenes and in con-
trast to the ANC’s public stance a dialogue was developing over a possible
transition that included conversations between the NP and the imprisoned
Mandela. Even earlier in the mid-1980s there had been important conver-
sations between the ANC leaders in exile and members of the white South
African business community. Notwithstanding these contacts, in the wake
of the imposition of the state of siege in 1985 the two sides had different
assessments of reality—for the apartheid government it was confirmation
that they still held the upper hand militarily and for the liberation move-
ment it was proof that the apartheid system was desperate and that they
were winning. Having laid this as background, how does it come to be that
in 1989–1990 there is a fundamental shift in thinking on both sides and
ultimately a pacted transition emerges?
Transition from Apartheid

There was a series of events that shook the confidence of the leadership of
the NP to continue the apartheid system purely by force. One was the
defeat of the South African army in Angola in 1988 at Cuito Cunavale by
Cuban forces.7 However, this defeat was only one of a number of factors.
By the late 1980s the international sanctions campaign had begun to
take its toll on the South African economy. The turning point had been
1986, when the U.S. Congress, overriding the veto of President Ronald
Reagan, placed the United States in the camp of those countries supporting
the isolation of South Africa. The primary problem for the NP was that
South Africa’s international isolation and its growing instability in the wake
of township unrest made the securing of new international loans almost
impossible. This problem was combined with falling prices of mineral
exports and high costs of petroleum imports confronting the government
with a significant revenue crisis. The government was forced to borrow at
higher interest rates and to devote an increasing share of its budget to debt
service. Since its tax base in the white population was relatively narrow,
there was little room for government spending on projects that might have
sought to temper black unrest with material improvements. As Daniel
Lieberfeld points out in his 2000 article “Getting to the Negotiating Table,”
the NP was also facing an electoral challenge in that the white electorate
was becoming polarized on how to deal with the crisis.8 On the right, the
Conservative Party (CP) was becoming the repository of the hard-line, no
compromise Afrikaaner position and in the run-up to the 1989 elections,
F. W. DeKlerk, the new NP leader, saw no future in moving closer to the
CP. Instead he moved the NP to the left, positioning it to be the party of
reform as a way to block the Democratic Party (DP) from becoming the
party that would lead the change. As Lieberfeld also argues, DeKlerk and
some of his closest advisors came from a different generation of Afrikaner
leaders than his predecessor. As a group they were more self confident about
the survival of the Afrikaner culture and as a lawyer DeKlerk more inclined
to a negotiated, constitutional solution.9 Crucial to DeKlerk’s strategy of
seeking a negotiated solution were three factors. Concerned by the imposi-
tion of negotiated settlements on Angola and Namibia by powerful outside
forces, DeKlerk was motivated to negotiate a settlement with the ANC on
a one on one basis where the inherent strength of apartheid’s police and
army apparatus would come into play. It had been the desire to maintain
the upper hand militarily that led the government to seek disengagement
form Angola and Namibia before those conflicts weakened the strategic
position of the security forces within South Africa. DeKlerk also saw that
he had a potential narrow window of time with which to negotiate with the
aging ANC leadership before it passed from the scene. Mandela, Tambo,
Sisulu, and others were in their seventies. For the NP leaders there became
a fixation on not wanting Mandela to die in prison and become a martyr,
further fueling unrest in the townships.
Overall, the international climate was not favorable to the apartheid
leaders, but one key and unexpected event made it easier for the NP leaders
to compromise—the beginning of the fall of East European socialism in
the fall of 1989. In one sense these events put pressure on both sides, but for
the apartheid leaders it removed fears that the ANC as a revolutionary party
would have strong allies from a socialist camp. All of these factors taken
together led to DeKlerk’s historic February 1990 speech where the ANC
was unbanned and the release of Mandela was announced. It is important
to note that at that point in 1990 the exact parameters of the final deal with
the ANC were not yet determined. Over the course of the next four years
DeKlerk would work through a variety of means to undermine the ANC
and to avoid what would eventually become a reality, the ceding of full
political power to the ANC following the 1999 elections, and the dissolving
of the remnants of the NP into the ANC.
ANC Position
To complete this analysis it is necessary to look at the ANC side of the
equation. How did this revolutionary and increasingly socialist movement
engage itself in a process of transition that would leave it in a position of
significant political power but with considerable constraints on its ability to
fully remake South Africa along the lines that it had spelled out in the 1955
Freedom Charter? This was especially true in its commitment to radical
wealth redistribution based on the nationalization of the mines, factories,
and banks. In a range of interviews conducted with ANC activists who
were in the movement at the time, the nature of the transition events at the
end of the 1989 and beginning of 1990 created a state of confusion among
the rank-and-file activists.10 Most believed that the release of Mandela was
an indication of the military strength of the ANC and the MK. Activists
cited the victories of the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola
(MPLA, Movimento Popular para Liberação de Angola) in Angola and the
Southwest African Peoples Organization (SWAPO) in Namibia, largely on
the terms of the revolutionaries, that a similar outcome of complete victory
was in the offing in South Africa. Therefore, it came as a shock to many in
the ANC rank and file when the top ANC leadership announced that there
would be a cessation of the armed struggle. One activist recalled an over-
night session in the party congress in Durban in 1990 where current
President Mbeki spoke for four hours on the question to convince reluctant
ANC activists that it was the right course.11 One former SACP (South
African Communist Party) member recalls how Joe Slovo reported to a
party meeting on the negative realities of the relationship of forces. As
Slovo explained at the time, “clearly the enemy is not defeated.”12 The forces
of the apartheid security apparatus retained the upper hand. The military
position of the MK was simply not as strong as the comrades had been led
to believe over the years. There was no likelihood in the immediate future
of an armed revolutionary victory.13 The negotiated settlements in Angola
and Namibia, seen by the activists as indicators of their side’s strength,
actually placed pressure on the ANC to compromise and limited their

future sanctuaries for armed struggle.
Another aspect of the change in the political stance of the ANC following
the release of Nelson Mandela was that the changed political circumstances
brought forward elements of the ANC’s political trajectory that had always
been present. As Mandela stated in a 1990 Washington Post interview, the
ANC was above all a coalition “united solely by our determination to
oppose racial oppression.”14 From its inception in 1912 the ANC has been
a political organization with a broad range of political forces within its
ranks. From 1960 to 1990 it can be argued that the more radical elements
gained the upper hand as the result of both the national and international
context. However, in 1990 there began a shift from that revolutionary
thrust back toward political elements that had always been there. Mandela
and the other aging leaders of the ANC embodied that shift as they emerged
from prison and gave the ANC its broad Africanist character that would
unite the black majority and ensure its political dominance far into the
future. The two term presidency of Thabo Mbeki has only served to deepen
that trend to its Africanist roots.
Also, contributing to the context of the compromises made by the ANC
during the transition was the unexpected crisis of worldwide socialist forces.
The collapse of the East European socialist governments in the fall of 1989
may have influenced the NP leaders toward a negotiated settlement but the
impact of those events on ANC activists was even more profound. The
influence on the ANC was particularly strong because the movement’s
socialist orientation came in significant measure from the members of the
SACP at its core. Like most Communist Parties worldwide the SACP
looked to the USSR and its East European socialist allies as the well spring
of socialist ideas and socialist practice. For decades they had been relatively
uncritical of Soviet-style socialism and then in the 1980s when Gorbachev
began the process of self-criticism under the rubric of perestroika and
glasnost they joined in praising the new direction of the USSR. More
openminded members of the pro-Moscow communist movement world-
wide welcomed the new, more liberal direction that the USSR seemed to be
headed. This optimism, therefore, made the disillusionment in the com-
munist ranks even more profound when West Germany absorbed East
Germany following the fall of the Wall and the people of the other East
European countries unceremoniously put their ruling Communist parties
out of power. Two years later, the fall from power of the Communist Party
in the USSR, only served to deepen the disillusionment.
These events in Eastern Europe had negative impact on a variety of
progressive struggles around the world. Just days after the fall of the Wall,
Luis Inácio da Silva (Lula), the Workers Party leader in Brazil lost the pres-
idential election to a conservative, Fernando Collar de Mello in a contest he
had been expected to win. Two weeks after Mandela’s release the Sandinistas
were defeated electorally in Nicaragua after polls had predicted an easy vic-
tory. The defeat effectively ended the radical project on which the Frente
Sandinista de Liberación Nacional (FSLN, Sandinista National Liberation
Front) had embarked in 1979.15 Soon after the Sandinista defeat, revolu-
tionary forces in El Salvador and Guatemala went to the negotiating table
to salvage what they could from revolutionary struggles that were now seen
as unwinnable. Even the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and the Palestine
Liberation Organization (PLO), long symbols of revolutionary armed
struggle worldwide, engaged in peace negotiations that acknowledged the
superior power of their enemies and the lack of options to pursue the revo-
lutionary course. Groups that continued on a revolutionary armed path
such as the Shining Path of Peru or the Revolutionary Armed Forces of
Colombia (FARC, Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia) were
viewed within the progressive movement worldwide as an anachronism
that would be unlikely to succeed.
Pessimism was also engendered among progressive forces worldwide by
the events of the Persian Gulf War in 1990–1991. A weakened USSR did
not block United States and British plans for war on Iraq following the
invasion of Kuwait by Iraq in August 1990. Hopes that the Vietnam
Syndrome would blunt the U.S. war effort from within the United States
evaporated quickly when the United States and its allies went to war in
mid-January 1991. The results of the war were also sobering for forces
worldwide that considered themselves to be anti-imperialist. The seemingly
powerful Iraqi Army, with its Soviet equipment, was easily defeated and
inflicted few casualties on the U.S. forces. The reality of a single, dominant
superpower in the form of the United States was foremost in the minds of
policy analysts and others worldwide. This perspective would be further
reinforced by the ascendancy of Yeltsin later that year and the dissolution
of the USSR as an adversary of the United States.
What was the ultimate result of all of these conservatizing factors on the
development of the ANC’s strategy during the transition? The ANC lead-
ers, especially those who were engaged in ongoing negotiations with the
NP at the highest levels, focused on a pragmatic strategy to gain the best
possible grounds for achieving political power. The ANC was fully aware
that NP leaders were proceeding from a position of strength and were not
ready to simply concede even political, let alone economic, power to the
ANC. It quickly became clear to the ANC leadership that the NP would
resort to a variety of means, including violence, to stretch out the
negotiations and to concede as little as possible. Using paid agents, the NP

was able to foment violent actions against ANC activists in the townships,
especially in KwazuNatal using the forces of the Inkatha Freedom Party
(IFP). Ultimately, the ANC rather skillfully neutralized these efforts and
kept the momentum toward the eventual 1994 elections moving forward.
However, many activists who were interviewed for this study spoke of the
conservatizing influence that these attacks had on the rank and file.16
Another feature of the transition that can be analyzed in hindsight was the
demobilization of the ANC township activists during the negotiations.
Except in the places where activists were being targeted with violence, there
developed a sense that the key decisions about the future of the country
were not being made by the mobilizations in the townships, a sentiment
that was widespread in the 1980s, but rather in the negotiations involving
only the highest leadership of the ANC. Several activists also spoke of not
being well informed about the state of the negotiations.17 To many it would
not be clear until the final draft of the constitutional plan just how many
concessions had the ANC been forced to make to get agreement on the
promised elections. It may not have been the intent of the ANC leadership,
but in hindsight the time period of 1990–1994 becomes one marked by the
demobilization of the grassroots political forces that had been so energized
in the townships during the 1980s when thousands of civil organizations
emerged to confront to the apartheid system. Ironically, it had been the
work of these organizations that contributed mightily to the decision to
negotiate by the apartheid leaders.
Demobilization of the Grassroots

In an April 2002 article in the African Studies Review researcher Elke Zuern
argues that the 10 year trend from the time of the transition to the present
has been one of significant demobilization of the civic organizations that
were formed in 1980s.18 Zuern explains the demobilization primarily in
terms of conscious ANC policies. Especially with the first municipal elec-
tions in 1997, the ANC moved decisively to co-opt key community leaders
into the local government structures as councilors and members of ward
committees. Dissatisfaction from this arrangement led the South African
National Civic Organization (SANCO) to consider running independent
candidates in the 2000 local elections, but under pressure from the ANC
backed off from that threat. In the Port Elizabeth area there was disap-
pointment with the decision to not run independent candidates.19 These
organizations share a similar position with the SACP and the unions. Often
because of overlapping membership, the SANCO organizations are both a
part of the ANC and also struggling against it on behalf of the poorest of
the poor. This stance infuriates ANC leaders because the government has
devoted significant resources to expanded social grants and township
infrastructure. However, the critics of the ANC would argue that overall its
priority has been the creation of a black middle, not the majority poor.
More recent studies have documented the weakness of civil society organi-
zations, across South Africa.20
The level of noninvolvement during the transition years also extended to
the intellectual community in the milieu of the ANC. Originally there
were to be created around the country, so-called Development Research
Centers (DRCs), where local intellectuals and activists would come together
to strategize on ideas of transformation at the local level. If implemented,
this idea would have cut across the demobilization of township forces and
would have contributed to a democratization of the ANC. However, the
idea was never implemented and instead the project was placed in just one
location, the University of the Western Cape, where it took on a more
purely academic character lacking grassroots input.21 The story of the pro-
posed DRCs is an instructive one because it shows that alternative
approaches more grounded in the philosophy of the ANC from the 1980s
were placed on the table but that ultimately the leadership of the ANC
chose strategies that moved the party in a different direction.
The story of the unimplemented DRCs became a preview of the public
debate over the adoption of the Growth, Employment and Redistribution
(GEAR) strategy by the president’s economic advisors in 1996 over the
strong objections of the trade union movement and its policy advisors. Such
a concentration of ideas on public policy in the Office of the Presidency
would have been more difficult had there been a decentralized and grassroots
based system of policy advice in place.22 An additional compromise made
by the ANC leaders during negotiations was an acceptance that large
sections of the old government bureaucracy would have to be maintained.
The ANC had to acknowledge that it did not have the people to fully
replace the existing government bureaucracy both in terms of sheer num-
bers and also out of a lack of appropriate skills in a wide range of areas.23 As
a result, the negotiated transition left many apartheid-era officials in
positions of power in the government bureaucracy, the police and the army.
Other revolutionary movements coming to power in the twentieth century
faced similar challenges, but in comparison to some others the ANC was
clearly in weaker position on this question. For example, the Bolsheviks in
Russia in 1918 had been forced to accept the continuation of a signifi-
cant portion of the Czarist government bureaucracy, but they were able
to assign a significant number of political commissars to shadow the work of
the retained workers and to keep them in line by force if necessary.

Of course, the relationship of forces was more in the favor of the
Bolsheviks because of the revolutionary means by which they gained
power.
The July 26th Movement (M26J, Movimiento 26 de Julio) in Cuba and
the FSLN in Nicaragua were also forced to make certain concessions in this
arena because of their lack of all the people necessary to staff the new
government. However, there was an important difference in both of these
cases. Members of the old order were retained but not in the army. In both
Cuba and Nicaragua the old army structures were dismantled and new
revolutionary structures were developed from the ranks of the revolutionary
forces.24 In the case of South Africa individual members of the ANC’s
armed wing were integrated into the military, but the structures were not
significantly altered. Of course, the key to the different strategies of
the M26J and the FSLN were the total capitulation of the armed forces
of Batista and Somoza, the former dictators. However, it is important
to note that their own small members could have led the M26J and FSLN
to different decisions, but both considered the reconstruction of the
armed forces to be essential to the development of their revolutionary
projects.
The consequences for the continuation in power of apartheid-era bureau-
crats have been considerable for the ANC. There has been much evidence
that many retained bureaucrats have never fully accepted the transition to
ANC black majority rule. They have been slow to accept the gradual trans-
formation of the government bureaucracies to include new employees who
come in through programs of affirmative action for previously disadvan-
taged groups. The issue in South Africa has been significantly tied to race
as older, white government bureaucrats have had difficulty accepting black
supervision and in many cases delivering their services equally to a diverse
community.25 The full extent of the latter problem is difficult to empiri-
cally verify and in some instances may be used by ANC leaders to explain
away problems caused by inefficient bureaucrats brought into position
postapartheid. Though the process of contracting out government services
has become far more transparent and has empowered many new black busi-
nesses, the process has not been entirely successful as many contracts still
go to white-dominated enterprises that have long standing ties to the older,
white bureaucrats. The great majority of these white bureaucrats and also
younger ones who have been hired since 1994 have their political home in
the Democratic Alliance (DA) which as a political party opposes most
of the significant transformation programs put forward by the ANC
government.26
Contemporary Character of the ANC

What kind of ANC has emerged as the ruling party of South Africa more
than 10 years after the assumption of power and how successful has it been
in carrying out its program? The ANC has evolved significantly from the
political positions it held in the 1980s. What will be the long-term conse-
quences of that evolution and will its distancing from the revolutionary
past eventually have negative consequences for its continuance as a party
with a supermajority in the South African politics? A related question is
how much was the evolution of the ANC an inevitability or to what degree
was the shift the result of political choices that could definitely been taken
in a different direction closer to its previous political trajectory? There has
been considerable scholarship on the question of the kind of political
economy that was developed by the ANC government after 1994.27 Many
local leaders interviewed within the ANC and some within the academic
community argue that the ANC’s adoption of a mainstream economic pro-
gram was an inevitable result of the end of the cold war, the promotion of
the so-called Washington Consensus by the United States and its allies in
the face of the collapse of the USSR, and the structural realities of the
South African economy, unaffected as it was by an economic transformation.
Following 1994, South African finance capital, primarily white South
Africans, continued to control the economic system much as they
had throughout the colonial and apartheid eras. This outlook on the
options facing the ANC in the period of the 1990s was summed up in
an interview with a local councillor, “Faced with the collapse of the
Soviet Union we had little choice but to abandon the baggage of
Marxism.”28
This chapter will argue that since 1990 the ANC has significantly
conservatized and in the process moved to the political center occupying a
political space in world politics that has come to be known as “The Third
Way.”29 The author endorses the perspective offered by De Beus and Koelbe
who argue that
while the term “social democracy” is not in vogue in South Africa, the
remarkable similarities between the political project of parts of the
European left and leading elements of the South African ANC should be
given some thought since they point to a convergence of political ideas
and a free f low of political information.30
President Mbeki regularly participates in the Policy Network of the New

Progressive Agenda, a key Third Way institution. A recent edition of its
journal included articles by Mbeki, Tony Blair, Jean Chretian, and Javier
Solana. A photograph published widely from the 2005 Davos Economic

Summit featured Mbeki with Bill Clinton, Bill Gates of Microsoft, and
Tony Blair, all Third Way proponents. For Mbeki this social democratic
affiliation is nothing new going back to his student days in Britain and
fascination with the Labor government of Harold Wilson. It is important
to note that the Third Way perspective distances itself from traditional
social democracy and its projected long-term commitment to socialism.
Within the Third Way movement there are different political currents and
many ANC members seemed more comfortable identifying with the
Swedish Social Democrats, probably the most progressive force within
Third Way politics.31
In any case, the ANC has moved from its position on the revolutionary
left and in many ways has even jettisoned the political stance of social
democracy in favor of the more conservative Third Way position. This cen-
trist positioning is not at all self-evident for a number of reasons. First of all,
the ANC, including its top leader, Thabo Mbeki, continue to use in many
settings the rhetoric of an earlier era that focuses on national liberation and
societal transformation.32 Even the idea of an eventual goal of socialism is
not ruled out in the mainstream rhetoric of the ANC.33 Second, the rank-
and-file base of the party, together with its alliance partners the SACP and
COSATU, continue to rhetorically embrace positions that alternate between
the revolutionary left and social democracy. The symbols of the latter two
organizations retain the communist hammer and sickle and the offices of
COSATU officials are as likely to have pictures of Marx, Engels, Lenin,
and Che on their walls as that of Mandela or Mbeki.34 The political rheto-
ric of both organizations remains explicitly focused on the goal of ulti-
mately building socialism in South Africa. Key activists, especially in
COSATU, see themselves as standing an opposition to the ANC government
while still seeing themselves as members of the ANC party through the
tripartite alliance and as individual ANC members.35
SACP and COSATU

The complicated positions of the SACP and COSATU place these organi-
zations in a very awkward position. They both argue that they represent the
voice of the working class within the alliance and that their position as
insiders in the ANC structures gives them a platform from which to argue
their positions and to influence the direction of the government policy.
Crucial to any analysis of the alliance is a balance sheet on whether or not
that influence has been significant over the course of the last thirteen years.
Considerable South African scholarship has been devoted to this very
question and the mainstream South African media also often weighs in on
the matter.36 Most analysts will argue that a crucial early test of the power
of SACP and COSATU was the government’s initial adoption of the
Reconstruction and Development (RDP) strategy in 1994 at the time of
the installation of the new government. The RDP committed the South
African government to a set of economic development initiatives, that while
a retreat from the nationalization schemes envisaged in the Freedom
Charter, were clearly against the era’s worldwide neoliberal agenda. The
RDP were hailed by COSATU and the SACP as evidence that the ANC
government was still committed to a transformation agenda and that
these programs showed the strength of their influence within the
multiclass ANC.37
However, long before the policies of the RDP were fully implemented,
the South African government adopted in 1996 a new set of economic mea-
sures under the name of GEAR championed by the minister of finance,
Trevor Manuel. These measures moved South Africa much closer to neolib-
eral orthodoxy and were designed in significant measure to assure interna-
tional investors that South Africa was a country fully ready for renewed
foreign direct investment. Its measures included a tighter money supply
regulated by the government, a policy that inevitably controlled inflation
but with a consequent rise in unemployment guaranteed, at least in the
short term. Beyond the adoption of GEAR, which the Mandela govern-
ment insisted was not a repudiation of the RDP, and may have represented
fiscal prudence at a difficult time for the South African economy, the
method by which it was adopted was particularly significant. As Tom
Lodge demonstrated in a 1999 article, the decision to adopt GEAR was
made with little or no input from COSATU even though its membership
was inevitably to be affected in a negative way. The leaders of COSATU
only learned of the government’s decision to adopt GEAR after the policy
had already been fully formulated by the technocrats of the Mandela gov-
ernment working in collaboration with advisors from the World Bank and
the International Monetary Fund.38
Both COSATU and the SACP vigorously attacked the government’s
adoption of GEAR believing that these policies were a mistake that could
be reversed. There was even some belief that the government could be con-
vinced to see the error of its ways. In reality the adoption of GEAR became
a turning point in the power of COSATU and the SACP to significantly
influence government policy. COSATU and the SACP formally filed their
divergent views within the structures of the ANC expecting at worst a
polite rejection of their perspective. Instead they received a harsh dressing
down from the ANC leadership led by Mandela himself. In opposing
GEAR they were called “ultra-leftists” and accused of not representing the
interests of the South African nation but rather of narrow, selfish interests
of an aristocracy of labor.39 Stung hard by these criticisms, the opponents
of GEAR were basically told that if they were to remain within the family
of the ANC through the tripartite alliance then the acceptance of the gov-
ernment’s macroeconomic package was part of the deal. COSATU and the
SACP, not prepared at that time to break the unity of the ANC, swallowed
hard and accepted the reality of GEAR.
The pattern established during the adoption of GEAR basically contin-
ued in the ensuing years, especially with ascension of Thabo Mbeki to the
leadership of the ANC in 1999 and his subsequent reelection in 2004.
Mbeki deepened the trend begun slowly under Mandela of centralizing
power in the Office of the Presidency and on economic matters relying
heavily on Finance Minister Manuel and his team of financial techno-
crats.40 Richard Calland has argued that there are six pillars of power in
South Africa—the presidency, the treasury, ANC, informal networks across
government and business, transnational corporations and domestic big
business, and civil society (primarily COSATU and emerging social move-
ments). He questions whether the ANC as a party actually controls the
government, arguing that in recent years power has gravitated to the presi-
dency and Treasury who work in close collaboration with big business. He
questions whether the ANC and the social movements will be successful in
actually being a check on “the naked aggression of South Africa’s big
capitalists.”41 Rank-and-file COSATU activists have not surrendered in
this struggle, but increasingly they do not view the ANC-led government
as standing primarily on their side.42
COSATU is the most important social movement in South Africa with
more than a million members, but its political positioning is not easy to
characterize. As noted earlier, the movement has many key operatives in
leadership roles who come from a radical left position. Its public document,
the 2015 Plan,43 has a very radical core embodied in its notion of “consoli-
dating working class power.” The union federation openly commits itself to
supporting the SACP as “the vanguard of the working class” by stating that
it seeks “to build the SACP into a strong, mass-based organization.”44 Such
a commitment to the SACP implies support for the project of promoting a
socialist future, but at no point in the 17-page document is there an explicit
commitment by COSATU to socialism. Instead the document adopts
wholeheartedly the ANC’s formulation that the political project of the cur-
rent moment is the construction of the National Democratic Revolution.
The document acknowledges that the ANC is being pressured strongly by
both national and international capital to adopt political positions that go
against working class interests. However, ultimately COSATU asserts that

“the ANC retains its overall character as a mass liberation movement.”45
The document goes on to say that the role of COSATU is to ensure through
its efforts that the ANC retains that progressive and working class bias. To
those who would counsel that the COSATU should separate from the
ANC, the document states boldly: “The ANC is our organization and we
are not going to throw in the towel and leave it.”46
How is this position to be understood in light of the considerable evi-
dence that the ANC has conservatized to the point where its defense of the
working class can be called seriously into question? One explanation lies in
the natural conservatizing force that a trade union movement can repre-
sent. This was first fully recognized by Lenin in his work What is to Done47
where he spoke of the natural limitations of “trade union consciousness”
and argued that radical action by workers and a commitment to socialism
did not flow automatically from trade union organization, however strong
that movement might be. The trade union movement and its professional-
ized bureaucracy naturally come to represent those workers who have jobs,
often a relatively privileged position in countries with so much poverty,
such as South Africa. Trade union structures are therefore used to protect
the interests of their members rather than necessarily becoming a vehicle
for the transformation of society. COSATU emerged as a key aspect of the
antiapartheid movement in the late 1980s more through the organizational
skills developed by its shop stewards than through political strike activities
that might have rocked the apartheid system at its core.
During the period of ANC rule there have also been key programs that
have compromised the radical character of COSATU over time. When the
National Economic Development and Labor Council (NEDLAC) was
created in 1994, it was seen by its proponents within the ANC government
and COSATU as providing an opportunity to provide the labor movement
and previously marginalized groups access to legislative proposals before
their proposal to parliament. However, access does not mean influence and
NEDLAC operates on the highly questionable premise that a consensus
can be reached between the interests of labor and capital. The union move-
ment initially believed that the NEDLAC framework would work to ben-
efit their interests, but most analysts now agree that these were false hopes,
dashed in the government’s adoption of the GEAR strategy in 1996. Once
COSATU was committed to the class compromise premise of NEDLAC,
it was destined to a secondary role in influencing state-level macroeconomic
power. Eddie Webster has identified another element limiting COSATU as
a radical force when he observes that COSATU lost significant layers
of leadership to government, political office, and the corporate world.48
A dramatic example of that was the redeployment of Mbhazima Shilowa

from the presidency of COSATU to become the premier of Gauteng in
2000. Shilowa’s successor at COSATU, Zwelinzima Vavi, is an equally
strong leader but the transfer was still a loss for the trade union movement.
Often labeled the “brain drain,” this movement of people has denied the
labor movement some of its most skilled operatives and in this context it
means that these individuals have been co-opted into a system, especially at
the corporate level that demands the abandonment of previously held radi-
cal political views. Interviews with officials remaining in the union move-
ment generally revealed that former union activists placed on corporate
boards through Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) were often less sym-
pathetic to union concerns than the previous board members.49
Over the course of time, as the luster of neoliberal strategies worldwide
has waned, South Africa’s macroeconomic strategy has adjusted accord-
ingly, moving back in the direction of greater state involvement.50 Recently
there has even been the discussion of adopting a newly forming Beijing
Consensus that gives government a greater role in providing basic services
to those left outside of capitalist economic growth strategies.51 However,
even these subtle shifts do not change the fact that COSATU and the SACP
are largely left on the outside looking in when it comes to policymaking.
The latest evidence of that being Mbeki’s call for new, more liberalized
labor legislation to favor small business at the expense of trade union inter-
ests.52 SACP and COSATU leaders immediately condemned the proposals
as being blatantly antiunion and completely unacceptable to the labor
movement.53 COSATU may succeed in making small revisions to the pro-
posed amendments before they become law, but past experience dictates
that the changes will occur over the objections of COSATU and the SACP.
As of this writing the proposals to restructure labor laws had not moved
forward.
This latest episode brings into focus the choices facing the labor move-
ment and a Socialist Party as they seek to maintain their political space
within South African politics. Their marginalization has resulted, espe-
cially in the Eastern Cape, in discussions on whether or not COSATU and
SACP should seek greater political independence from the ANC. Proposals
for greater independence, especially from the SACP, usually revolve around
the idea that the party should run its own candidates in both local and
national elections. At the national level such discussion made its way into
the national media in 2005 and 200654 and in the past SACP branches in
the Port Elizabeth area have passed resolutions supporting the idea.55 Such
proposals from within the SACP envision that the party would likely
remain in a parliamentary coalition with the ANC, but its members would
be elected in their own right and would therefore not be subject to ANC
parliamentary discipline as they are now. Proponents of the prospective of
separate electoral lists argue that it would give the SACP a better platform
from which to promote socialist ideas and working class interests.56 In the
foreseeable future such an independent stance by the SACP is unlikely to be
adopted by the party as a whole and the point of view in Port Elizabeth will
remain in the minority. However, increasing disillusionment with ANC
government policies resulted in the idea being debated at the SACP National
Conference in July 2007. There are several factors that make such change
unlikely in the short term, even though South Africa’s proportional repre-
sentation system would likely allow the SACP to win some seats in its own
name. Most importantly, it is not yet clear that South Africa’s black voters
are prepared to turn away from the ANC in any significant numbers in
spite of the party’s steady drift into the political center and its partial failure
to deliver on significant economic advances for the black majority. The
research conducted by Janet Cherry and her researchers in the Port Elizabeth
township of Kwazakele is particularly illustrative of the staying power of
the ANC.57 Her surveys conducted after the 1994, 1999, and 2004 elec-
tions show that the population of this stable black township has become
increasingly discontented with the ability of the ANC to deliver on all of its
promises. However, at the same time there is almost no drop off in electoral
support for the ANC.58 Parties that have sought to challenge the ANC
from the left, including the PAC, have been spectacularly unsuccessful.
Over the three elections ANC support has remained in the vicinity of 98
percent and there has not been any significant drop in the rate of voter
participation. If the voter participation in Kwazakele were to have shown
significant decline, especially among young people, then one could more
easily envisage a successful challenge by the SACP. Another factor that
mitigates against the SACP pursuing an independent course is that key
SACP leaders have been co-opted into the government structures at the
highest level. Five members of the SACP serve in Mbeki’s cabinet: Charles
Nqakula, Safety and Security; Alec Erwin, Public Enterprises; Ronnie
Kasrils, Intelligence; Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi, Public Service and
Administration; and Jeff Redebe, Transport. Key Mbeki advisor, Joel
Netshitenzhe is SACP. Outside of the former Soviet republics no country in
the world has so many current Communist Party members in positions of
influence than in South Africa. Longtime ANC and SACP member Ben
Turok’s outlook, explained in his recently published autobiography, is
instructive. After so many years in the wilderness of exile and prison the
achievement of the reigns of power after 1994 was exhilarating.59 Once in
the positions of power it would seem that SACP operatives are unlikely to
concede those positions easily. As long as the party remains in the alliance,
its leaders are virtually guaranteed to hold positions of influence in both
the government and the private sector. Since those positions come from the
super majority of the ANC, a position not likely surrendered in the near
future, the temptations of power and the belief that their efforts keep the
ANC in time with its radical past are not likely to be traded for the uncer-
tainty of standing along for governmental office independent of the ANC.
Running independently, the SACP might well retain positions in the
national parliament and regional legislatures, but there would be no guar-
antee of inclusion in the ruling coalition as they are now. A third factor at
work against electoral independence is that the great majority of the SACP
are also members of the ANC. When these members articulate their views
they often speak first as ANC members and only secondarily as SACP mil-
itants. Such a perspective naturally leads them to speak in favor of the con-
tinuation of the alliance in its current form and to speak of SACP
independence only in terms of the distant future, definitely not in 2009
and maybe not even in 2014.60 A final factor working against SACP
independence is that such a move could only have any real chance of success
if it were done in collaboration with COSATU in the form of a labor party.
Such ideas are discussed within COSATU, especially when the ANC
unveils anti–working class programs, but at this point in time there is
even less support within the leadership of COSATU for political indepen-
dence than there is within the SACP. The primary document of
COSATU, adopted at its 8th National Congress in 2003, projects the pres-
ence of the union federation in the alliance structures for both the 2009
and 2014 elections.61 The reasons for such a stance parallel those of the
SACP, based in its own rank-and-file support for the ANC as an electoral
force and the positions of government leadership held by key COSATU
people.
Presented in this manner it might seem that a break from COSATU and
the SACP is virtually impossible. In the short term that may be true, but
the cracks in the alliance seem to be growing deeper. One experience from
early 2005 in Port Elizabeth was instructive of this trend. As the municipal
administration of Nceba Faku came under increasing fire from a report
sharply critical of the delivery of new homes in the townships, COSATU
and the SACP went to the unusual steps of organizing a public demonstra-
tion of several hundred people outside of the hall where that evening with
great fanfare the municipality was holding the formal opening of council
proceedings for the new year.62 It is interesting to note, however, that the
demonstration occurred hours before the actual council event and that nei-
ther COSATU nor the SACP boycotted the actual session. However, in
spite of that concession, the ANC mayor did not receive the demonstration
kindly and weeks later sought the disciplining of city workers who attended
the protest during their lunch hours.63 In his opening address to the council
the mayor was also critical of the union movement for, defending workers
who needed to be disciplined. Ironically, Mayor Faku was not tapped by
the ANC to serve another term, but it was not the opposition from either
the SACP or COSATU that sealed his fate. His fate, like that of other
municipal leaders chosen for the 2006 slates was made by the ANC hierar-
chy in Pretoria with a view toward the impending succession struggle in
the ANC.
How is the role of newer social movements to be understood in the context
of the challenge to the ANC’s evolution? Do these movements contain the
basis of political challenge to the ANC that could undermine its political
power or lead to a reconsideration of its political trajectory. Adam Habib has
argued that there are two different blocs within South African civil society
which have emerged in response to the neoliberal direction of the ANC’s
policies. One group are a set of neighborhood organizations focused primar-
ily on helping township residents to survive under difficult conditions.64
While an important part of South African life, these groups are not the focus
of this study but rather the second group, social movements that seek to
engage the state to change government policy. These organizations use a vari-
ety of tactics ranging from lobbying to court action to direct action. They are
usually organized around single issues and do not directly seek to supplant
the political power of the ANC. Some are national in orientation like the
Treatment Action Committee (TAC) which has been in the forefront of chal-
lenging the ANC’s HIV-AIDS policy or the landless movement. Some are
more local in focus such as the Soweto Electricity Crisis Committee and the
Concerned Citizens Group organize against electricity cutoffs in Soweto and
rates evections and water terminations in Durban. A final example is the
Anti-Privatization Movement launched in response to government privatiza-
tion programs and allied with the international antiglobalization networks.
These groups represent a growing factor in South African politics, but it is
not clear that they pose any serious threat to the ANC nor are they likely to
effect much policy change with the exception of the TAC that has succeeded
in changing the ANC’s HIV/AIDS policies in the last three years to be more
in line with international norms. Part of the limitation of the new social
movements is that they tend to be based on a fairly narrow middle class con-
stituency or are too localized to affect national government policy. In addi-
tion, their general aversion to party politics makes them less of a threat to the
ANC’s electoral dominance, ironically, by serving as the conscience of the
ANC on such issues as HIV/AIDS. They have the ability to strengthen the
ANC in the longer term if the ANC is willing to be flexible enough to

incorporate their concerns.
Conclusion
Where does all of this leave South African politics today? On the one hand
the ANC is clearly the implementer of an economic project far different
from the radical, socialist oriented program envisioned in the Freedom
Charter and nurtured through long years in exile in close contact with
Soviet bloc. The ANC assumed power in the context of the collapse of the
socialist bloc and the triumphalism of the neoliberal new world order. That
in the eyes of the ANC leadership sharply constrained their room for
maneuver. A decade later, neoliberalism has lost some of its luster and the
political stance of the ANC and the general political scene in South Africa
is one of the contradictions. In spite of its clear move to the right, the
political discourse of the ANC in areas like women’s rights and environ-
ment remains far more progressive than their fellow Third Way politicians
in Europe and the United States. Outside the ANC, the political space for
left and progressive ideas remains very broad and well received within the
South African population. The future trajectory of the ANC is not entirely
clear. Faced with little real viable opposition there is a danger that the
movement may ossify and ignore the country’s key problems headed by
continued high levels of unemployment and HIV/AIDS. In that case the
real possibility that a viable opposition could arise beginning with COSATU
at its core but expanding to include those elements who sat out the 2004
elections, disillusioned by the ANC’s shortcoming in delivering on all of its
promises.
Notes
1. For Nelson Mandela’s views on armed struggle see Mandela, No Easy Walk to
Freedom (London: Heinemann, 1965) and Martin Meredith, Nelson Mandela—A
Biography (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997), p. 196–216.
2. Cuba’s perspective on Latin American revolution is embodied in the February
1962 Second Declaration of Havana published in full in Martin Kenner and
James Petros, eds., Fidel Castro Speaks (New York: Grove Press, 1969),
pp. 85–106. For an overview of Cuban foreign policy see Gary Prevost, “Cuban
Foreign Policy in the 1980s: Retreat from Revolutionary Perspectives or
Maturation” in Cuba—A Different America, ed. Wilber Chaffee and Gary
Prevost (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1992), pp. 154–169 and Michael
Erisman, Cuba’s International Relations: The Anatomy of a Nationalistic Foreign
Policy (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1985).
3. Che Guevara’s message to the Tricontinental Conference is quoted at length in

Herbert Matthews, Revolution in Cuba (New York: Charles Geribner’s Sons,
1975). Also for specific commentary on Africa see “At the Afro-Asian
Conference” and “Interview with Liberacion” in Che Guevara Speaks, ed.
Joseph Hansen (New York: Pathfinder Press, 2000).
4. William Mervin Gumede, Thabo Mbeki and the Battle for the Soul of the ANC
(Capetown: Zebra Press, 2001), pp. 38–39.
5. Anthony Marx, Lessons of the Struggle: South African Internal Opposition (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1992).
6. A review of the key ANC documents from this time period reveals that as late
as the January 8, 1989 document there is little change in the perspective that
the armed struggle will triumph and that there can be no compromise with the
apartheid system. The turning point is the January 8, 1990 document where
one month prior to Mandela’s release there is a paragraph entitled “Tactical
Flexibility Will Be Needed.” Documents from this time period can be viewed
on line at www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/history/.
7. For documentation on the importance of the events at Cuito Cuanavale see
“The Battle of Cuito Cuanavale, March 23, 1988” in Cuban Revolution Reader,
ed. Julio Garcia Luis (Melbourne: Ocean Press, 2001). For background on
Cuba’s overall role in Angola, see Piero Gleijeses, Conflicting Missions: Havana,
Washington, and Africa, 1959–1976 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina
Press, 2002).
8. Daniel Lieberfeld, “Getting to the Negotiating Table in South Africa:
Domestic and International Dynamics” Politikon 27, 1 (2000), pp. 19–36.
9. Lieberfield, “Getting to the Negotiating Table in South Africa.”
10. Author Interviews with Thami Mkongi, Community Activist, Kwazakele,
Former SACP member, January 23, 2005; Zanoxlo Waylie, COSATU official,
Continental Tire Company, February 4, 2005; Michael Xego, Coordinator of
Councillors, Port Elizabeth, February 10, 2005; Mlingsi (Lulu) Johnson,
Member of National Parliament, February 1, 2005.
11. Author Interview, Xego.
12. Slovo quoted in Radio South Africa, November 20, 1992.
13. Author Interview, Mkongi.
14. Nelson Mandela in Washington Post, June 26, 1990, cited in C. Spiess, “One-
Party-Dominance in Changing Societies: The ANC and INC in Comparative
Perspective,” Heidelberg Papers in South Asian and Comparative Studies No. 10
(South Asia Institute, University of Heidelberg, October 2002), p. 15.
15. For a detailed analysis of the FSLN electoral defeat see Vanessa Castro and
Gary Prevost, eds., The 1990 Elections in Nicaragua and Their Aftermath
(Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1992).
16. Author Interviews, Mkongi; Xego.
17. Author Interviews, Mkongi; Xego; Johnson.
18. Elke Zuern, “Fighting for Democracy: Popular Organizations and Post-
apartheid Government in South Africa,” African Studies Review 45, 1 (April
2002), pp. 77–102 and Author Interview, Mkongi.
19. Author Interview, Mkongi.

20. R. Ballard, A Habib, and I. Valodia, eds., Voices of Protest: Social Movements in
Post-apartheid South Africa (Scottsville, South Africa: University of Kwazulu-
Natal Press, 2006).
21. Author Interview with Janet Cherry, South African Human Sciences Research
Council, Port Elizabeth, February 23, 2005.
22. Author Interview, Cherry.
24. Harry Vanden and Gary Prevost, Democracy and Socialism in Sandinista
Nicaragua (Boulder, CO: Lynne Reinner, 1993) and K. S. Karol, Guerrillas in
Power (New York: Hill and Wang, 1970).
26. Author Interview with black business owner, Port Elizabeth, February
2005.
27. Patrick Bond, Elite Transition (New York: Pluto Press, 2000); Nigel Gibson,
“Transition from Apartheid,” Journal of Asian and African Studies 37, no. 1
(February 2001), pp 65–85; Hein Marais, Limits to Change (Cape Town:
University of Cape Town Press, 2001) and Neville Alexander, An Ordinary
Country: Issues in the Transition from Apartheid to Democracy in South Africa
(Durban, South Africa: University of Natal Press, 2002).
29. For a discussion of the Third Way concept in South African politics see Jos De
Bus and Tom Koelble, “The Third Way Diffusion of Social Democracy:
Western Europe and South Africa Compared,” Politikon 28, 2 (2001), pp.
181–194 and Thomas Koelble, “Globalization and Democratization: The
Prospects for Social Democracy in South Africa,” Politikon 26, 2 (1999),
p. 259–268.
30. DeBus and Koelble, p. 181.
31. Author Interview, Johnson.
32. Thabo Mbeki, Annual Message to the ANC, quoted from <www.anc.org.za>
January 8, 2005.
33. Mbeki, Annual Message to the ANC.
34. Observed in the offices of COSATU, Continental Tire Company, New
Brighton, February 2005.
35. Author Interviews with Tobile Ntola, Regional Chairperson, SACP, Port
Elizabeth, January 24, 2005; Irvin Jim, Regional Official, South African
Metalworkers Union (NUMSA), Port Elizabeth, February 16, 2005, and
Zanoxolo Wayile.
36. Tom Lodge, “Policy Processes within the African National Congress and the
Tripartite Alliance,” Politikon 26, 1 (1999), pp. 5–32.
37. COSATU leaders quoted in Lodge, 1999.
38. Lodge, “Policy Processes within the African National Congress.”
39. Mandela quoted in his criticism of COSATU’s critique of GEAR in Glenn
Adler and Eddie Webster, “Lessons from South Africa: Unions, Democracy
and Economic Liberalization,” Working USA 3,3 (September 1999),

pp. 9–21; 88–96.
40. For a detailed description of how Manuel and Mbeki seized the initiative on
the economy from the ANC see Gumede, Thabo Mbeki and the Battle for the
Soul, Chapter 4.
41. Richard Calland, “An Anatomy of Power,” Mail and Guardian, February 18,
2005 and in more detail in Anatomy of South Africa—Who Holds the Power?
(Capetown: Zebra Press, 2006).
42. Author Interviews, Wayile; Jim.
43. “Consolidating Working Class Power for Quality Jobs—toward
2015,” COSATU document, adopted at 8th National Congress, September
2003.
44. “Consolidating Working Class Power for Quality Jobs.”
47. V. I. Lenin, What Is to Be Done (New York: International Publishers, 1971).
48. Eddie Webster, “The Alliance under Stress: Governing in a Globalized World”
in Opposition and Democracy in South Africa, ed. Roger Southall (London:
Frank Cass Publishers, 2001).
49. Author Interview, Wayile; Jim.
50. For extensive discussion of the idea of post-Washington Consensus in the
context of South Africa see Patrick Bond, Elite Transition (New York: Pluto
Press, 2000).
51. This idea of South Africa moving from a Washington Consensus to a Beijing
Consensus was raised in a Mail and Guardian article following Mbeki’s 2005
State of the Nation address, Nic Dawes, “Mbeki Looks East,” Mail and
Guardian, February 11, 2005.
52. Brendan Boyle, “Government Pins Hopes on Labor Reforms,” Sunday Times
(Johannesburg), February 13, 2005.
53. Boyle, “Government Pins Hopes on Labor Reforms”
54. Rapule Tabane, “Reds Weigh ‘go-it-alone’ Option,” Guardian and Mail,
February 4, 2005.
55. Author Interview, Ntola.
56. Author Interview, Wayile.
57. The results of the Kwazakele research are available in a number of forms: Janet
Cherry, “Cynicism at the Grassroots? Political Opposition in Kwazakele
Township, Port Elizabeth” in Opposition and Democracy in South Africa, ed.
Southall; Lars Buur and Janet Cherry, “Kwazakele Then and Now: Resistance
and Democratic Consolidation in Kwazakele Township from 1984 to 2004,”
Paper for WISER Symposium, University of Witwatersrand, June 2004; Janet
Cherry, “We Shall Never Go back to Pharaoh!: Defending Democracy Despite
Disappointment with Delivery,” unpublished paper, Human Sciences Research
Council, 2004.
58. Burr and Cherry, Kwazakele Then and Now.
59. Ben Turok, Nothing but the Truth (Johannesburg and Cape Town: Jonathan
Ball Publishers, 2003).
60. Interview with Vuyo Toto, Regional Secretary, ANC, Port Elizabeth,
February 19, 2005.
62. “Hundreds Demonstrate at Council Meeting,” The Herald (Port Elizabeth),
January 22, 2005.
63. “Prosecutions Contemplated for Council Protectors,” The Herald (Port
Elizabeth), February 24, 2005.
64. Adam Habib, “State-Civil Society Relations in Post-apartheid South Africa,”
State of the Nation—2003–2004. For additional writing on South African
civil society, see A. Desai, We Are the Poors: Community Struggles in Post-
apartheid South Africa (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2002) and Ballard,
Habib, and Valodia, eds. Voices of Protest.
CHAPTER 8
Born Powerful? Authoritarian

Politics in Postliberation
Eritrea and Zimbabwe
Sara Rich Dorman
Introduction
Eritrea and Zimbabwe are African states liberated from colonial rule after
years of guerrilla warfare. Both generated great hope and enthusiasm in
their early years of independence yet they have now become bywords for
authoritarianism, fear, and violence. There are many similarities in their
experiences of war and of peace. However, they also raise questions about
the impact of guerrilla warfare and of transitional arrangements on the
prospect of democratic governance after conflict. Political scientists expect
liberation wars to result in governments “born powerful”—with the capac-
ity to mobilize their populations and reform institutions and transform
state-society relations in dramatic ways. Nevertheless, in his 1995 account
of African politics, Chris Allen concluded that despite winning indepen-
dence through “prolonged warfare” African postliberation states were “fol-
lowing similar paths to . . . the peacefully decolonised majority.”1 As Allen
noted, the dominant party states formed after the end of the cold war orga-
nized state-society relations in much the same way as the earlier generation
of states.2 However increasing authoritarianism and destabilization has
now overtaken many of these states and “liberation” has become a rallying
cry of aging politicians seeking to justify their continued rule.
158 ● Sara Rich Dorman
Perhaps inevitably, observers talk of liberation and democracy as

“competing paradigms,”3 suggesting that the antidemocratic ethos of
nationalist movements and liberation war experiences had “trumped” lib-
eral or social democratic norms and distinctively shaped the post-liberation
politics. But, if this was true, how can we explain the continuing institu-
tional and discursive power of the democratic discourses, juxtaposed against
the liberationist narratives? If we compare a country like Zimbabwe where
power came through a negotiated transition after civil war with one where
a liberation army literally took power “at the barrel of the gun,” such as
Eritrea, a subtly different picture emerges:
. . . the exceptional case, which stands out from the rest, invites us to
explain why it is different and to reconsider why specific conditions gave
rise to the features common to all the other cases.4
The Eritrean case reveals the significance of the negotiated transitions and
the inherited state institutions (or the lack thereof), as well as the history of
the armed struggle in shaping the nature of authoritarianism—and the
scope for alternative discourses—in the postliberation state. This chapter
first examines the symbolic, cultural, and material legacies of the Eritrean
and Zimbabwean liberation wars, and then moves to analyze the emergent
patterns of societal mobilization and demobilization. The concluding sec-
tion argues that these factors are crucial to understanding and comparing
the nature of authoritarian politics in postliberation states in Africa.
Zimbabwe and Eritrea show marked similarities, but diverge significantly
in balancing regime interests with societal pluralism in the years following
independence. Zimbabwe’s negotiated settlement required demobilization
and limited pluralism, not simply for constitutional reasons but out of
pragmatic necessity in governing a complex, inherited state. As a result,
discourses of democracy and a respect for the rule of law, do compete, albeit
handicapped, against the liberationist discourses, and have more potency
than there are sometimes credited with. Eritrea’s government, on the other
hand, had to make fewer bargains and permitted less pluralism, but now
struggles to maintain the resources and commitment required for their
mobilized and controlled mode of governing.
Colonialism and the Cold War

Zimbabwe and Eritrea are relics of settler colonialism, and as such, were
typical in experiencing delayed decolonization, albeit under rather
different circumstances. Zimbabwean nationalists were fighting for
Eritrea and Zimbabwe ● 159
self-determination against the white settler regime of Ian Smith’s Rhodesia,

which declared independence unilaterally from Britain in 1965. In con-
trast, Eritrea, a favored Italian colony until the end of World War II, then
briefly administered by the British, had been federated to Ethiopia in 1952
under the aegis of the United Nations. Ethiopia absorbed the Eritrean
province in 1961, claiming that Eritrea was culturally and historically part
of its empire, while the Eritrean nationalist movement claimed the right to
self-determination along the former colonial borders.
The nationalist movements had moved to armed conflict when faced
with the intransigence of the settler colonists in Zimbabwe, and the expan-
sionist Ethiopian state in Eritrea. Zimbabwe gained independence in 1980,
after negotiations conducted in London at Lancaster House resulted in an
agreed upon constitution, based on majority rule. In contrast, Eritrea’s lib-
eration struggle persisted until the end of the Cold War, and was resolved
through military victory with the triumphant troops marching into Asmara
in 1991. In its key years of struggle, Zimbabwe was supported by neighbor-
ing countries, the OAU and international sympathizers. Eritrea, isolated
from the OAU which supported Ethiopia’s claims to the territory, and with
limited international support, fought a longer and bitter struggle, which
forged a potent nationalist ethic of self-reliance.5
In both Eritrea and Zimbabwe, the liberation war generated potent and
meaningful symbolic politics, deriving significance from the experiences of
combatants and civilian supporters, who suffered through the period of
conflict. Postliberation states rely on narratives of conformity and unity
that are generated during the conflict, but in doing so they often deny the
divisions and rivalries. It is this contradiction that generates the tensions
and intensity of relations between states and societies in postliberation
states.6 The history of the movement thus both helps us understand the
postliberation state, and is itself constitutive of the state’s own myths and
power relations.
Liberation War Legacies

The legacies these wars left in the lives of civilians, especially in rural com-
munities, and in the experiences of those who fought in the guerrilla armies,
have been explored by historians and anthropologists.7 But legacies of war
are also to be found in political institutions, power arrangements, and
political culture. As this section illustrates, the nationalist movements in
both Zimbabwe and Eritrea experienced factionalism and ingrained leader-
ship disputes in the years before and during the war. These divisions are
downplayed or denied by the victors, but nonetheless shaped people’s
experiences. In justifying their claims to rule, the successful leaders

make much use of discourses of sacrifice and suffering—the political and
moral capital on which their regime is based. And in both cases, these
discourses—of unity and of sacrifice—are used to justify security doctrines
which permit no opposition, shaping the post-conflict political culture.
Leadership and Conflict

It has been the issue of leadership of the liberation movements, perhaps
more than any other, which has distinguished the politics of these states.
The parties which took power at independence were the victors of processes
of factionalization and fusion. Zimbabwe’s liberation movement split into
two competing parties in 1963. Despite pressure for them to reunify during
the war, they remained distinct until 1987. During the liberation war, the
Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZAPU), lead by veteran nationalist
Joshua Nkomo, appeared to have seniority over the younger organization
ZANU, led first by Ndabaningi Sithole, and then by the little-known
Robert Mugabe. This situation reversed itself after 1980, when ZANU
clinched a majority of seats in the first parliament and went on to increase
its domination of the political scene. During the war, ZANU and ZAPU
guerrillas had made hostile contacts, and despite attempts to create a uni-
fied army, they soon erupted into conflict after 1980.
In Eritrea, similar divisions existed between liberation armies, which led
to a bitter civil war between the older sectarian Eritrean Liberation
Front (ELF), and the new, secular challenger, Eritrean People’s Liberation
Front (EPLF).8 Unlike in Zimbabwe, however, EPLF succeeded in win-
ning a military victory over the ELF and forced them out of the field of
action. Since independence, the EPLF has dominated the political
scene through its successor the People’s Front for Democracy and
Justice (PFDJ). Both “successful” parties, however, also faced internal
divisions. Rebellious movements within Zimbabwe’s nationalist move-
ments questioned elite privilege and contrasted it with hardships suffered
in the field, questioning the ideological commitment of the parties’
leaderships.9
Within the EPLF, factions raised issues of “increased democratic
accountability . . . and power-sharing” in contrast to Afewerki’s expressed
preference for “a guiding role for the leadership and controlled participa-
tion through discussion.”10 Although these internal crises divided the lib-
eration fighters, they also enabled Mugabe to consolidate power over
ZANU and Afewerki to do the same in the EPLF, creating a “stronger
framework of control over internal dissidence”11 that represented “a victory
of a centralist conception of democracy rather than a populist one.”12 The

repression of dissent was accomplished through detentions and executions,
enabling the emergence of dominant leadership groups which endure to
this day.13
The parties that took power at independence succeeded in removing or
diminishing alternative claimants to the “liberation” mantle, and dominat-
ing the political environment. In both countries, conventional wisdom sug-
gested that no “non-liberation” party could ever hold power, such was the
power of the nationalist rhetoric. In Zimbabwe, it was long forecast that
effective opposition would emerge from within ZANU(PF), but despite the
presence of critical voices within ZANU, no sustainable opposition party
emerged. The Movement for Democratic Change, (MDC), which effec-
tively challenged ZANU after its launch in 1999, has few high-profile for-
mer ZANU members, although most of its older generation of leadership
was at one point affiliated either with ZANU or ZAPU.
In Eritrea, a schism emerged within the leadership of the PFDJ, with
little apparent warning. In 2001, 15 members of the PFDJ’s Central
Committee, and the National Assembly, including several generals and
ministers, appealed privately to the president, for internal party reform, the
implementation of the 1997 constitution, and the holding of national elec-
tions.14 Following a brief period of public discussion, the dissidents, who
came to be known as the G-15, were accused of being “engaged in unlawful
acts against the sovereignty and national security of the country.”15 Those
in Asmara have been detained without access to lawyers or their families
since October 2001.16 Although in Zimbabwe, opposition politicians were
arrested and accused of treason with very little evidence, their arrests were
known and documented, and they were given access to lawyers and other
concerned visitors.17 In contrast, no evidence or charges have been laid
against the Eritrean dissidents detained in 2001, although the state insists
that this will take place in due time.18 Reported defections by foreign ser-
vice personnel, journalists, and the former head of the demobilization pro-
gram further reveal splits in the regime.19
Sacrifice and Suffering

In both countries the liberation war is remembered, and inscribed on the
landscape, bolstering official narratives. At national holidays, Eritrean shop
windows are decked out with patriotic slogans and posters and buildings
are festooned with lights. Postcards, stamps and posters celebrate not just
the ethnic diversity and architecture, but also victories and sacrifices.
Zimbabwe’s liberation war iconography has been mainly limited to austere
official monuments, which in Norma Kriger’s words “exposed the gap

between the political rhetoric of equity, participation, and unity on the one
hand, and the realities of an enormous disparity between . . . leaders and
masses.”20 Indeed, the party-political nature of the liberation war discourse,
reifying ZANU and ignoring ZAPU, led Werbner to label it “quasi-
national.”21
Though Zimbabwe made great use out of nationalist rhetoric and
nation-building, it securely buffered these exhortations with actual mate-
rial benefits in the form of investment in health and education, especially
in rural areas, which dramatically improved the quality of life for many
Zimbabweans. The material benefits of independence seem less marked in
the poorer Eritrean state, where ideologies of sacrifice, also prevalent in
Zimbabwe, take on a more commandist tone. During the candlelight
services on the eve of Martyrs Day 2002, the power was turned off across
the country and the sale of alcohol banned for 24 hours. This was said to
facilitate appropriate behavior on the part of mourners. In 2004, the sale
of petrol to personal drivers was banned, preserving available stocks for
“public services and development program in the best interest of the
nation.”22
Security and Sovereignty

Liberation war rhetoric, and a discourse in which democracy was subordi-
nated to security, remained salient as a result of regional politics in the years
after independence. Both countries found themselves at odds with powerful
neighbors in the years after independence. In the 1980s, South Africa
actively tried to destabilize Zimbabwe and its neighbors. These efforts
included attempts to infiltrate and influence “dissident” movements in
Matabeleland, the recruitment of ex-Rhodesians as spies, and covert attacks
on ANC targets.23 Zimbabwe, in return, committed troops to support
counter-insurgency efforts in Mozambique. At the time, these events were
thought significant because they enabled ZANU to justify the maintenance
of Rhodesian era laws and strategies.24 Important accounts of this period
have emphasized the psycho-social impact of the Zimbabwe National
Army’s brutal onslaught on the people of Matabeleland, accused of
harboring traitorous dissidents.25 But the rhetorical impact of this period
has often been under-estimated. While those in Matabeleland experienced
the harshness of army counter-insurgency techniques, learned from
North Korean trainers, the rest of Zimbabwe was subject to an unend-
ing public discourse about the need for unity in the face of external
aggression.
Unity was also seen as essential for “development” and intra-societal

unity was demanded of groups like teachers, farmers, and workers to that
end.26 Crystal is surely correct to emphasize the ways in which an ideology
of developmentalism foster the belief that “the state must play the cen-
tral role in promoting economic growth and that, to that end, individu-
als and social organizations must relinquish power to it, allowing
it the routine, if temporary use of force against enemies.”27 In this
way, closely linked themes of security and development, justify
top-downstate control of the population and resources in authoritarian
configurations.
Eritrea’s rhetoric, perhaps unsurprisingly given the longer and less
promising conditions of their struggle, explicitly link development to ques-
tions of security and sovereignty. In 1997, for example, Afewerki said:
The national feeling which until yesterday centralized around the

imperative of bring about the liberation of homeland is today focusing
on protecting and defending it as well as strengthening its structural
pillars and making shorter the journey of national development. 28
The devastating war with Ethiopia, which began in 1998, fed a new
intensification of discourse, as ex-fighters were called up, and the young
were newly mobilized. Those, inside and outside the country who did not
fight, contributed financially to the war effort. Although a peace agreement
was signed in 2000, the continuing tensions with Ethiopia mean that this
rhetoric has only diminished slightly, and broadened to include new tar-
gets. 29 There has been continuing tension in relations with Sudan, which is
seen as a dangerous source of Islamist radicalism. In September 2001 just
before the detention of the G-15, Eritreans were reminded that it was
“incumbent on all citizens to unite their ranks and intensify the struggle to
build the new Eritrea without being influenced by divisive elements.”30
Just under twenty years earlier Mugabe warned Zimbabweans: “If
you show divisionist attitudes the enemy will come among us and will
destroy us.”31
While the threats to sovereignty were real, especially in the Eritrean
case, they also served a political purpose, in extending and perpetuating
a militarized and securitized discourse, which discouraged criticism
and alternative views. As has been written about Cuba’s authoritarian
state: “. . . to oppose Fidel meant to oppose national sovereignty, which is
the revolution’s central legacy.”32 Despite, or perhaps because of, the legacy
of division during the war, postliberation discourses emphasized unity and
solidarity against enemies. These discourses created a framework for the
new state which reified official accounts of the war, and justified
postliberation infringements on liberty and democracy.
Mobilization—Demobilization—Remobilization
Liberation is assumed to be predicated on the success of a mobilized society.
It is difficult, however, to assess to what extent and how evenly peasants,
urban dwellers, and others were mobilized during the struggle, and
what impact that mobilization has on postliberation relations with the
party-turned-state. Nevertheless, in the early years of the postindependence
states we can identify quite different patterns: in Zimbabwe demobiliza-
tion, and in Eritrea, continued mobilization. In Eritrea, constant mobiliza-
tion proves difficult to sustain; in Zimbabwe remobilization comes at the
cost of stability.
Demobilization
Demobilization reflects the existence of limited pluralism, in which inter-
ests are aggregated by autonomous organizations, rather than through for-
mal state or party institutions. After independence, ZANU’s party
membership structures were allowed to atrophy.33 Despite regular claims
throughout the 1980s and 1990s that national service would be introduced
for youth, it was not attempted until 2001. The women’s and youth leagues
of the party were often violent campaigners in elections, but were not sig-
nificant organizations at other times. Although ex-fighters were sometimes
called upon to play significant political roles in the early years, they soon
felt themselves to have been sidelined. Norma Kriger writes that although
ex-fighters were “born powerful” they were none the less aggrieved by the
“lack of material and symbolic recognition of the ex-combatants’ war ser-
vices” and that they “resented the distance their former leaders kept from
them.”34 The ex-fighters were only grudgingly allowed to form their own
representative organization in 1990.
Nongovernmental Organizations (NGOs), Churches, workers, students,
and professionals were all expected to work in and through the ZANU(PF)
dominated state structures. Yet, this strategy was also relatively pluralist,
with relatively few legal constraints on organizations, although this changed
over the years. For example, Zimbabwean NGOs operated under Rhodesian
era legislation until 1995, with little oversight from the Ministry responsi-
ble for them. In 1995, the introduction of NGO legislation was the final
step in a series of laws introduced to regulate and control the University
students and academics and trades unions.35 Attempts to close two NGOs
in the 1980s and 1990s, appear to have been inspired by greed, not a
response to political dissent.36 Nevertheless, in the late 1990s, NGOs were
increasingly under surveillance, and warned to watch their behavior in
official ministerial speeches. After 2000, this intensified, and in 2004, a
draft law was introduced to parliament, which seemed likely to force the
closure of NGOs working in the realm of “governance.”37
Zimbabwe’s strong economy and relative regional stability clearly
enabled the state to provide goods and services which entrenched the belief
that the regime was bringing “development.” It also took advantage of
offered donor funds, and tolerated, if not encouraged, the formation of
local NGOs. While international NGOs existed, the salient and numeri-
cally dominant sector was Zimbabwean. Whether the source was donor
funds or other, the regime was also able to take credit for most development
projects.
Mobilization
In contrast, the Eritrean state encouraged the formation of the Eritrean
war disabled fighters association,38 although not an association of
ex-combatants in the aggregate. Fighters do seem to have maintained
some political inf luence. In his study of the EPLF, David Pool speaks of
a “socioeconomic protest” resulting from the nonpayment of salaries in
the months after the referendum, that also raised issues about demo-
cratic accountability within the new state.39 In a public statement some-
time after the revolt, President Isaias spoke only of ex-fighters who
“believed they were being abandoned by government . . . [and] took one
of the officers hostage . . . demanded to speak to the president.”40 Despite
this incident, or perhaps as a result of it, ex-fighters remain a relatively
privileged and respected group. They have concessionary rights to
import cars duty-free, most seem to have been provided with employ-
ment, and some are being sponsored for higher education. Questions
have been raised about the experiences of female ex-combatants,41 which
have been recognized to some extent by the state.42
More generally, in Eritrea, continued mobilization of both the military
and civilian variety has dominated society’s experience of liberation. The
apogee of this has been the emphasis on “national service.” Seen as a con-
tinuation of the selfless giving during the liberation war, many returnees in
the years between 1991 and 1994 worked voluntarily to reestablish the
state. Official national service was implemented in 1994, and written into
the 1997 constitution.43 Since the 1998–2000 war with Ethiopia, however,
national service has become a permanent situation.44 65,000 fighters,
mainly veterans of the independence war, were demobilized in 2003–2004,

but the “warsay” or national service youth, continue to serve.45 The follow-
ing explanation of the national development campaign which mobilised
60,000 Eritreans immediately prior to the 1998 war, conveys well the
rationale:
During the armed struggle for liberation it was part of our policy to
launch campaigns that involved popular participation. It was such popu-
lar initiatives that enabled us finally to repulse large and well-armed
attacks. It is not wise to leave everything to the government. Any devel-
opment strategy should get full-participation from the people who are
directly benefiting from it. If we are going to build an economically
strong country, free of ignorance and disease and self-reliant, then we
have to take it as our duty to participate in its development.46
This mobilization also extends into other areas, students entering the uni-
versity have little choice about which department they are allocated to, and
after graduation are allocated to various ministries to work as part of their
“national service.” Those employed in national service are paid a “stipend”
or what the university payroll staff call “pocket money.” A select group of
graduates from each university are sent abroad for further study.47 Many
have not returned, knowing that they face a predictable future of low pay
in their continued years of service. Attempts to prevent young people
absconding have led to army “checkpoints” on all roads, and annual “round-
ups” which involve the dispersal of thousands of military police into the
streets, checking the IDs of all passers-by, and even, it is reported, seizing
young people from houses at the crack of dawn.48 The atmosphere in these
periods is particularly bad, with many of the young staying at home in
relative safety. Businesses that had turned to young female staff with the
conscription of young men, now find themselves more and more desperate
for labor. Eritreans insist that they did not resist conscription before 1998,
but that the abuse of women by senior officers was so pervasive that parents
are increasingly unwilling to let their daughters serve. High rates of preg-
nancy and HIV-AIDS among conscripts, many of whom have either been
raped, or chose to become pregnant as a way of evading service, are alleged
to have distressed many families. Exit-visas for travel abroad are also tightly
controlled, in order to prevent further brain and brawn drain.
Eritrea has resisted any tendencies toward pluralism. International
NGOs have been tightly regulated. After the first local postwar NGO was
closed down and restrictive new laws were brought in, in the mid-1990s
many international NGOs left in disgust, or, by some accounts, were asked
to leave.49 Four NGOs working on mine clearance were “asked to terminate

operations” in August 2002.50 Local NGOs are few and far between. Three
“social movements” representing the youth, women, and workers are the
most visible and significant players, although they are not entirely distinct
from either the party or the state.51 In so far as they function to “obstruct
the independent organization of social interests,” they resemble Kasza’s
administered mass organizations.52 The national youth organization pre-
cludes the existence of student groups, scout troops, and or sports groups.53
In 1996, an organization set up to represent and provide services for female
ex-fighters was closed down on orders from the president’s office because “it
duplicated the work of other organizations.”54
The EPLF’s sensitivity to religious divisions has had a particular impact
on churches, although the un-implemented 1997 constitution enshrines
complete religious freedoms. The two of four main religious leaders—the
Islamic Mufti and the Orthodox Patriarch—are thought to be appointed
by the head of state. The other two main churches, the Lutheran Church
and the Roman Catholics, also have close ties to the state. Jehovah’s
Witnesses, whose refusal to vote or serve in the military infuriated the rul-
ing party, have not been tolerated.55 In 1995 it was declared that churches
could not carry out development work.56 A limited number of “evangelical”
churches were permitted to operate until May 2002, when they were told to
close. Those who have continued to worship in their own homes risk
imprisonment.57 In Zimbabwe, churches have been better tolerated, espe-
cially when they have engaged in “development projects.”58 In the early
1980s, independent churches were criticized for their antimodern stance,
and rejection of biomedicine. However, by the time of the 2000 parliamen-
tary election, they were being hastily recruited as “authentic” supporters of
ZANU, and registered en masse to vote.59
Much of the regimes’ credibility has been generated by pro-government
press coverage. Zimbabwe’s freedom of the press has been characterised by
self-censorship, and more recently politically-inspired attacks on the press
and journalists. The burgeoning of independent newspapers in the late
1990s, at the same time as cell phones, satellite TV, and email became
widespread among the elite further reduced any possibility that the regime
might successfully control the media. On the whole, it did not try to do so
until the late 1990s, when journalists were detained and tortured60 the only
independent daily newspaper was closed,61 radio licenses restricted,62 and
unsuccessful attempts made to control internet access.63 In contrast, Eritrea
was the last African country to gain internet access64 and cell-phone net-
works have just begun to operate.65 Independent newspapers, which had
been allowed to publish after 1997, were shut down in 2001.66
Economic policy has been at the heart of both regimes’ strategies for
state and nation-building. As a new country, Eritrea began independence
without any foreign debt, but with few other economic advantages. While
Zimbabwe inherited a strong export sector and domestic production (and
unlike Mozambique experienced little vandalism) Eritrea had none of these
benefits. Although in the 1980s, Zimbabwe restricted imports, it did have
a significant ability to supply a limited range of clothing, blankets, food,
wine and beer, kitchen implements, books, paper, and so forth for domestic
consumers. In Eritrea, the domestic manufacturing base is weak, despite
some remaining Italian-era factories, and few inputs are produced locally.
As a result, markets and shops are dominated by cheap imports from Asia
and the Gulf. Perhaps because of this weak domestic base, and despite its
officially free market policies, Eritrea’s ruling party has increasingly
monopolized the economy through PFDJ-run enterprises known as “party-
partals.” These enterprises dominate the limited “private” market, along
with organizations run by ex-fighters and the former EPLF mass organiza-
tions, which have also been pressured into the market economy.67 Especially
since donors withdrew assistance in 2001, the Eritrean economy has
depended disproportionately on remittances—and taxes—sent home by
the extensive Eritrean diaspora in the Gulf, Europe and North America.
The PFDJ-linked corporations have also benefited from access to cheap
labor in the form of conscript workers. While ZANU(PF) did create a
“business empire” in Zimbabwe, with links into multinational deals,68 it
has never been a dominant economic force. The white-owned and multina-
tional corporations were wooed by ZANU(PF), as important partners in
the postindependence state. Attempts by indigenization lobbies to influ-
ence political decision-making were limited until the late 1990s.69
Zimbabwe’s current efforts to channel remittances through the state—en-
abling it to access foreign exchange—have been much less successful than
in Eritrea.70
Remobilization
Zimbabwe’s recent destabilization is the result of efforts on the part of
ZANU(PF) to remobilize society, directly linked to its electoral fortunes in
2000. However, the remobilization of Zimbabwean society actually started
outside the party, with the war veterans’ protests in 1997.
The Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans Association
(ZNLWVA) had been formed in 1990, in response to the existence of
impoverished war veterans “whose plight was not only an embarrassment to
the government, but who had also become . . . potential recruits to the
opposition party, ZUM.” 71 Indeed, while this group was affiliated to the
ruling party, and led by party loyalists, it had the potential to radically
critique the government’s postcolonial achievements. In 1996, when
Margaret Dongo revealed in Parliament that the War Victims Compensation
Fund had been looted by senior party and government officials, the
Chidyausiku Commission was set up and mandated to investigate. The
commission suspended payments to veterans, leading to a series of riots and
protests in June–August 1997.
Unlike other protesters they were not tear-gassed, dispersed, or charged.
With apparent impunity, they occupied and looted the ZANU(PF) party
headquarters, took over a courtroom—chasing out judges and court offi-
cials, disrupted Heroes’ Day celebrations across the country and demanded
and received meetings with senior party officials and President Mugabe.72
Ministers holding meetings in Harare were forced to flee, in Bulawayo,
veterans threatened to beat up Home Affairs Minister Dumiso Dabengwa,
and in Lupane John Nkomo, Minster of Local Government Rural and
Urban Development was also forced to flee the fury of ex-fighters, while
elsewhere ministers were faced with verbal abuse and shouted down.73
The government rapidly conceded to their demands.74 However, the
unbudgeted agreement to provide these “pay-outs” had an immediate
impact on the Zimbabwean economy, with the November 1997 currency
crash from which the Zimbabwe dollar has never recovered. Two further
repercussions are important: The economic decline of the 1990s meant that
there were few resources available to the state which it could distribute to
the war veterans. Realization of the limitation led the state to turn to land
redistribution, in an attempt to placate this suddenly volatile constituency,
endowed with immense symbolic capital. From 1998 onwards, rhetoric
over land grew, leading to the inclusion of a clause in the draft constitution
empowering the state to seize land without redress. In the aftermath of the
February 2000 referendum the war veterans, aided by party loyalists and
unemployed youths, moved onto commercial farms and began to claim
land. This process was later formalized as the “fast track” land distribution
process.
Over the same period, the white community most of which had main-
tained a safe distance from overt political involvement since independence,
began to be participate in initiatives such as the church and NGO-organized
National Constitutional Assembly (NCA) and the new labor-based opposi-
tion party, the MDC.75 This process was not uniform or unambiguous; the
government’s rhetoric claiming that whites were behind the NCA and
MDC was grossly overexaggerated. The Commercial Farmers Union
(CFU), which had been close to ZANU(PF) until the 1998 land designations,
wavered between attempting to maintain its position of nonconfrontational

interaction with government ministries and using the courts to seek redress,
reflecting the presence of two camps within its membership. MDC mem-
bers pressured the CFU to pursue legal action against the unconstitutional
land seizures. Other groups of farmers, notably tobacco growers, producing
mainly for export, have emphasized the economic realities, and urged the
farm community to seek ways of compromising with the ruling party.76
However, the combination of increased white involvement in politics, along
with and through churches, NGOs, and unions generated a much more
mobilized and participatory sector, increasingly defining itself outside of
ZANU(PF)’s orbit.77 ZANU(PF) has matched this process, initially by
attempting to organize its own NGO sector, along with its own constitu-
tional commission.78 Alongside efforts to reinvigorate ZANU(PF) struc-
tures, it has began a controversial youth national service program79 and
wooed traditional chiefs.80 Substantial efforts have been made to avoid alle-
gations that land reform is only for elites, doubtless as part of program to
rebuild a rural constituency.81 In 2005, Zimbabwe remains polarized, but
also remobilized.
Continuity and Change

Much has been written about the continuity of institutions and ideologies
from Rhodesia to Zimbabwe, much of which is attributed to the negotiated
transition.82 In contrast, Eritrea inherited relatively little institutionally
from Ethiopia, and has been at great pains to emphasize the discontinuities
of territorial and governmental reorganization.83 By taking control militar-
ily, the leaders of the Eritrean state were not required to, nor interested in,
negotiating with settled interests. Instead, the ethos of the liberation war
was perpetuated. Ministries were taken over and staffed with battalions of
ex-fighters. The new parliamentarians were drawn from the liberation
movement, as were judges and other state officials. The party’s commercial
interests soon came to dominate, sometimes in partnership with
diaspora-based investors. While fatigues became less common, casual dress
dominates the corridors of power in Eritrea, rather than suits and ties.
In Zimbabwe, the large settler community, with substantial roots in
agriculture and industry, had to be reckoned with. Anecdotal accounts fre-
quently report Samora Machel of Mozambique and Julius Nyerere of
Tanzania advising Mugabe to prevent “white flight” and the concomitant
loss of technical skills. Mugabe seems to have listened; he appointed whites,
and other former opponents, to ministerial posts and retained civil ser-
vants. The much-maligned Lancaster House Constitution also ensured
that whites had reserved seats in parliament, and protected property rights.
White interests also maintained strong lobbying positions through the
Commercial Farmers Union and the Confederation of Zimbabwe
Industries.84 Mugabe was constrained not simply by constitutional
provisions, but by the realpolitik of the situation. The need to balance these
interests generated a particular kind of politics in Zimbabwe, characterised
by societal demobilization. As Linz argues, demobilization enables authori-
tarian regimes to balance competing societal interests:
Effective mobilisation, particularly through a single party and its mass

organisations, would be perceived as a threat by the other components of
the limited pluralism, typically, the army, the bureaucracy, the churches
or interest groups. 85
The legacy of Zimbabwe’s two decades of demobilization, limited plural-

ism, and relative respect for the rule of law must also be taken into
consideration when analyzing its current state of crisis. Even as some have
jumped on the ruling party’s bandwagon, other Zimbabweans have not
meekly acquiesced to mobilization, but have organized new parties, new
social movements, and engaged themselves in a critique of liberationist
orthodoxy. Urban dwellers, farmworkers, whites, and “coloreds” have
resisted efforts to redefine Zimbabwean nationalism, have insisted on
their citizenship rights, and their right to participation in Zimbabwe’s
polity, drawing effectively on legal traditions and the remaining civic
space.86
Eritrea, in contrast, with its independence seized at the barrel of the
gun, had fewer existing interest groups to balance, and less need to listen to
advice. The country’s lack of a commitment to “limited pluralism” has
enabled the government to maintain a mobilized society, in which groups
with potentially distinct interests have cooperated, until the demands of
mobilization exceeded their commitment. At first only tiny fractions of the
population—Jehovah’s Witnesses and Islamic political movements—resisted
the party/state’s agenda. But as larger numbers of people have experienced
the coercive side of the state—disenchanted national service youth and
their families, elderly mediators and students arrested in 2001, the small,
but upwardly mobile, Pentecostal community—the pool of potential dis-
sidents has widened. In an interview after his defection, the former leader
of the youth movement, and member of the PFDJ’s executive, said: “no
Eritrean, including so-called high ranking officials, can be considered
immune from arbitrary arrests.”87 But there is no space in Eritrea for the
articulation of any alternative viewpoint, whether within or outside the
ruling party: that is the legacy of Eritrea’s transition. The brief opening up
of independent newspapers, and flourishing of political debate in 2001,
was rapidly and easily quashed by arrests, detentions, and a resurgence
of exclusionary rhetoric that dubbed all alternative perspectives as
treasonous.
Postliberation politics in Southern Africa has tended to emphasize
inclusionary tactics—although some groups are “outside,” efforts are made
to include as many “inside” as possible.88 Increasingly exclusionary politics
have resulted from the unbalancing of the demobilized, stable postlibera-
tion bargain. The mobilization and privileging of certain members of the
coalition weakens the regime’s hold over other, former allies. It also opens
spaces for alternative accounts of nationalism or other ideologies to flour-
ish. In doing so, it further reflects a diminishing in the ideological or cul-
tural elements of power, as well as the material. This leaves coercive force
on its own, in a much weaker position than when justified by rhetoric or
resource distribution. There are simply few incentives (carrots) for people
to support the regimes, instead there are coercive mechanisms (sticks)
designed to enforce their acquiescence. As Fred Halliday has said about a
rather different regime, its weakness was “reliance on orders and
moral exhortation alone.”89 Both Eritrea and Zimbabwe have been
plunged into crisis as they increasingly rely on coercive and exclusionary
politics.
Authoritarian politics in Africa is frequently interpreted as either “poli-
tics of the belly” (that is material need or greed) or “coercion.” Neither
Zimbabwe nor Eritrea fit either characterization terribly well, yet both are
markedly authoritarian. Though greed, corruption and coercion exist in
Zimbabwe and in Eritrea to differing extents, these explanations do not
engender understanding of their particular state-society relations, and the
changes that have occurred within them. The chapter has argued instead
that authoritarianism in these two cases must be understood as resulting
from their distinct transitions from liberation war footing to civilian
government.
The postliberation regime-builders based their institutions on a combi-
nation of inclusionary tactics—both material and symbolic—buttressed by
selective coercion, which generated authoritarian regimes with a certain
amount of stability and durability, despite markedly different approaches
to societal mobilization and demobilization. Zimbabwe’s limited pluralism
and demobilization reflected a Linzian authoritarian system, with Eritrea’s
attempts to control their population verging towards the totalitarian end of
the spectrum.
Notes
1. Chris Allen, “Understanding African Politics,” Review of African Political
Economy 65 (1995), p. 315; he suggests that Mozambique and Angola would
have followed similar paths, but for external intervention.
2. See for instance, Aristide Zolberg, Creating Political Order: The Party States of
West Africa (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1966); Lionel Cliffe, One Party
Democracy: The 1965 Tanzania General Elections (Nairobi, Kenya: East Africa
Publishing House, 1967).
3. R. Southall, “Post-Colonial Legitimacy in Lesotho” in Limits to Liberation in
Southern Africa, ed. H. Melber (Cape Town, South Africa: HSRC Press, 2003),
p. 129; See also, Henning Melber, “From Liberation Movements to
Governments: On Political Culture in Southern Africa,” African Sociological
Review 6, 1 (2002), pp. 161–172; Henning Melber, Re-examining Liberation in
Namibia: Political Culture since Independence (Nordiska, Sweden:
AfricaInstitutet, 2003).
4. Gavin Williams, Brian Williams, and Roy Williams, “Sociology and
Historical Explanation,” African Sociological Review 1 (1997), p. 89.
Emphasis added.
5. Ruth Iyob, The Eritrean Struggle for Independence : Domination, Resistance,
Nationalism, 1941–1993. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995).
6. For Zimbabwe see, Terence Ranger, “Nationalist Historiography, Patriotic
History and the History of the Nation: The Struggle over the Past in Zimbabwe,”
Journal of Southern African Studies 30, 2 (2004), pp. 215–234; For Eritrea see,
Sara Rich Dorman, “Narratives of Nationalism in Eritrea: Research and
Revisionism,” Nations and Nationalism 11, 2 (2005), pp. 203–222.
7. On Zimbabwean civilian experiences see especially Terence Ranger, Peasant
Consciousness and Guerrilla War in Zimbabwe (London: James Currey, 1985);
Norma Kriger, Zimbabwe’s Guerilla War: Peasant Voices (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1992), Jocelyn Alexander et al., Violence and Memory: One
Hundred Years in the “Dark Forests” of Matabeleland (Oxford: James Currey,
2000); on the war see Terence Ranger and Ngwabi Bhebe, Soldiers in Zimbabwe’s
Liberation War (Harare: University of Zimbabwe, 1995); Terence Ranger and
Ngwabi Bhebe, Society in Zimbabwe’s Liberation War (Harare: University of
Zimbabwe, 1995); Josephine Nhongo-Simbanegavi, For Better or Worse? Women
and Zanla in Zimbabwe’s Liberation Struggle (Harare, Zimbabwe: Weaver Press,
2000). Critical literature on Eritrea is much more sparse, see Kjetil Tronvoll,
Mai Weini (Lawrenceville, NJ: Red Sea, 1998); Soren Walther Nielsen,
“Reintegration of Ex-Fighters in Highland Eritrea: A Window into the Process
of State Formation and Its Lines of Social Stratification,” Unpublished PhD
dissertation (Roskilde University, 2002); David Pool, From Guerrillas to
Government: The Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (Oxford: James Currey,
2001).
8. Pool, From Guerrillas to Government, especially pp. 59–104.
9. Masipula Sithole, Zimbabwe: Struggles within the Struggle (Harare: Rujeko,

1995); Luise White, The Assassination of Herbert Chitepo: Texts and Politics in
Zimbabwe (Bloomington: University of Indiana, 2003); David Moore, “The
Contradictory Construction of Hegemony in Zimbabwe,” Unpublished PhD
thesis, (York University, Canada,1990); David Moore, “The Zimbabwean
‘Organic Intellectuals’ in Transition,” Journal of Southern African Studies 15
(1988), pp. 96–105.
10. Pool, From Guerrillas to Government, p. 78.
13. For Zimbabwe see Christine Sylvester, “Simultaneous Revolutions: The
Zimbabwe Case,” Journal of Southern African Studies 16, 3 (1990); For Eritrea,
Dan Connell revisits these issues in Conversations with Eritrean Political
Prisoners (Trenton, NJ: Red Sea, 2005).
14. Mahmoud Sherifo, Open Letter to Eplf Members, 2001, <http://www.asma-
rino.com> (19 June 2004).
15. “Press Release” Eritrea Profile, October 13, 2001, p. 1.
16. Martin Plaut, “The Birth of the Eritrean Reform Movement,” ROAPE 91
(2002), pp. 119–124.
17. See for example, “Muzorewa arrested” The Herald November 2, 1983, p. 1;
“Why Muzorewa being detained—Premier” The Herald, November 4, 1983;
“New grounds for the detention of Muzorewa” The Herald, November 5,
1983, p.1; “Bishop’s Zaire link exposed” The Herald, November 19,1983, p. 1;
“Sithole Refused Trial Date in Plot to Kill Mugabe” Sapa-AFP June 1,
1996; “Sithole says he is innocent of treason charges.” Independent, June, 27,
1997, p. 1.
18. See for example, “Interview with Yemane Gebremeskel, Director of the
President’s Office” IRIN, April 1, 2004.
19. See for example, “Dr Amanuel Mehreteab Granted Political Asylum,” January
5, 2004, <http://www.awate.com> (19 June 2004); “An Eritrean Diplomat
Requests Political Asylum in Sweden” December 29, 2003, <http://www.
awate.com> (19 June 2004).
20. Kriger, Zimbabwe’s Guerilla War, p.140. See also, Norma Kriger, “The Politics
of Creating National Heroes: The Search for Political Legitimacy and National
Identity” in Soldiers in Zimbabwe’s Liberation War, eds., Bhebe and Ranger,
pp.139–162; “Who Is a Hero—ZAPU?” The Herald, September 16, 1982,
p. 7; “Who Is a Hero,” Zimbabwe Mirror, July 23, 1999.
21. Richard Werbner, “Smoke from the Barrel of a Gun: Postwars of the Dead,
Memory and Reinscription in Zimbabwe” in Memory and the Postcolony, ed.
Richard Werbner (London: Zed Books, 1998).
22. “Petrol Sales Suspended in Eritrea,” BBC, October 15, 2004.
23. Joseph Hanlon, “Destabilisation and the Battle to Reduce
Dependence” in Zimbabwe’s Prospects, ed. Colin Stoneman (London:
MacMillan, 1988); Michael Evans, “The Security Threat from South Africa” in
Zimbabwe’s Prospects, ed. Colin Stoneman; Jocelyn Alexander, “Dissident
Perspectives on Zimbabwe’s Post-Independence War,” Africa 68, 2 (1998),

pp. 151–182.
24. Ronald Weitzer, “In Search of Regime Security: Zimbabwe since Independence,”
Journal of Modern African Studies 23, 4 (1984), pp. 529–557.
25. Alexander et al., Violence and Memory; ZimRights, Choosing the Path to Peace
and Development: Coming to Terms with Human Rights Violations of the
1982–1987 Conflict in Matabeleland and Midlands Provinces (Harare:
ZimRights, 1999); CCJP/LRF, Breaking the Silence: Building True Peace. A
Report on the Disturbances in Matabeleland and the Midlands, 1980–1988,
(CCJP & LRF, 1997).
26. “Create Unity, Mutumbuka Urges 5000 Head-Masters,” The Herald,
November 13,1981, p. 3; “Nhongo Urges Unity of Sexes for Progress” The
Herald January 27, 1982, 3; “Breakthrough in Battle to Unite all Businessmen”
The Herald, January, 28, 1982, p. 1; “Workers Told to Unite,” The Herald,
January 27, 1982, p. 2; “Unite or Be Disowned, Warns top ZCTU Man,”
The Herald, January 29, 1982, p. 11; “Workers Unity is Vital,” The Herald,
May 3, 1982, p. 4; “Clothing Unions’ Merger ‘is valid,’” The Herald,
February 3, 1982, p. 4; “Unity Vital—Townsend,” The Herald, November 6,
1981, p. 15.
27. Jill Crystal, “Authoritarianism and Its Adversaries in the Arab World,” World
Politics 46 (1994), p. 288, see also pp. 280–281.
28. “President Isaias Replies to Questions on National Regional and International
Issues: Part II,” Eritrea Profile, May 31,1997, p. 3.
29. See for instance, Ministry of Information, “An Axis of Belligerence Cannot Be
Tolerated,” October 31, 2002.
30. “PFDJ Stressed Steadfastness, Sacrifice in Fulfillment of National and Popular
Objectives,” Eritrea Profile, September 1, 2001, p. 1.
31. “Division Will Destroy Us, Says Mugabe,” The Herald, October 18, 1982.
32. Darren Hawkins, “Democratization Theory and Nontransitions: Insights
from Cuba,” Comparative Politics 33 (2001), pp. 441–461 and p. 448.
33. Jocelyn Alexander, “The State, Agrarian Policy and Rural Politics in Zimbabwe:
Case Studies of Insiza and Chimanimani Districts, 1940–1990,” Unpublished
D.Phil. dissertation , University of Oxford, 1993.
34. Norma Kriger, “The War Victims Compensation Act,” Journal of African
Conflict and Development 1 (2000), ms p. 2. See also Norma Kriger, Guerrilla
Veterans in Post-War Zimbabwe: Symbolic and Violent Politics, 1980–1987
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), p. 175.
35. Norbert Tengende, “Workers, Students and the Struggles for Democracy:
State Civil Society Relations in Zimbabwe,” Unpublished PhD. dissertation,
University of Roskilde, 1994, pp. 437–438; Peer Nordlund, Organising the
Political Agora, Uppsala University, 1996, p. 184; Ngoni Chanakira, “Academic
Freedom in Higher Institutions of Learning in Zimbabwe,” SAPEM April
1991, pp 30–31; Angela P. Cheater, “The University of Zimbabwe: University,
National University, State University or Party University,” African Affairs 90,
359 (1999), pp. 200–203.
36. On the AWC case see Sara Rich Dorman, “Inclusion and Exclusion: NGOs
and Politics in Zimbabwe,” D. Phil. thesis, University of Oxford, 2001. On
the Savings Development Movement see Michael Bratton, “Non-governmental
Organizations in Africa: Can They Influence Public Policy,” Development and
Change 21 (1990), pp. 96–99.
37. GOZ, Non-Governmental Organisations Bill, July 2004.
38. “EWDFA holds 2nd Congress,” Eritrea Profile, April 27, 1996, p. 1; “Eritrean
War Disabled Fighters Association: Highlights,” Eritrea Profile April 27,
1996, p. 2.
39. Pool, From Guerrillas to Government, pp. 173–175.
40. “The President Replies” Eritrea Profile, September 17, 1994, pp. 4–5.
41. Atsuko Matsuoka and John Sorenson, After Independence: Prospects for Women
in Eritrea, Unpublished manuscript; Victoria Bernal, “Equality to Die For?
Women Guerrilla Fighters and Eritrea’s Cultural Revolution,” Political and
Legal Anthropology Review 23, 2 (2000), pp. 61–76; Nielsen, “Reintegration of
Ex-Fighters in Highland Eritrea.”
42. “Parking Ticket Women Get Rehabilitated,” Shaebia.com April 23, 2004;
“New Jobs for Ex-Parking Ticket Collectors,” Shaebia.com May 7, 2004.
43. “National Service—the Facts,” Eritrea Profile, December 1, 1994, p. 4;
“Benefits of National Service Stressed,” Eritrea Profile, October 1, 1994, p. 1;
The Constitution of Eritrea, 1997.
44. “Nation Launches Warsay-Yikealo Campaign,” Eritrea Profile, May 11,
2002, p. 1.
45. “All Female NS Participants Demobilized” Eritrea Profile, December 28,
2003, p. 1; Ministry of Information (Eritrea), “Commission for Demobilization
and Reintegration Program Begins Distribution of Identification Cards,”
March 1, 2004; Ministry of Information (Eritrea), “The NCRDP Commences
Fiscal Remuneration to the First Phase Demobilized Personals,” April 16,
2004.
46. “A Word to the People,” Eritrea Profile, March 21, 1998, p. 2.
47. For a critical account of this scheme, see Daniel Mekonnen and Samuel
Abraha, The Plight of Eritrean Students in South Africa (2004).
48. Intense Nighttime Roundups—”Gffa”—in Eritrea, Awate.com, 2002; Twelve
Killed in Roundup (“Gffa”) Clashes, Awate.com, 2002; “Eritrea Sweeps Capital
for Draft Dodgers,” Reuters, April 19, 1999.
49. Dan Connell, “The Importance of Self-Reliance: NGOs and Democracy-
Building in Eritrea”, Middle East Report, Spring 2000, 28–32; see also, “NGOs
Are Finding It Difficult to Work in Eritrea,” Eritrea Profile, April 5, 1997, p.
3; “Another Perspective on Eritrea,” Eritrea Profile, April 5, 1997, p. 3; and
Rachel Hayman, “Reconciling Ownership of Development and External
Assistance: Aid and Nation-Building in Eritrea,” M.Sc. dissertation, University
of Edinburgh, 2002.
50. “4 NGOs Asked to Terminate Operations Here,” Eritrea Profile, August 31,
2002, p. 1.
51. On youth, see Sara Rich Dorman, “National Union of Eritrean Youth and
Students: Constraints and Opportunities for Organizational Development,”
NUEYS conference on “Eritrean Youths: Post-War Challenges and
Expectations,” Asmara, Eritrea, December 2002.
52. Gregory Kasza, The Conscription Society: Administered Mass Organizations
(New Haven: Yale, 1995), p. 9.
53. Sara Rich Dorman, “Past the Kalashnikov: Youth, Politics and the State,”
Vanguard or Vandals? Youth, Politics and Conflict in Africa, ed. J. Abbink and
I. van Kessel (Leiden, Holland: Brill Academic Publishers, 2004).
54. Pool, From Guerrillas to Government, p. 183; see also, Connell, “The
Importance of Self-Reliance.”
55. Government of Eritrea (GOE), A Presidential Directive on Jehovah’s Witnesses,
1994, ; GOE, “Ministry of Interior, Statement on Jehovah’s Witnesses,” Eritrea
Profile, 1995.
56. GOE, Proclamation issued July 15, 1995.
57. Jonah Fisher, “Religious Persecution in Eritrea,” BBC September 17, 2004.
58. For a more detailed discussion see: Sara Rich Dorman, “Rocking the Boat?:
Church-NGOs and Democratization in Zimbabwe?” African Affairs 101
(2002), pp. 75–92.
59. “Apostolic Sect Supports President,” The Herald, May 3, 2001, ;”Vapostori
Vote for the First Time,” Sunday News, June 25, 2000, ;”The Evening News,”
ZBC, June 18, 2000;”Picture of Border Gezi at Vapostori Meeting,” The
Herald, June 19, 2000, p. 1.
60. Mark Chavunduka and Ray Choto, Royal Commonwealth Society Meeting,
London, April 16, 1999; see also news reports, Andrew Meldrum, “Mugabe
‘Foiled Officer’s Coup’” Guardian (UK) January 11, 1999, Andrew Meldrum,
“Zimbabwe Army Torture Alleged” Guardian (UK), January 22, 1999;
“Chihuri Admits Illegal Act” Standard, September 19, 1999.
61. “Plot to Close Daily News,” Daily News, November 21, 2000; “War Vets
Besiege The Daily News,” Daily News, January 24, 2001; “War Veterans ‘Ban’
Daily News,” Daily News, January 27, 2001; “Press Bombed,” Daily News,
January 28, 2001.
62. “Capitol Radio to Be Launched Soon,” Daily News, September 26, 2000;
“Moyo Warns Capitol Radio,” Daily News, October 3, 2000; “Capitol Radio
Defies Government,” Daily News, October 4, 2000. “A Fresh Breath on the
Air Waves” Standard, October 8, 2000, “Moves to Extend ZBC Monopoly to
2002” Standard, October 8, 2000; “Freeing of Airwaves Unleashes Scramble
for Radio Licenses” Mirror, October 6, 2000; Dumisani Muleya, “New
Broadcasting Law Grossly Restrictive,” Independent, October 6, 2000; “Capital
Radio Judgment Reserved,” Daily News, October 10, 2000; “Search on Auret’s
Home Yields Nothing,” Daily News, October 11, 2000; “Latest on Capital
Radio,” Independent, November 3, 2000.
63. “Communications Bill Seen as Draconian,” Independent, March 10, 2000;
Nqobile Nyathi, “ISPs Vow to Fight Bill Gagging Email,” Financial Gazette,
March 23, 2000; “Supreme Court Bars Mugabe Email Snooping” Daily
Mirror, March 16, 2004.
64. Alex Last, “Eritrea Goes Slowly Online,” BBC, November 14, 2000.
65. Ministry of Information (Eritrea), “Eritrean Telecommunications Corporation
to Introduce Mobile Telephone Service,” January 12, 2004; see also, Ministry
of Information (Eritrea), “The Washington Post Commits Foul Play,” April
22, 2004; Emily Wax, “Freedom, a Call Away? Control on Cell Phone Use in
Eritrea Is Called Tool of Repression,” Washington Post, April 20, 2004.
66. “Government Places Private Newspapers under Temporary Ban,” Eritrea
Profile, September 22, 2001, p. 1.
67. Dorman, “National Union of Eritrean Youth and Students.”
68. “Inside Zimbabwe Inc,” Focus 19 (September 2000), http://www.hsf.org.za/
focus19/focus19refozanu.html; UN Security Council, Report of the Panel of
Experts on the Illegal Exploitation of Natural Resources and Other Forms of
Wealth of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (2001), 33–36.
69. Brian Raftopoulos and Sam Moyo, “The Politics of Indigenisation in
Zimbabwe,” East African Social Science Review 11, 2 (1995), pp. 17–32.
70. “Remittances—govt. hopes they can save economy,” IRIN, May 18, 2005.
71. Tengende, “Workers, Students and the Struggles for Democracy,” p. 446; see
also, “War Veteran’s Constitution” The Herald, May 1, 1989, p. 3.
72. “Meetings with War Vets Turn Nasty,” The Herald, July 21, 1997, pp. 1, 8, 11;
“Ex-Combatants Loot ZANU(PF) Headquarters,” The Herald, August 14,
1997, pp. 1, 9; “War Veterans Threaten to Seize White-Owned Land,”
Independent, August 29, 1997, p. 12.
73. “Angry Zimbabwean War Veterans Chase Ministers,” PANA, July 20, 1997.
74. “Discontent Emerging over Zimbabwe’s Veteran’s Levy,” PANA, November 30,
1997.
75. At the September 1999 launch of the MDC, I estimated there were three white
spectators (including myself); by the 2000 elections, whites were attending
NCA meetings in downtown hotels and even a few were at the MDC preelec-
tion rallies.
76. Personal Communication, Angus Selby, October 30, 2001; “CFU Faces Split
over Withdrawal of Charges” Daily News, August 18, 2000; Mercedes
Sayagues, “CFU Opens Its Chequebook to Buy peace in Zim,” Mail &
Guardian, May 19, 2000.
77. Dorman, “NGOs and the Constitutional Debate in Zimbabwe: From Inclusion
to Exclusion,” Journal of Southern African Studies 29, 4 (2003), pp. 845–863.
78. “Inyika Trust Commends Government on Proposed Bill,” The Herald, May 9,
2001; “Inyika Trust Condemns CFU’s plans,” The Herald, May 11, 2001;
“Inyika Trust Slams Judgment,” The Herald, February 9, 2001; “NCA, NDA
Clash over Interests,” Standard, November 5, 2000; “Heritage Linked to
Jonathan Moyo,” Daily News, January 20, 2001; “Heritage Zimbabwe Refutes
Daily’s Story,” Sunday Mail, January 26, 2001; “Heritage Zim Hosted Hunzvi
Mourners,” Independent, June 15, 2001; see also, “State Targets Colleges,
NGOs for Crackdown,” Daily News, July 23, 2003.
79. “Youth Service Ushers in New Citizenry,” The Herald, July 31, 2003; “National
Service Graduates Get Jobs,” The Herald, August 8, 2003, p. 3.
80. Jocelyn Alexander, “Chiefs and the State in Independent Zimbabwe,” paper
presented at Conference on Chieftaincy in Africa, St Antony’s College,
Oxford, June 9, 2001. See also, “Chiefs Get Hefty Allowances” The Herald,
April 20, 2004.
81. “One Man, One Farm: President,” The Herald, July 31, 2003.
82. Alexander, “State, Peasantry and Resettlement in Zimbabwe,” Review of
African Political Economy 61 (1994), pp. 325–345.; Michael Drinkwater
“Technical Development and Peasant Impoverishment: Land Use Policy in
Zimbabwe’s Midlands Province,” JSAS 15, 2 (1989), pp. 287–305.
83. “Eritrea to Have 6 Administrative Regions,” Eritrea Profile, 1995, p. 1; “Why
a New Administrative Structure” Interview with Mahmoud Sherifo, Eritrea
Profile, 1995.
84. See for instance, Jeffrey Herbst, State Politics in Zimbabwe (Harare: University
of Zimbabwe, 1991); Tor Skalnes, The Politics of Economic Reform in Zimbabwe
(Houndmills, UK: MacMillan, 1995); Michael Bratton, “Micro-Democracy?
The Merger of Farmer Unions in Zimbabwe” African Studies Review 37 (1994),
pp. 9–38.
85. Juan Linz, Totalitarian and Authoritarian Regimes (Boulder, CO: Lynne
Rienner, 2000), p. 166.
86. Brian Raftopoulos, “Climbing out of the Rubble” in Zimbabwe’s Presidential
Elections 2002, ed. Henning Melber (Uppsala, Sweden: NAI, 2002) and “‘We
Are Really Sleepwalking, Corpses, Zombies . . . We Are Carrying Other
People’s World View.’ Nation, Race And History In Zimbabwean Politics.”
Paper presented at Centre for African Studies’ Conference States, Borders and
Nations: Negotiating Citizenship in Africa University of Edinburgh, May
19–20, 2004.
87. “Muhyedin Shengeb’s defection from PFDJ,” Awate.com, May 9, 2004.
88. See for discussions of inclusion, Dorman, “NGOs and the Constitutional
Debate in Zimbabwe” and Melber, “From Liberation Movements to
Governments.”
89. Fred Halliday, Iran: Dictatorship and Development (Harmondsworth,
UK: Penguin 1979), p. 58.
CHAPTER 9
Revolutionaries to Politicians:
The Case of Mozambique
Carrie Manning
Introduction
Do one-time “revolutionary” movements enjoy particular advantages or
suffer disadvantages in adapting to competitive democratic politics?
Political competition in Mozambique is dominated by the Frente de
Libertação de Moçambique (FRELIMO, the Front for the Liberation of
Mozambique), the ruling party since independence, and the Resistência
Nacional Moçambicana (RENAMO, the Mozambican National
Resistance), an armed opposition group that fought a 16-year war with the
FRELIMO government after independence. RENAMO entered the
political arena as a political party in 1994, under the terms of the 1992
peace agreement. Of the two, only FRELIMO has ever been seriously des-
ignated as a movement with “revolutionary” tendencies or ambitions. It
began as a guerrilla army fighting Portuguese colonial rule and assumed
power in 1975 with the departure of the Portuguese.
This chapter, which covers the period until 2000, examines the very
different processes of transformation experienced by these two armed orga-
nizations as they made the transition from battlefield to political arena. It
argues that FRELIMO’s greater organizational and ideological coherence
facilitated its success in adapting to democratic politics—even though its
highly militant transformational project at independence and ideological
rigidity helped facilitate RENAMO’s successful insurgency. By the time
of the first multiparty elections in Mozambique, FRELIMO had nearly
182 ● Carrie Manning
20 years of governing experience under its belt, and for it to adapt to

democratic politics meant relinquishing its exclusive hold on political power
in the country. With the advent of formal democracy and the separation of
party and state, FRELIMO’s internal disagreements and power struggles
were opened to public view. These struggles, among the party-in-office, the
party-in-parliament, and the party hierarchy, offer important insight into
FRELIMO’s adaptation to democratic politics.
RENAMO by contrast had no previous existence off the battlefield,
much less governing experience. Its struggle to build a viable peacetime
political organization required the dismantling of its military existence and
the retooling of key military leaders into nominally democratic politicians.
Leaders simultaneously struggled to ensure organizational survival, main-
tain their own positions at the head of the party, and win electoral support.
A smooth transition for FRELIMO depended on how well existing organi-
zational routines could be put to work in the new environment. For
RENAMO it was a question of creating entirely new organizational routines
and relationships within the organization that could negotiate democratic
political institutions successfully. For both parties, these adjustments
presented formidable challenges to party leaders.
The country’s formal democratization process, begun in 1990, was a
threefold transformation: from war to peace, from state-dominated to mar-
ket economy, and from single party-state to multiparty electoral democ-
racy. While RENAMO’s transition from armed opposition group to
political party coincided with the advent of democracy in Mozambique,
FRELIMO’s preceded it by fifteen years. Thus FRELIMO has experienced
two periods of major adaptation—one upon acceding to power in 1975
after an armed independence struggle to become the country’s ruling and
sole legal political party, and a second after the constitutional revision in
1990 that made Mozambique a multiparty democracy.
Mozambique’s history of civil war has had a lasting impact on its politi-
cal system. Because the political arena is polarized after many years of civil
conflict during which each side demonized the other, defections from one
party to another are rare. Would-be defectors from FRELIMO or
RENAMO are loath to associate themselves directly with the other side, as
each represents a former military as well as political enemy. At the same time,
they are reluctant to break off and form their own parties because they
calculate that doing so might well put the opposing party over the top.1
Mozambique’s electoral system employs proportional representation in
large multi-member districts for legislative elections. This has little effect
on the dominance enjoyed by FRELIMO and RENAMO. While more
than a dozen parties have competed in all three general elections (1994,
The Case of Mozambique ● 183
1999, and 2004), in practice Mozambique remains a two-party system.

Presidential elections require a second round if no one wins more than 50
percent of the vote, but so far a second round has never been necessary.
Legislative elections are held simultaneously with presidential elections,
which in Mozambique has ensured that the top leader of the opposition
party will not be a member of the legislature.
The party system is also influenced by the residual effects of the ruling
party’s longtime control of the economy. While the 1990s have seen
substantial adjustment toward the privatization of banking and industry
and the growth of a broader and more robust private economic sector,
access to the state remains an important source of socioeconomic advance-
ment. This increases the stakes of political competition and helps hold the
ruling party together, as the opportunity costs of separating oneself from
the party are considerable. It also helps keep fledgling parties compara-
tively resource-poor.
Thus, Mozambique is an interesting and unusual case in that the two
parties that dominate politics both have their roots in armed opposition
groups. This chapter depicts these two starkly different parties as they con-
fronted two major sets of changes. First, as organizations they had to adapt
to civilian political tasks and to establish appropriate organizational struc-
tures and routines. This process was quite different for the two parties, as
FRELIMO moved from the battlefield into an authoritarian political sys-
tem in which it was the ruling party. Unlike RENAMO, it did not face the
need to compete with other parties immediately. FRELIMO’s ambitious
project of social transformation, however, placed tremendous demands on
the party as an organization. These demands were met in part by the devel-
opment of new internal structures, and the strengthening of existing ones—
for the management of intra-organizational conflict, for leadership
selection, and for decisionmaking on issues of party and national policy—
which served the party well during the transition to competitive multiparty
politics. RENAMO, by contrast, was forced to deal with the organizational
challenges presented by the transition to civilian political life and by com-
petitive democratic politics all at once.
History of the Movements

FRELIMO
FRELIMO’s history as a movement is punctuated by ideological, ethnic,
and personal conflicts. Ethnicity, particularly the perceived dominance of
state power by southerners, played an important role in shaping
Mozambique’s civil conflict, though it received little attention from scholars

before the transition to multiparty politics.2
The segmented economy of the colonial state and the distinctive socio-
economic effects of colonialism in different regions of the country had
initially created several anti-colonial resistance movements, each associated
with a different region, and each based on an experience of colonialism
particular to that region.3 FRELIMO was formed out of the union of three
such groups: União Democratica Nacional de Moçambique (UDENAMO,
National Democratic Union of Mozambique), União Africana de
Moçambique Independente (UNAMI, the National African Union of
Independent Mozambique), and Mozambique African National Union
(MANU). These historical differences between the movements need not
have grown into ethnic divisions within FRELIMO. Indeed, initially the
most important rivalries were not between the different regionally-based
founding groups, but between these groups and younger, more radical
militants who were increasingly pouring across the border from Mozambique
to join the struggle, and who, in the view of one FRELIMO-affiliated
scholar, “occupied subordinate positions, due to the fact that they
entered FRELIMO as individuals and not as part of one of the founding
groups.”4
This rivalry too, had an ethno-regionalist cast to it. Some of those in
this latter group, who were generally from the south and who in many cases
had higher levels of education than those associated with the older exile
movements, went on to form the “ideological faction” that would later press
hard for a revolutionary approach to the independence struggle, in alliance
with politicized young guerrilla leaders. Later on, when the ideological
wing had gained the ascendancy, clashes between certain individuals or
groups over ideological or policy issues more often than not coincided with
ethno-regional differences, with those from the south consistently ending
up on the winning side.
From 1963 to 1966, the “radical” or “ideological” faction gradually
gained in power. By 1967, many of the original leaders of the movements
that came together to form FRELIMO had left or been expelled from the
FRELIMO hierarchy. Magode notes that most of those leaving FRELIMO
had been leaders of micro-level anti-colonial movements in the center or
north of the country and that they left either because certain segments of
the elite within FRELIMO sought to subjugate them, or because they
sought a reaffirmation of their status as leaders, which was lost when they
entered a centralized, unitary organization.5 Some formed new political
organizations, such as UDENAMO II, Comité Revolucionário de
Moçambique (COREMO), Partido Revolucionário de Moçambique
(PRM), or the União Nacional de Zambézia (UNAR), and several, includ-

ing Uria Simango, Mateus Gwenjere, and Lázaro Nkavandame, reappeared
at the head of political formations in 1974 to protest FRELIMO’s assump-
tion of power at independence. A number of these leaders came back after
1990 to form or reconstitute political parties to contest the 1994 elections.
While a large number of party leaders from the center and north were
leaving FRELIMO, the unfolding of the armed struggle gave rise to yet
another dynamic, which created another fault line between old guard and
radical elements in the Front. As the war intensified and FRELIMO began
gaining “liberated zones,” a new set of young, politicized military leaders
emerged, who were increasingly in conflict with FRELIMO’s “chairmen”
in the liberated zones, many of whom were traditional chiefs, interested less
in socioeconomic transformation than in accelerating the war to end colo-
nial domination.6 In the eyes of both the “revolutionary” ideologues of the
party and some military leaders operating inside Mozambique, it had
become impossible to keep political and military issues and leaderships
separate. This group decided that FRELIMO’s struggle would require a
commitment to protracted conflict and long-term support from the peas-
ants. To obtain such support required political education for the popula-
tion. This issue gave rise to serious struggle within FRELIMO, with the
revolutionaries eventually gaining the upper hand.
The victory of the revolutionary line was consolidated and formalized at
the party’s Second Congress, held in Niassa province in 1968. A number of
the old guard refused to attend the conference, arguing that it should be
held on foreign soil and should not include military leaders. They lost on
both scores. With the old guard absent, a significant number of the revolu-
tionary contingent were elected to the Central Committee.7 “New Members
[of the Central Committee] came almost exclusively from popularly elected
constituencies inside Mozambique and from the military—both of which
supported the revolutionary position.”8 The Second Congress formally
resolved that: “Our war is essentially a political war, and its direction is
defined by the party. The people’s army is part and parcel of the party, and
its strategic plans are made by the top leadership of the party.”9 By 1970, an
alliance between the military leaders, who as a rule had relatively low levels
of education but were radicalized by their participation in the struggle, and
party ideologues, the majority of whom had come from the South, had
been consolidated.
The assassination of FRELIMO president Eduardo Mondlane in 1969,
via a parcel bomb, also contributed to the demise of the “non-revolutionary”
wing within the FRELIMO leadership. Uria Simango, the Vice President
of FRELIMO and next in line after Mondlane, tried to assume leadership
of the Front. However, Simango’s ideological credentials were suspect in

the eyes of the radicals, who imposed a new leadership structure and forced
Simango out.10
At the independence of Mozambique in 1975, FRELIMO, the Front for
the Liberation of Mozambique, assumed power after fighting a protracted
war of independence against the Portuguese. FRELIMO arrived in Maputo
seasoned by a series of internal leadership struggles that produced both a
firm ideological project and a number of disaffected elites, most of whom
were from the center and north of the country. Thus the party came to
power in 1975 led by a group of people who saw their ascension to power as
merely the first step in a revolutionary social, economic, and political trans-
formation of Mozambican society, which the party would direct.
Shortly after independence, the new regime faced armed internal resis-
tance, backed by powerful external allies, in the form of the guerrilla group
that would eventually become known as RENAMO. FRELIMO and
RENAMO would fight for more than 15 years before signing the General
Peace Accord in Rome in 1992. As I will argue here, RENAMO’s emer-
gence and evolution owed more than has often been acknowledged to eth-
nic, regional, and ideological struggles within FRELIMO itself, and to the
increasingly hostile confrontation between FRELIMO and Mozambican
society.
RENAMO
Nearly 20 years later, RENAMO’s entry into the political system also coin-
cided with a major political and economic transformation. On the eve of
elections in 1994, RENAMO was a guerrilla movement best known both
inside and outside of Mozambique as an organization without a political
program, sustained by external support and an army of captives. The par-
ty’s participation in the country’s first multiparty general elections offered
both a vindication, in RENAMO’s eyes, of its armed insurgency, and a set
of formidable challenges to the party’s leadership. RENAMO leader Afonso
Dhlakama had sought legitimacy for the organization as a political force,
insisting that the group was not merely a violent tool of outside forces bent
on destabilization, but a politico-military organization with an ideological
agenda (neoliberalism and democracy) and the ability to control and
administer territory.11
The party’s history as an armed opposition group left it far less well
equipped to operate as an effective civilian political force than had
FRELIMO’s in 1975. FRELIMO’s history as an armed movement
was marked by regular and intense debate about the movement’s goals and
the means to get there, about the linkages between armed struggle and
political goals, and about strategies of armed struggle. RENAMO began its
life opportunistically, with a symbiotic relationship between Portuguese
exiles in South Africa and Rhodesia, the Rhodesian intelligence and secu-
rity service, and a handful of people in central Mozambique, like Andre
Mattsangaissa, who had parted ways with the FRELIMO army for various
reasons.
RENAMO’s rise in connection with Rhodesian security force priorities
and its subsequent transfer into the care of the South African military intel-
ligence service in the early 1980s is well documented, although disputes
remain about the relative contributions of RENAMO’s various backers to
the organization’s founding and growth.12 The development of RENAMO
as both a political and a military organization has been marked by rivalry
between various external backers and between external groups claiming
control of the movement and RENAMO’s internal leadership.13 From the
time when responsibility for supporting RENAMO was taken up by South
Africa in 1982 to the period immediately following the Nkomati Accord
between South Africa and Mozambique, around 1984–1985, RENAMO’s
internal structure was primarily a military one. The Gorongosa documents
provide insight into this period—filled as they are with training schedules
and programs for supply drops from South Africa.14 Little attention was
given to the political side of the organization until the 1984 Nkomati
Accord, which aimed (but failed) to end South African support for
RENAMO.
At Nkomati and in subsequent rounds of negotiations, RENAMO
issued a series of political demands, calling for the dissolution of the
Mozambican government, the establishment of a power-sharing arrange-
ment between FRELIMO and RENAMO, and the creation of a free-market
economy. However, despite the political content of its public agenda and
incipient efforts by the external leadership to frame the movement in some
form of political structure, RENAMO really had no political or adminis-
trative framework inside Mozambique before 1985.15 Once Nkomati was
signed and RENAMO headquarters moved from Phalaborwa in South
Africa to Gorongosa, in central Mozambique’s Sofala province, RENAMO’s
approach appeared to change. Some RENAMO officials have suggested
that the Nkomati Accord served as a catalyst to force RENAMO to estab-
lish itself as an organization in its own right—even though the accord did
not end support from South African elements in practice, it provided a
wake up call to many in RENAMO. Vines notes that the South Africans
had themselves advised RENAMO to develop administrative structures
necessary to establish control over the people living in its areas of operation,
so as to “continue to operate [with reduced resources] and to cause the

maximum impact for the minimum expense.”16
Faced with what looked then like probable abandonment by their South
African sponsors, yet armed with plentiful materiel stockpiled to help the
movement over the transition, RENAMO began an aggressive military
campaign to expand outward from its Manica and Sofala heartland. It was
during this period, from 1984 to 1986, that most of those who formed
RENAMO’s political and administrative core were recruited. Many of
the individuals who made up this core were captured during military
attacks. 17
A systematic study of the educational and occupational backgrounds
and timing of entry of a large number of those serving RENAMO in polit-
ical and administrative positions at the national and local levels, particu-
larly when compared with similar data on military officials, suggests that
there was a serious and fairly successful effort to build up a political wing
within RENAMO beginning in the mid-1980s.18 The party’s First Congress
in 1989 consolidated these earlier efforts, rewarding better-educated and
more articulate individuals who had worked closely with Dhlakama. The
First Congress also marked a determined effort by the movement’s internal
leadership to exercise greater control over RENAMO’s external representa-
tion. Clandestine urban branches were formalized around this same time
and a group of urban-based secondary students were recruited, ostensibly to
be groomed for postwar political positions.
With the exception of this last group, and a handful of people who had
supported RENAMO from Lisbon during the war and returned to
Mozambique in time for the elections, it appears that a great many of those
serving in RENAMO’s political and administrative wing had initially
entered the movement against their will, or at least under false pretenses.
Many of these now make up the core of the party hierarchy. Among the
national heads of department, top advisers, members of the Political
Commission and the National Council, twenty-one out of thirty-five had
been with RENAMO “in the bush” during the war.
Context of Victory/End of Conflict

FRELIMO
FRELIMO’s assumption of state power in 1974 was briefly contested by a
number of opposition groups, including political parties led by black
Mozambicans as well as settler organizations. Many of the former were cre-
ated by ex-FRELIMO leaders and members, most of whom were expelled
from the party in the course of the internal conflicts of 1962–1970, and all
of whom were from the center or north of the country. Violent resistance to
FRELIMO, however, was short-lived. The end of violent resistance also
spelled the end of political opposition of any kind in the country. As Paul
Fauvet, the pro-FRELIMO British journalist and longtime Maputo resi-
dent, declared,
In the fortnight or so following the Lusaka agreement [which handed

power to FRELIMO], the leaders of the PCN [opposition party] were
arrested, and all the parties created to oppose FRELIMO were outlawed.
Simango, Nkavandame, Simião, Gumane—all were sent to re-education
centres in the north of the country. Thus the historic opposition to
FRELIMO was beheaded.19
Jose Luis Cabaço, a member of the FRELIMO Transitional Government in

1975, wrote later that FRELIMO not only carried the memory of that crisis
with it, but tended to see it as a foreshadowing of FRELIMO’s encounter
with Mozambican society as a whole. “In the Transitional Government,
this sense of internal confrontation was immediately applied to the entire
country, on FRELIMO’s initiative, in an attempt to prevent problems
analogous to those already experienced during the national liberation
struggle . . . ”20 Accordingly, potential enemies of the “revolutionary proj-
ect” were aggressively rooted out.
The “revolutionary group,” which had emerged on top in the leadership
struggle of the 1960s, also assumed power at independence secure in the
belief that, in the liberated zones and at FRELIMO’s military training
camp at Nachingwea, they had created a real alternative to the colonial,
capitalist system. National unity, they argued, was based “not on respect
for differences and a search for common denominators, but by the confor-
mance of all with a superior identity that was forged in the experience of
the liberation struggle.”21 Whoever was not with FRELIMO was, by defi-
nition, against it.
Thus a relatively small group of leaders from the armed struggle now
sought to impose their vision on the rest of society. The ideals of national
unity, social justice, and development that were forged during the
independence struggle left no room for the consideration of opinions and
experiences that diverged from them. This is not to say that FRELIMO did
not enjoy popular support. In fact there was widespread enthusiasm and
expectations were very high for the new FRELIMO government, even
among those who had not participated in the independence struggle.
FRELIMO’s mistake was in confusing generalized public enthusiasm for
FRELIMO and for independence with political consciousness and political

consensus on FRELIMO’s revolutionary agenda.
As in so many other African states at the time, Mozambique’s indepen-
dence movement attempted to build national unity by defining diversity
out of existence, by declaring it irrelevant and indeed illegal. But just as the
FRELIMO leadership overestimated the people’s enthusiasm for transfor-
mation, it underestimated the depth and importance of ethnic sentiment
for large sectors of the population.
Armed with the confidence and zeal for transformation that came from
its wartime experience, and buoyed by generalized popular enthusiasm for
independence, FRELIMO surged ahead with its revolutionary program.
FRELIMO sought nothing less than to remake Mozambican society and
economy. Traditional authorities, which had played a vital administrative
and social role in rural areas both before and during the colonial period,
were outlawed and replaced by elected grassroots committees called
Dynamizing Groups. Organized religion was suppressed, with religious
leaders and their followers subject to harassment and imprisonment. All
schools, including those run by the religious missions, were taken over by
the state. Private law and private medical practices were outlawed, and land
and rental property were nationalized. Large-scale industry was national-
ized beginning in 1977. As private commercial activity was also outlawed,
the government set up a network of people’s shops, where consumer goods
could be purchased at low fixed prices. Family or subsistence agriculture
was completely neglected by the state until 1984, and people were encour-
aged instead to join cooperatives, move to communal villages, or work on
state farms.
Unfortunately, the structures with which the party sought to replace
what it abolished were extremely weak. The new state was utterly incapable
of replacing the marketing network it had eliminated. The Dynamizing
Groups varied wildly in their ability to handle the heavy burden of admin-
istrative tasks they inherited in the vacuum between the departing colonial
state and the creation of the new one. The economy began to collapse, and
social and economic disruption was most acutely felt in rural areas, where
people were cut loose from both their economic means of survival and from
the authority and belief systems that had given their lives order and mean-
ing. RENAMO was eventually able to gain ground in the countryside by
exploiting this problem.
An equally serious problem was that, despite the inadequacy of the new
structures in the face of the overwhelming challenges, the state nevertheless
behaved as though the only real problem was to be found in “enemies of
the people”—the “compromised,” the corrupt, the collaborators. The
relationship between state and society was one of confrontation—between

a state that identified itself as the one true path to development and national
unity, and society, which the state appeared to regard as a mostly well-
meaning and supportive mass, but one sprinkled with would-be saboteurs
of the state’s project. Government suspicion and harassment of groups rang-
ing from Portuguese and other small property owners, to educated
Mozambicans who had not participated in the struggle, to religious offi-
cials and ordinary citizens who fell afoul of local party officials began
to create the conditions for a self-fulfilling prophecy. By the end of
the 1970s, popular support for FRELIMO had dropped off significantly,
due to discontent with specific government policies, the collapse of the
economy (which was not only linked to FRELIMO policy), and to what
often amounted to a manifest disrespect for the law on the part of
the state.
The formal establishment of FRELIMO as a Marxist-Leninist party in
1977 drove state and society further apart. This move institutionalized the
supreme status of the party, militaristic rhetoric became even more strident,
and new, stringent ideological requirements were placed on party member-
ship. Officially excluded from the party were all those who had “voluntarily
participated in anti-patriotic or counter-revolutionary organizations or
activities.” In practice this included businessmen (aspirants to the bour-
geoisie), religious leaders, artisans, and others. The mases were to be linked
to the party though the democratic mass organizations for women and
youth and approved professional associations and unions.22
By 1983, the limitations of the Marxist-Leninist strategy for Mozambique
were evident. In officially adopting a Marxist-Leninist philosophy of action,
the party had drastically narrowed its support base—not only because
party members now had to meet strict ideological requirements, but because
under the new strategy the workers became the “leading class” in the strug-
gle to achieve socialist development, and industry became the driving force.
The agricultural policies associated with the new strategy, namely large
state farms that absorbed virtually all state investment in agriculture, the
establishment of cooperative farming and communal villages, and the
neglect of the family sector, resulted in severe economic and social disrup-
tion in the countryside. The party-state’s attitude of aggressive confronta-
tion with “enemies of the people,” including “aspirants to the bourgeoisie,”
and others who were ideologically suspect, undermined the government’s
support among a fairly broad spectrum of urban dwellers—from intellectu-
als who did not agree with the party line to small scale traders and religious
leaders. FRELIMO sought to ensure urban support by providing food sta-
ples at low prices for city residents, but eventually the collapse of rural
marketing systems brought about by both FRELIMO policy and the inten-
sification of the guerrilla war, the reduction in quantity of marketed sur-
plus produced by Mozambican farmers, and various natural disasters began
to create food scarcities in the cities.
FRELIMO’s turn toward the West began in 1983 when it began discus-
sions with the World Bank and IMF. By 1987, FRELIMO had launched its
Economic Recovery Program (PRE) under World Bank auspices. This
allowed the government to reschedule its debt and to receive a generous
influx of donor support. The immediate effects of the program, however,
were to increase hardship in the urban areas.
It was in this economic context that FRELIMO moved to abandon its
Marxist-Leninist approach. At its Fifth Congress in July 1989, FRELIMO
opened up membership to religious leaders, business owners, and others
who had been excluded during the Marxist-Leninist era. As one FRELIMO
official put it, “we could not continue to deceive the militants by saying
that we are following a doctrine that in practice we were not following.”23
The party also faced charges of corruption from within. Specific allegations
of corruption, including nepotism, regionalism, and the skimming of food
aid were voiced from many quarters, including the police, the army, and
various provincial party headquarters. Voices within the army, police, and
members of the party hierarchy complained of ethnic and racial imbalance
within the party.24 At the same time, the war with RENAMO, ongoing
since the late 1970s, was bringing increasing pressure to bear on the cities,
and strikes and occasional urban unrest due to economic conditions made
the government fearful that the cities were becoming ripe for RENAMO
attack. As Luis de Brito correctly points out, “it is in a context of severe
crisis that FRELIMO has been ‘converted to the democratic ideal’ and had
a new constitution ratified by the Popular Assembly.”25 The constitutional
reform process was in part a response to the internal party pressures just
described, which the Fifth Congress had tried to address.
A major challenge for FRELIMO that was implied by the shift to mul-
tiparty democracy was the separation of party and state. The Sixth Congress,
held in August 1991, saw the formal separation of party and state functions.
For the first time, there were not separate positions for administrators, gov-
ernors and party secretaries. Previously, each governor was also the provin-
cial party secretary, and the same held true for administrators right down
to the local level. The party’s separation from the state and its resources
meant not only a loss of prestige for party officials. It also meant cutting
back on the party payroll. This was something that the party, now more
than ever seeking to hold on to public support, found to be difficult. The
Popular Assembly passed a bill that softened the blow in 1990, by allowing
all party employees to be converted to state civil servants with equivalent

pay to what they had received as party officials.
The ruling party, henceforth, ceased to be the only route to state power.
It no longer had the financial resources to provide a living for its local
representatives or the organizational wherewithal to explain to party offi-
cials what they ought to be doing now that the party was no longer the
same as the state.
The biggest challenge for FRELIMO, however, was the need to face
elections. First, elections forced a further opening of the party. Two groups
were particularly important: Muslims and traditional authorities. Both
groups had been officially excluded from the FRELIMO party until the
Sixth Congress and had been subject of party criticism. In addition, many
Muslims, particularly in the center and north, were involved in trade,
which had made them still more suspect in the eyes of the party. RENAMO
also actively sought the support of the Muslim community. FRELIMO
actively sought the help of traditional leaders during the 1994 campaign,
without significant success. For RENAMO, on the other hand, traditional
leaders were a natural source of support. The rebel movement could credi-
bly claim to have restored the dignity and authority of traditional leaders in
the zones RENAMO controlled, although it also did its best to manipulate
the leaders for its own purposes during the electoral period.
Broadening the party’s base, however, inevitably weakened the party’s
distinctive identity. Over the years, a weakened emphasis on ideology facil-
itated the spread of corruption within the party, and has hurt the party’s
reputation in the eyes of its more ideologically inclined militants.
RENAMO 26
RENAMO, too, faced formidable challenges in confronting elections. In
other African countries, particularly in the period just after independence,
the holding of elections forced parties which were mostly urban, elite-based
and without much of a grassroots presence or constituency to go out and
mobilize “the rural masses” along the easiest available lines, which often
turned out to be region and ethnicity. For RENAMO, the problem was a
different one, though not because RENAMO did not also appeal to region
and ethnicity for support. Because of its character as a guerrilla army,
RENAMO has roots in large portions of the national territory. It has rep-
resentatives at local levels in much of the country who have at least a mini-
mal notion of the party’s political views, as well as some training in political
mobilization. RENAMO is also known, for good or ill, throughout the
country. Thus it is not an intellectual, urban-based party trying to put
down roots in the countryside, but a military organization with weakly

developed administrative and political wings having to downplay its mili-
tary character and strengthen its political and administrative side, largely
by recruiting new people in the cities.
This is not only a qualitatively different problem but a much more dif-
ficult and time consuming one than simply having to organize votes. In
RENAMO’s case, it was largely the newly recruited officials, with a hand-
ful of veteran members, who would perform the most important political
tasks: putting together a political program, serving as RENAMO represen-
tatives in parliament and in RENAMO’s provincial delegations, serving on
the peace commissions and matching wits with FRELIMO’s more highly
educated members over the implementation of the accords. Many of
RENAMO’s most loyal, longstanding members were people who were
without money, jobs, or prospects, who had lived in the bush for a long
time and for whom luxuries and prestige now counted for a great deal.
Others working for the party were recent recruits whose motives were
unknown or suspect. RENAMO party leaders have been plagued by a con-
stant fear of espionage and side-switching since the move to the cities.
Almost universally among top level officials, the solution most commonly
proposed for this problem was more money to distribute as patronage. This
belief was perhaps reinforced by the willingness of Mozambique’s major
donors to make money available at crucial moments to keep the process
moving.
External actors played a decisive role in Mozambique’s transition from
war to peace overall, and were also important in helping to keep RENAMO’s
own transition process moving forward. The UN Observation Mission for
Mozambique (UNOMOZ) provided for more than 300 military observers
and 5,500 troops to monitor and verify the ceasefire, demobilize and dis-
arm troops from both the government and RENAMO armies, and provide
security for the transition process.
In addition to extensive involvement in supervising the peace process,
Mozambique’s transition marked a number of precedents in international
financial support for war termination. Financial incentives for demobilized
soldiers were accompanied by a hefty “trust fund” created to support
RENAMO’s transformation into apolitical party, as well a a more moderate
trust fund to support the campaign costs of smaller opposition parties. The
use of RENAMO’s fund was overseen and audited by the UN. Expenditures
included substantial cash payments to Dhlakama in exchange for his ongo-
ing participation in the peace process.27 The UN-administered trust-fund
to facilitate RENAMO’s transformation into a political party, together
with generous funding for the demobilization of soldiers (to the tne of $50
million) indicate the sizeable financial importance of international actors.

But international actors also were important in building Dhlakama’s con-
fidence in the political process, and they played this role not just during the
transition, but for a number of years after the 1994 elections. Two incidents
serve to highlight this point.
Just hours after voting began for the first multiparty elections in 1994,
RENAMO leader Afonso Dhlakama called an election boycott. Warning
signs that such an action was imminent began to accumulate in the weeks
leading up to the election. In September, six weeks prior to the election,
Dhlakama announced that the “security climate” for RENAMO support-
ers was not suitable for elections. Two weeks later he threatened to with-
draw RENAMO generals who had recently been inducted into the newly
integrated Mozambican armed forces, alleging a government plot to “liqui-
date RENAMO.” Two days before the elections, Dhlakama haunted the
Frontline States Summit meeting seeking, unsuccessfully, to meet with the
leaders of neighboring countries to warn them of FRELIMO plans to steal
the elections. Throughout this period, RENAMO issued successive state-
ments complaining of problems with electoral administration and issuing
veiled threats of a boycott.28
The boycott fizzled, as many people had already voted by the time the
call made it to outlying areas. By the end of the first day of voting, 80 per-
cent of the electorate had voted. On the second day of voting, Dhlakama
called off the boycott and urged people to vote. The backdrop to the turn-
about illustrates the key role played by Mozambique’s major donors in this
transition process. Indeed, it emphasizes RENAMO’s reliance on these
actors for assurances that the party would not be tricked or cheated by the
ruling party or by the political process itself. Following a long night of
panicked phone calls and shuttle diplomacy, representatives of Mozambique’s
key donor countries, along with the UN special representative, secured
Dhlakama’s agreement to return to the elections, in part by drawing up a
document stating that the international community would investigate all
of RENAMO’s claims regarding irregularities in the electoral process.29
Dhlakama’s own comments on the boycott lend strong support to this
argument. Dhlakama said he was satisfied once he heard UN special repre-
sentative Aldo Ajello say that if there was fraud, the UN would not declare
the elections free and fair:
I have always believed that there will be a positive response whenever one
presents his legitimate reasons and succeeds in putting them across to
the international community. So, when we saw that the CNE [National
Electoral Commission] was not reacting, and when people in Mozambique
were showing contempt for our complaints, we had to make a decision.

Ours was a carefully made decision because it permitted the interna-
tional community to take into account a number of aspects that could
hinder the electoral process.30
Dhlakama’s confidence in the international community reflects a larger

trend in RENAMO’s behavior during the transition process. The party has
consistently behaved as though its most important constituency were the
international donor community, rather than Mozambican citizens. Instead
of sharpening its skills in the new political system, RENAMO more often
sought, particularly in the first four years following the peace accord, to go
around established domestic political institutions and to draw in interna-
tional actors. The boycott of elections is one example. Dhlakama’s letter to
the European Union is another.
In July 1995, six months after the elections, Dhlakama wrote a letter to
the ambassador of Spain, which was then chairing the European
Commission. In it he asked for systematic support for RENAMO from the
international community, in the form of development projects, payment of
debts incurred during the election campaign, and support money to sustain
day to day party operations. As he stated:
RENAMO is going through a very difficult period, as the international

community knows . . . RENAMO transformed itself, in a very short time,
from a politico-military movement to a political party. It has no resources
of its own with which to survive. It depends, during this crucial phase of
its existence, on the indispensable support of the international commu-
nity. Disquiet and discontent are stirring in the ranks of RENAMO,
with some sectors feeling betrayed and questioning my authority . . . I am
aware that I could have imposed more and better conditions during the
negotiations for the General Peace Accord. But immediate peace was
paramount and we felt ourselves responsible for bringing it about, which
led us to neglect guarantees for our own survival . . . The time could
arrive when I, my authority weakened, will not have the power to avoid
a catastrophe. Then, popular revolt, inevitable, will bring disastrous
consequences for Mozambique, for the region, for the world . . . Turning
to the International Community is our only remaining recourse. . . . 31
The letter speaks volumes about RENAMO.

Dhlakama played successfully on fears in the international community
that RENAMO could still return to war, that behind the organization’s
calm façade lay an organized group of armed men capable of plunging
the country back into chaos. He also sought to portray himself as a
well-intentioned leader, someone the international community could do

business with, but someone who was also at the mercy of followers who
were less patient and less sophisticated. Also interesting is the almost sheep-
ish way in which Dhlakama admits that he erred by not building into the
peace agreement the conditions for RENAMO’s survival. The letter trans-
mits quite clearly how intimately the international community was involved
in Mozambique’s transition. In response to Dhlakama’s letter, the Spanish
ambassador announced that the European Commission was prepared to
pay RENAMO’s debts, noting that it was important not to isolate
RENAMO.32
In part, the tendency to complain to the international community rather
than to engage the government was also rooted in RENAMO’s lingering
insecurity, growing out of a keen awareness that the party was a novice in
the formal game of politics. Indeed, the party’s entire transition into the
political arena had been managed with substantial help from the outside,
from Professor Andre Thomashausen’s tutoring of Dhlakama to U.S. and
Italian support during the peace talks, to guarantees of financial help and
moral and logistical support from friendly donor countries and private
individuals.33
Recognition and highly visible financial support from the UN and
international donors did much to bolster the position of the existing leader-
ship within the party during the transitional period.34 The party’s domi-
nant coalition at the end of the war was a small, cohesive group centralized
around the leadership of its president, Afonso Dhlakama, in whom organi-
zational leadership was and remains highly personalized. Most of the mem-
bers of this group had either been captured by RENAMO fighters in raids
on secondary schools where they were teaching or, arranged their capture
out of frustration or difficulties with local governing authorities. Very few
had completed their secondary education.35 This core leadership remained
in control of the party’s vital organizational functions after the war ended.
It formed the nucleus of the party’s internal hierarchy, controlling most
importantly the acquisition and distribution of financial resources for party
use, the allocation of positions within the party hierarchy, communication
within the organization, and relations with external actors.
Yet while continuing control of access to financial resources for the
party allowed the core leadership in place at the end of the war to transition
smoothly into positions in the party’s postwar internal hierarchy, the party
had to recruit new people to fill out its candidate lists for parliamentary
elections, and this caused considerable tension within the party hierarchy.
These were, for the most part, either new recruits or people who had sup-
ported RENAMO during the war through membership in clandestine
urban cells. Either way, they were largely unknown and untested from the
point of view of the party’s core leadership. In the first legislature, only 18
of the 112 deputies elected for RENAMO had been “in the bush” during
the war.36 Thus while a handful of trusted leaders from the war headed up
the parliamentary delegation, the majority of wartime party leadership
looked on from their unpaid positions of leader of party departments, while
newer recruits enjoyed the salaries and “perks” of parliamentary deputies.
In response, the party hierarchy, led by Dhlakama, has systematically
sought to limit the independence of the parliamentary bench, with negative
effects on its parliamentary performance and on the consolidation of the
parliament as a whole.
While the peace agreement meant that the use of force was no longer a
viable option for securing support, the polarization of the social and politi-
cal arenas created by the war carried over into the postwar period, enabling
RENAMO to bypass any serious internal struggle over party identity.
Organizational survival required participation in elections, but winning
votes did not require a major adjustment in party leaders’ existing concep-
tions of what the party stood for or how to appeal to voters. RENAMO has
been able to continue to bill itself as a “coalition of the marginalized,” vic-
timized by regional socioeconomic and political bias built into the
FRELIMO governing system.37 These disequilibria continue to coincide
with longstanding ethnoregional divisions, offering support for RENAMO’s
argument that FRELIMO is deliberately seeking to exclude certain parts of
the country from full participation in national political and economic life.
Structural constraints on FRELIMO’s ability to improve living conditions
for those in the most economically depressed areas, from which RENAMO
draws much support, reinforce RENAMO’s political position. Finally, the
fact that RENAMO has been in opposition throughout the postwar period
means that it has not had to adjust its wartime rallying cries to conform
with the real constraints on effective change in Mozambique.
Effects of Power
While FRELIMO and RENAMO entered politics in different eras, they
both confronted the adaptation to electoral politics at the same time.
Although each party faced challenges peculiar to its organizational history
and resource constraints—both human and financial—the essential
tasks were similar for both parties. Leaders in both parties faced the
multiple challenge of securing organizational survival, protecting their
own positions at the head of the party, and pursuing electoral support for
the party.
Among the major differences between the two parties as they confronted
the challenges of electoral politics was the degree to which internal party
politics were institutionalized or personalized. At the onset of democratic
politics in 1994, FRELIMO was the more advanced in terms of its institu-
tional development. Decision-making structures existed at all levels of the
party. Internal party elections were held for candidate selection and for
party hierarchy, with increasing transparency.
While Samora Machel and Joaquim Chissano, the men who presided
over FRELIMO’s two adaptation periods—in 1975 and in 1994—loomed
large in their times and exercised significant authority as party leader,
FRELIMO has never been a personal party. This has to do, in part, with its
history as a movement formed out of a number of disparate organizations.
The decisionmaking structures forged during the war and during the first
16 years of post-independence rule were further tested and strengthened in
the years after the transition to multiparty rule. These internal structures
matter in FRELIMO, and with the separation of party and state,
FRELIMO’s party leaders who are not in government have become more
insistent on them than ever as a tool for reinforcing party influence over
some of its more technocratically inclined representatives in government, as
we shall see below.
FRELIMO’s internal decision making and conflict management struc-
tures were strengthened as a direct result of the establishment of competi-
tive multiparty politics and institutions like parliament, which created a
highly visible platform on which critics and potential rivals to the party
leadership could build a support base.38
Competitive multi-party elections generate internal tensions within par-
ties. Each electoral period requires a party to make choices about how it
will represent itself to the public, about whom it will attempt to mobilize
for support and how it will do so. These periodic opportunities for strategic
planning are likely to bring tensions to the fore between rival elites within
the party, since much is riding on the selection of a successful strategy.
Parliaments, municipal governments, and other political arenas within the
system offer many resources to internal rivals, including visibility, financial
resources, and the ability to build a support base of their own. In addition,
politicians competing for seats in parliament may have very different ideas
about electoral strategy than those competing for a place in municipal
government, or those banking on a cabinet position in the national govern-
ment. From 1994 on, FRELIMO party leaders faced an increasingly capa-
ble, vocal, and publicly visible internal opposition that made skilful use of
long-established party statutes and decision-making structures to advance
their own agenda.
The FRELIMO party hierarchy, for example, successfully used the

National Assembly to help it form its own identity and niche in the political
system after the separation of party and state. At the time the Assembly was
first seated at the end of 1994, FRELIMO party officials were engaged in a
struggle to keep the party relevant vis-à-vis the state, and to obtain some
measure of control over state policies and orientations. The Assembly
offered an opportunity to do so. From the perspective of FRELIMO’s more
technocratic party-in-government, the legislature offered an ideal reposi-
tory for the party’s ideologically minded “historic generation.” These were
party militants who had led the party through the independence struggle
and the early years of independence, but they were increasingly out of step
with the technocratic and liberal economic vision of many party leaders in
government.
Another important consideration is the fact that most of the party’s top
leaders who are not in the government executive are prominent members of
parliament. (Deputies may not simultaneously hold posts in government).
Of 15 Political Commission members, all but five were members of parlia-
ment, and four of the five who were not deputies held positions that are
incompatible with being a deputy—including president, prime minister,
and governor. This includes some members of the “historic generation”
who had previously been retired from top party posts but were subsequently
brought back in. The party hierarchy sought to increase the overlap with
the parliamentary bench by bringing some of its young parliamentary
bench members in to the party Central Committee. With the exception of
Mozambique’s president and prime minister, then, the leadership of
FRELIMO’s party bench in the Assembly comprises the party’s own inter-
nal leadership.
One of the clearest examples of challenges to the government from the
FRELIMO bench can be found in the Assembly’s involvement in the
debates over privatisation and the cashew industry. In December 1995, the
FRELIMO-chaired Planning and Budget Commission attacked the gov-
ernment on both issues, voicing resentment at being presented with priva-
tisations as “faits accomplis” and demanding that the government prioritize
local investors over foreign companies in the sale of state owned enterprises.
Sergio Vieira, speaking as the bench’s rapporteur, voiced particularly strong
opposition to the privatization of Mozambican banks. This session also
marked the beginning of the Assembly’s extended campaign against what
one leading FRELIMO deputy called the “liquidation” of the cashew
industry.39
During the next session (Spring 1996), the FRELIMO Central Committee
issued a statement which expressly opposed privatization of “strategic”
sectors, including banking, insurance, air transport, ports and railways,

energy, water and communications. The statement called on the govern-
ment to use caution in proceeding with privatization, and urged the state
“to improve its coordination with the party and with the FRELIMO par-
liamentary group.”40 At the time, the government was finalizing the sale of
two of the country’s major banks, the Banco Comercial de Mocambique
(BCM, Commercial Bank of Mozambique) and Banco Popular para
Desenvolvimento (BPD, People’s Development Bank). Prime Minister
Pascoal Mocumbi announced that he would not suspend the deals, and
privatization of the banking sector was followed in short order by sales of
state enterprises in other strategic sectors, including air travel and telecom-
munications. When parliament next met, the Planning and Budget
Commission summoned the minister of finance to discuss the privatization
of BCM. In response to parliamentarians’ concerns to ensure that priva-
tized banks continued to act in the best interests of the state, the minister
replied that it was not the government’s job to monitor the commercial
banks. The chair of the commission, Virginia Videira (F) was not satisfied,
and announced that in light of the government’s lack of concern, “we shall
define the strategic sector, and remit our decision to the plenary session of
parliament in October.”41
In the same session, RENAMO found unexpected allies in the
FRELIMO bench for a bill that would have limited the mechanisms the
government could use to sell off public enterprises and require post-sale
inspections to ensure private companies honored the terms of their pur-
chase agreement with the state. The Planning and Budget Commission
rejected the bill on the grounds that the sale restrictions were unnecessary
and potential harmful, but the (RENAMO-chaired) Commission on
Economic Activities and Services supported the provision for guaranteeing
that new owners respect agreements made at the time of purchase to guar-
antee workers’ rights or to keep factories running. On this point the
Assembly reached broad agreement. In the end RENAMO decided to with-
draw its bill in favor of a resolution that expressed “the concern of all
three parliamentary groups at anomalies in privatisations.”42 By the
following September, and in the wake of repeated complaints by trade
unions, the government had begun to crack down on companies that broke
their privatization agreements by firing workers or replacing factories with
warehouses.43
FRELIMO’s parliamentary group has thus demonstrated its desire to
exert influence over government policy. While the government still initi-
ates most bills in the Assembly, the FRELIMO bench has put the govern-
ment on notice that it will not act merely as a rubber stamp.44 Thus, the
ruling party hierarchy has found in parliament an instrument for asserting

a party identity and has explored ways of exerting party control over gov-
ernment through the institutions of multiparty democracies.
For RENAMO, by contrast, the absence of well-established party deci-
sion-making structures at the onset of the democratic transition was never
remedied. While the party had the requisite structures and by-laws on
paper, they never really functioned. The extremely centralized and person-
alized nature of RENAMO has changed little since the end of the war. For
eight years after the 1994 elections, there were no all-party congresses, only
two smaller scale party conferences in which national leaders met with
their counterparts at provincial and district levels. There is little evidence
to suggest that these meetings have any impact in terms of binding “party
policy” that could serve as a foundation for a more two-sided conversation
within the party about the strategic and substantive issues the party faces
in parliament.45
These organizational weaknesses persisted in large part because
Dhlakama had no strong incentive to remedy them. Owing to the polariza-
tion of the Mozambican political arena, as discussed above, RENAMO
found that it could keep winning a substantial share of votes whether or not
the party strengthened itself as an organization. Moreover, the party’s
long-centralized, personalized structure had set no precedent for internal
party debate over, for example, ways the party could improve electoral
performance.
From Dhlakama’s point of view, any attempt to establish authoritative
decision making structures only undermined his control over the party.
The failure to develop such structures, however, has weakened the party’s
ability to perform effectively in the one arena where it has gained a measure
of political power—the national legislature. Thus, for RENAMO partici-
pation in the legislature has increased the distrust between the party in
parliament and the party hierarchy and has induced an attempt by the
party hierarchy to centralize control even further as party leadership out-
side of parliament struggles to retain control.
Part of the explanation for this must be sought in the party’s structure
and in the balance of power between the party sub-units. While in
FRELIMO, the party bureaucracy and the party’s most militant members
are members of parliament and share an interest in making parliament an
effective counterweight to the executive so as to further their own struggle
for power within the party, the situation in RENAMO is completely differ-
ent. There, the party’s top leadership is outside of parliament and feels
threatened by it. Contrary to what has happened in FRELIMO, the self-
interest of the RENAMO party hierarchy leads it to seek to minimize the
effectiveness of its deputies in parliament. The RENAMO party hierarchy’s

relationship with its parliamentary representatives recalls Duverger’s
discussion of the relationship between these two subunits in communist
and fascist parties. As Duverger points out, the question of how to subordi-
nate members of parliament to the party hierarchy is one that has long
preoccupied parties of all kinds. The prestige of office and the ability
to deliver services to constituents allows members of parliament to build a
power base for themselves. Parties have devised a number of mechanisms
to deal with this problem, almost all of which have been used by
RENAMO. However, to understand why parliament poses a threat to the
RENAMO party hierarchy, we need to understand the party’s internal
organization.
First, RENAMO made the transition from a rural-based armed insur-
gency to a political party in very short order. As noted above, finding a
sufficient number of loyal, qualified personnel was a problem for an orga-
nization whose top wartime leadership had been “recruited” largely through
sweeps of secondary schools, or from among disaffected primary school
teachers and low level civil servants.46 Most members of parliament were
recruited after the war ended, in response to the party’s keenly felt need to
bolster its slim wartime elite ranks with well-educated recruits who had
some higher education or experience more relevant to governance.
Unlike rural-based insurgencies in Sierra Leone, Liberia, or Angola,
RENAMO had no independent resource base after the end of the war.
RENAMO had been funded in wartime by the South African apartheid
regime and then by parts of the South African security establishment, as
well as by the odd private supporter. Its participation in the implementation
of the peace accord and the first elections was funded by a $17 million trust
fund provided by international donors. After the transitional elections, sup-
port from external sources dried up. Patronage was in short supply, and
seats in parliament provided the party’s largest and most important source
of patronage. In addition to providing a decent salary for 112 of the party’s
deputies, seats in parliament also bring a modest state subsidy to the party.
The distribution of 112 enviable salaries is a matter of no small concern to
the party, whose resource base has always depended upon contributions
from external donors.
But the allocation of the patronage resources parliament represents has
exacerbated divisions between the party bureaucracy at all levels, most of
whom were wartime members of RENAMO and many of whom were not
being paid by the party, and the new recruits enjoying the benefits of par-
liamentary membership. As a result, for the second legislature (elected in
December 1999), RENAMO made a concerted effort to include all of its
provincial and as many district delegates as possible on the parliamentary

lists, in an effort to alleviate these tensions.47
Another factor which both complicates RENAMO’s performance in
parliament and increases tensions between the party bench and the party
hierarchy outside parliament is the fact that the party’s leader is not a mem-
ber of parliament, as he would be under a parliamentary system. Not only
is Dhlakama not in parliament now, but neither he nor his party has any
comparable experience in government or representative bodies like the AR.
Given the extremely centralized and personalized nature of the party,
Dhlakama’s absence from parliament constrains the decision-making power
of the party’s parliamentary leadership. It also accounts for some of
RENAMO’s frequent reversals on important issues. Parliamentary leaders
make commitments which are then often overturned by the extra-parlia-
mentary leadership.
The fact that Dhlakama is outside of parliament exacerbates the loyalty
question. RENAMO has always been fairly insecure about the loyalty of its
personnel. As noted above, parliament creates a potential platform from
which individual deputies might build a power base to challenge party
leadership. The party’s management of its bench in the Assembly demon-
strates that Dhlakama is keenly aware of the challenge. The “systematic
uprooting of parliamentary representatives,” the “elimination of celebri-
ties,” the requirement that all decisions be vetted with the party leadership
outside of parliament, all strategies identified by Duverger as classic strate-
gies by which parties seek to control the power of their parliamentary rep-
resentatives, are all part of RENAMO’s tool kit.
The replacement of Raul Domingos, the articulate and well respected
party bench leader, with a relative unknown from Nampula province, (fol-
lowed by Domingos’ expulsion from the party by a rank and file “commis-
sion of inquiry”) and the exclusion from winnable positions of leading
jurists in the second legislature are indications of the degree to which this
concern affects the party’s participation in parliament.48
Conclusion
What conclusions can we draw about the adaptation processes of these two
very different parties, both of which were formed out of armed opposition
groups? What are the implications for politics in Mozambique more
broadly? First, there are some major differences in the circumstances of
their respective moves from battlefield to political arena, presenting more
formidable challenges for RENAMO than for FRELIMO. Second, these
differences were reinforced by the degree of organizational development
each party enjoyed at the onset of competitive democratic politics. In part

as a result of these differences, adaptation to democratic politics has been
somewhat lopsided, with FRELIMO exhibiting fuller and more effective
adaptation to democratic politics than RENAMO.
FRELIMO transitioned initially into an authoritarian political environ-
ment where it immediately became the ruling party. Its major difficulties
during this period stemmed from the party’s extremely ambitious project to
transform Mozambican society on a political, economic, and even cultural
level. Internal challenges to this project, whether from within the party or
from society at large were dealt with through a combination of ideological
discourse and persuasion and blunt force. These strategies proved inade-
quate, however, particularly in the face of an increasingly effective armed
insurgency led by RENAMO. By 1990, FRELIMO had made the decision
to shift to a formally democratic, multiparty political system. In the
difficult years between 1975 and 1990, FRELIMO was forced to question
and ultimately discard the ideological project that had prevailed at inde-
pendence. At the same time, over the course of six party congresses (three
before independence, and three after), by 1994 the FRELIMO had devel-
oped functioning structures to manage internal conflict and to make and
enforce difficult decisions. Although these structures were perhaps not
always as democratic in their selection or functioning as the party claimed,
and although the ultimate authority of the party’s president was certainly
never endangered by them, it is true that party leaders have never felt at
liberty to disregard them. On the contrary, FRELIMO’s history is one of
painstakingly documented, if at times well-orchestrated, self-examination.
Each congress is preceded by months of preparation in the form of meet-
ings from local levels to the top, and is followed by the publication of
lengthy documents analyzing the party’s program, platform, and achieve-
ments, and explaining and justifying any changes that have been made.
Key decision-making bodies like the political bureau and, to a lesser extent,
the central committee, have been the object of struggle by rival tendencies
within the party, suggesting that they play a real part in the life of the
party. Major changes in FRELIMO party policy are routinely accompa-
nied by changes in the composition of the central committee and/or
political bureau.49
RENAMO, on the other hand, did not have the luxury of adjusting first
to civilian life, and then to democratic politics. And at the time of its
transition from armed opposition group to political party, its internal
organizational structures were extremely underdeveloped in comparison to
FRELIMO’s. RENAMO was a personalized, highly centralized party run
by a handful of leaders personally loyal to Afonso Dhlakama. The party
had held one party congress in 1991, which was for many of the attending
delegates the first time they had laid eyes on Dhlakama.
RENAMO’s move to the political arena meant undertaking a number of
transformations simultaneously—laying down arms and preparing to com-
pete through political institutions; appropriating the language of democracy
in order to legitimate itself as a movement to the outside world; abandoning
military means of organizational discipline and identifying material and
ideological incentives to satisfy internal critics of the move toward peace;
finding new ways to ensure loyalty; recruiting new personnel to fill political
positions without alienating loyal soldiers and officers; moving headquar-
ters from friendly territory to “enemy” territory in the capital; and generally
transforming itself from an organization entirely oriented to operating
in the bush to one capable of operating comfortably in the city, with all that
that implies for procedural norms, recruitment procedures, resource
allocation, and provision of incentives for leaders and rank and file.
FRELIMO’s adaptation to the new system also required an adaptation
to the language of democracy and to ease out many party members, now
that the separation of party and state had reduced party funds substan-
tially. It also had to find a way to justify its newfound willingness to work
with RENAMO and to define a new role for itself as party rather than
party-state. This meant not only giving up future control over resources
and state assets, but also giving up the party’s absolute control over
government policy.
Thus for both sides, the end of the war meant a significant loss of con-
trol, a surrender to the considerable uncertainties of multiparty politics.
The degree to which each organization has successfully weathered this loss
of control has depended in part on the degree of organizational develop-
ment at the onset. The first two general elections, in 1994 and 1999, pro-
vided little evidence that RENAMO’s electoral performance was suffering
from the party’s lagging institutional development and consequent refusal
to invest significantly in improving its ability to perform in democratic
institutions like the legislature. The 2004 election, however, gave FRELIMO
a more substantial margin of victory in both the presidential and legislative
elections than it had previously enjoyed. Perhaps even more telling, in
RENAMO’s heartland in the central provinces, voter turnout was quite
low.50 In the past, RENAMO has sought to compensate its shortcomings
in organizational development through backroom negotiations with
FRELIMO party leaders and donors whenever possible.51 However, these
strategies appear to yield decreasing returns for RENAMO the farther away
Mozambique moves from the civil war. Further weakening of RENAMO’s
electoral performance could well leave FRELIMO without any effective
opposition, at least during some interim period as alternative parties develop

the capacity to fill the gap.
Notes
1. For a recent and comprehensive analysis of the economic liberalization process
in Mozambique, with an excellent discussion of linkages between the state
andprivate sector, see Anne Pitcher, Transforming Mozambique: The Politics of
Privatization, 1975–2000 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002).
2. See for example José Luis Cabaço, “A Longa Estrada da Democracia
Moçambicana” in Moçambique: Eleições, Democracia e Desenvolvimento, ed.
Brazão Mazula (Maputo, Mozambique: Inter-Africa Group, 1995), pp. 79–114.
See also José Magode, “A Formação das Élites e do Estado e a Questão Nacional
em Moçambique: O Contexto Social, a Legitimidade ou a Ilegitimação de
uma Prática,” paper presented at the Seminário sobre a Transição Política em
Moçambique, sponsored by the state-linked Instituto Superior de Relações
Internacionais and the Centro de Estudos Estratégicos e Internacionais,
Maputo, April 19–21, 1996.
3. For studies of the economic and social impact of colonialism in different
regions, as well as attempts in different areas to resist colonialism, see
Departamento de História-Faculdade de Letras, Universidade Eduardo
Mondlane, História da Moçambique: Moçambique no Auge do Colonialismo,
1930–1961 (Maputo, Mozambique: Imprensa de Universidade Eduardo
Mondlane, 1993); Leroy Vail and Landeg White, Capitalism and Colonialism
in Mozambique (London: Heinemann, 1980); Allen Isaacman and Barbara
Isaacman, Moçambique: From Colonialism to Revolution, 1900–1982 (Boulder,
CO: Westview Press, 1983); Thomas H. Henriksen, Revolution and Counter
Revolution: Mozambique’s War of Independence, 1964–1974 (Westport, CT:
Greenwood, 1983); Margaret Hall and Tom Young, Confronting Leviathan:
Mozambique since Independence, (Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 1997);
Malyn Newitt, A History of Mozambique (Bloomington: Indiana University
Press, 1995).
4. Magode, “A Formação das Elites,” p. 12.
5. Magode, “A Formação das Elites,” p. 14.
6. Newitt, A History of Mozambique, pp. 524–525.
7. See Barry Munslow, “The Liberation Struggle in Mozambique and the Origins
of Post Independence Political and Economic Policy” in Mozambique,
Proceedings of a seminar held in the Centre of African Studies, University of
Edinburgh, December 1–2, 1978.
8. Isaacman and Isaacman, Mozambique, p. 98.
9. Cited in Mondlane, História de Moçambique, p. 191.
10. For details, see Isaacman and Isaacman, Mozambique, pp. 95–100, and Paul
Fauvet, “Roots of Counter-Revolution: The Mozambique National Resistance,”
Review of African Political Economy 11, no. 29 (1984), p. 112.
11. The “double administration” issue, a major sticking point during the peace
process, illustrates RENAMO’s desire to demonstrate its governing ability as
well as its claims to a share in administrative positions. For a detailed discus-
sion, see Carrie Manning, “Democratic Transition in Mozambique, 1992–1995:
Beginning at the End?” PhD dissertation, University of California, Berkeley,
1997. RENAMO also engaged various American and South African advisers
for services ranging from public relations, training in what amounted to states-
manlike conduct and basic political education for Dhlakama and some of his
top deputies, and drafting of party campaign documents and constitutional
revision proposals.
12. See for example Alex Vines, RENAMO: Terrorism in Mozambique
(London: James Currey 1991); Fauvet, “Roots of Counter-Revolution”;
Ken Flower, Serving Secretly: An Intelligence Chief on Record, Rhodesia
into Zimbabwe, 1964–1981 (London: John Murray, 1987), William
Minter, Apartheid’s Contras: An Inquiry into the Roots of War in Angola
and Mozambique (Johannesburg, South Africa: Witwatersrand University
Press, 1994); Hall and Young, Confronting Leviathan; Joao Cabrita,
Mozambique: The Tortuous Road to Democracy (London: Palgrave MacMillan,
2001).
13. For a detailed discussion, see Manning, “Democratic Transition in
Mozambique.”
14. Gorongosa Documents (extracts), Bureau de Informação Pública, Maputo,
Mozambique, September 1985, (Mimeo).
15. For an analysis of RENAMO’s behavior during the negotiation and signing of
the Nkomati Accord, see Vines, RENAMO: Terrorism in Mozambique,
pp. 21–26.
16. Vines, RENAMO: Terrorism in Mozambique, p. 25.
17. For a detailed discussion, see Carrie Manning, “Constructing Opposition in
Mozambique: RENAMO as Political Party,” Journal of Southern African
Studies 24, no. 1 (March 1988), pp. 161–189.
18. Manning, “Constructing Opposition in Mozambique,” pp. 161–189.
19. Fauvet, “Roots of Counter-Revolution,” p. 112.
20. Cabaço, “A Longa Estrada,” p. 82.
21. Cabaço, “A Longa Estrada,” p. 85.
22. See FRELIMO, “Programa da FRELIMO,” Colecção III Congresso, Maputo,
Mozambique, 1977, p. 7.
23. Author Interview, Hermenegildo Infante, Chief of Mobilization and
Propaganda, FRELIMO Central Committee, Maputo, Mozambique,
October 5, 1995.
24. Barry Munslow, “Mozambique: Marxism-Leninism in Reverse: The Fifth
Party Congress of Frelimo,” Journal of Communist Studies 6, no. 1 (March
1990), p. 110.
25. Luis de Brito, “State and Multiparty Democracy in Mozambique,” Southern
Africa Political and Economic Monthly (February 1994), p. 62.
26. This section is adapted from Carrie Manning, “Armed Opposition Groups
into Political Parties: Comparing Bosnia, Kosovo, and Mozambique,” Studies
in Comparative International Development 39, 1 (Spring 2004), pp. 54–76.
27. Richard Synge, Mozambique: UN Peacekeeping in Action (Washington, DC:
US Institute of Peace, 1997).
28. Radio Mozambique, September 28, 1994, Agence France Press, October 17,
1994, Voz da RENAMO, October 25, 1994.
29. See Dennis Jett, Why Peacekeeping Fails (New York: Palgrave MacMillan,
2000) and Manning, “Democratic Transition in Mozambique.”
30. Radio Mozambique, October 28, 1994.
31. Afonso Dhlakama, letter to Ambassador of Spain in Mozambique, Maputo,
July 11, 1995.
32. Noticias, October 14, 1995. This is a daily paper in Maputo.
33. On coaching, personal communication to author from Thomashausen and
others involved in RENAMO’s political education efforts at the time. For dis-
cussion, see Manning, “Democratic Transition in Mozambique.” On U.S. and
Italian support during the peace process, see Cameron Hume, Ending
Mozambique’s War: The Role of Mediation and Good Offices (Washington, DC:
US Institute of Peace, 1994).
34. For accounts of the role of the UN and donors in Mozambique’s peace process
in general and their interaction with RENAMO in particular, see Alex Vines,
No Democracy Without Money (London: Catholic Institute for International
Relations, 1994); Jett, Why Peacekeeping Fails; Chris Alden, Mozambique and
the Construction of the New African State: From Negotiations to Nation-Building
(New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2001); Stephen Chan and Moises Venancio,
War and Peace in Mozambique (London: MacMillan, 1998); Carrie Manning,
The Politics of Peace in Mozambique (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2002); Cameron
Hume, Ending Mozambique’s War: The Role of Mediation and Good Offices
(Washington, DC: US Institute of Peace, 1994); Synge, UN Peacekeeping in
Action; Aldo Ajello, “Mozambique: Implementation of the 1992 Peace
Agreement” in Herding Cats: Multiparty Mediation in a Complex World, ed.
Chester A. Crocker, Fen Osler Hampson, and Pamela R. Aall (Washington,
DC: U.S. Institute of Peace Press, 1999).
35. This section draws on structured personal interviews with seventy-two
RENAMO officials at national, provincial, and local levels from 1994–1996.
The group included 22 national level officials, including most core members
of the party’s top executive organs as well as a majority of department heads, 5
of the party’s 10 provincial representatives, and 45 district and local personnel.
For fuller accounts of RENAMO during wartime and afterwards, see Vines,
RENAMO: Terrorism in Mozambique; Christian Geffray, A Causa das Armas:
Antropologia da Guerra Contemporânea em Moçambique (Porto, Portugal:
Edições Afrontamento, 1991); Manning, “Constructing Opposition in
Mozambique”; Minter, Apartheid’s Contras; Hall and Young, Confronting
Leviathan.
36. Manning, “Constructing Opposition in Mozambique,” pp. 161–189.

37. This apt phrase was coined in relation to RENAMO by Michel Cahen. See
Cahen, “Dhlakama é Maningue Nice: An Atypical Former Guerrilla in the
Mozambican Presidential Race,” L’Afrique Politique (Paris: Karthala, 1995).
38. This section draws heavily on Carrie Manning, “Elite Habituation to
Democracy in Mozambique: The View from Parliament, 1994–2000,” Journal
of Commonwealth and Comparative Politics 40, 1 (March 2002), 61–80; and
Manning, “Assessing Adaptation to Democratic Politics in Mozambique” in
Leonardo Villalon and Peter VonDoepp, The Fate of Africa’s Democratic
Experiments: Elites and Institutions (Bloomington: Indiana University Press,
2005).
39. AIM, Mozambiquefile, January 1996. This is a monthly news bulletin put out
by the Mozambique News Agency in English.
40. AIM, Mozambiquefile, June 1996.
41. AIM, Mozambiquefile, September 1996.
42. AIM, Mozambiquefile, April 1996.
43. AIM, Mozambiquefile, October 1996.
44. For a detailed discussion, see Manning, “Elite Habituation to Democracy in
Mozambique.”
45. For an account and analysis of the first national party conference, immediately
following the 1994 general elections, see Manning, “Democratization in
Mozambique.”
46. Manning, “Constructing Opposition in Mozambique.”
47. Author interview, Raul Domingos, Maputo, Mozambique, May 12, 2000.
48. For a fuller discussion, see Manning, “Elite Habituation to Democracy in
Mozambique.”
49. The Mozambique Information Agency provides the most consistent documen-
tation of these processes over time with its monthly bulletins. Much can also
be gleaned by consulting party documentation and newspaper coverage for
each conference. These documents provide the basis for the assertions made
here.
50. For an excellent discussion of the last election, as well as party development in
Mozambique, see Giovanni M. Carbone, “Continuidade na renovação? Ten
Years of Multiparty Politics in Mozambique: Roots, Evolution and Stabilisation
of the FRELIMO–RENAMO Party System,” Journal of Modern African
Studies 43, 3 (September 2005), pp. 417–442.
51. For an in-depth discussion of this dynamic, see Carrie Manning, “Conflict
Management and Elite Habituation to Post-War Democracy: The Case of
Mozambique,” Comparative Politics 35, 1 (October 2002), pp. 63–84.
CHAPTER 10
Angola: From Revolutionary

Movement to Reactionary Regime
Assis Malaquias
Introduction
Angola’s four decades of conflict ended in 2002 shortly after the death of
rebel leader Jonas Savimbi in combat. In important ways, Savimbi’s death
marked the final victory of the revolutionary forces that participated in the
various phases of Angola’s complex and interrelated conflicts that started in
1961 with the anticolonial war and then evolved into a long and protracted
postcolonial civil war. The length and violence of the conflict are related to
various factors—the way the colony was constructed, its resource endow-
ment, the nationalist forces’ inability to agree both on a common front
against colonialism and on a framework for the post-colonial state-building
project, and Angola’s role as an important Cold War battleground. These
factors, in turn, conditioned and complicated the revolutionary forces’ sei-
zure and ultimate consolidation of power in Angola.
During the anticolonial struggle, the underlying premise of the pro-
grams that guided the main revolutionary force in Angola, Movimento
Popular para Libertação de Angola (MPLA, the Popular Movement for the
Liberation of Angola) was that, upon liberation, it would carry out a funda-
mental and revolutionary societal transformation instead of simply replac-
ing the colonial elites with indigenous elites without significant changes in
the political and economic orders. In reality, however, this vision was aban-
doned shortly after independence. Instead, the new order became
characterized by excessive centralization of power, elite privilege and
212 ● Assis Malaquias
extravagance, kleptocracy, repression, and widespread economic collapse

outside the oil and diamonds sectors.
Before analyzing the main reasons for the abandonment of the revolu-
tionary ideals, this chapter first reviews the trajectory of the MPLA and
identifies the key factors that enabled it to survive the various stages of the
conflict and achieve the dominant position within the postcolonial politi-
cal landscape.
The Revolutionary Movement

The MPLA emerged in 1956 as an umbrella organization for various revo-
lutionary groups, including the Partido Comunista de Angola (PCA,
Communist Party of Angola) and the Partido da Luta Unida dos Africanos
de Angola (PLUA, Party of the United Struggle of Angola’s Africans) that
had been agitating to end Portuguese colonialism in Angola. The MPLA’s
main base of support emanated from the Mbundu ethnic group, represent-
ing about 25 percent of the population, that have traditionally inhabited
the areas around the capital city, Luanda, and east as far as the Cassange
area of Malanje province. The MPLA also drew support from the embry-
onic African intellectual elite in the Luanda area, including influential
mulattos—or mixed-race Angolans—and a small number of liberal descen-
dants of Portuguese settlers.
The MPLA claims credit for having started the anticolonial war of
national liberation on February 4, 1961. The immediate events leading to
the outbreak of the war can be traced back to 1960 when the colonial
administration imprisoned Agostinho Neto, the young Angolan medical
doctor and president of the MPLA Steering Committee, who later became
postcolonial Angola’s first president. The imprisonment of Agostinho Neto
led to a mass demonstration by the villagers of his native Icolo e Bengo to
which the Portuguese authorities responded violently, killing 30 villagers
and wounding 200.1 This was followed in January 1961 by the Baixa de
Kassanje massacre, the result of another brutal military response by the
colonial authorities against local cottongrowers demanding fair prices.
Within this context of tension and violence, a group of MPLA militants
attacked the central Luanda prison where many nationalist leaders were
imprisoned, marking the beginning of the national anticolonial war.
The onset of the armed nationalist resistance against Portuguese colo-
nialism brought serious challenges for the MPLA. Within a year of the start
of the liberation war this revolutionary movement was in political and mil-
itary disarray mainly owing to its inability to achieve a leading role in the
incipient anticolonial struggle as well as the failure to create a united front
Angola ● 213
with the more powerful União dos Povos de Angola (UPA, Union of the
Peoples of Angola) and the difficulties surrounding its attempts to establish
a viable military presence in Angola. The resulting leadership crisis, which
erupted in May 1962, led to the dismissal of Viriato da Cruz as the move-
ment’s secretary-general, a post he had held since helping to create the
MPLA in 1956. MPLA then attempted to settle its internal divisions by
holding its First National Conference in December 1962 in Leopoldville
(present-day Kinshasa) to elect a new party executive. Although Agostinho
Neto was confirmed as president of the movement at this meeting 2, within
six months this new leadership faced an open revolt. On July 5, 1963,
several key MPLA members, headed by former secretary-general Viriato da
Cruz, temporarily “dismissed” the movement’s new leadership. Expectedly,
the leadership crisis had crucial negative repercussions on the ground where
the liberation “war” was supposed to be taking place. Demoralized by
infighting at the leadership level, military commanders on the “eastern
front,” led by Daniel Chipenda, broke away to carry out their own “Eastern
Revolt.”
Compounding the effects of internal turmoil, the MPLA also faced a
challenging regional environment. In 1963, the OAU (Organization of
African Unity) asserted that the “continued separate existence of another
minor front such as the MPLA” was unhelpful to the rapid achievement of
independence by the Angolan peoples.3 Partly as a result of the OAU’s
position, Congo (Leopoldville) expelled Neto’s group from its territory,
forcing the Angolan revolutionaries to set up bases across the Congo river
in Brazzaville where a coup had brought to power a left-wing government
sympathetic to the MPLA. From this new base, the MPLA penetrated the
Cabinda enclave—a territory separated from Angola by Congolese territory
but claimed by colonial and post-colonial authorities as belonging to
Angola—to set up its first military region. This peculiar situation made the
MPLA guerrilla operations in Cabinda and penetration further south into
the main land very problematic because the separatist Frente de Libertação
do Enclave de Cabinda (FLEC, Front for the Liberation of the Cabinda
Enclave) was already active in Cabinda and the Congolese government was
ill-disposed toward the MPLA. Similarly, the Frente Nacional de Libertação
de Angola (FNLA, National Front for the Liberation of Angola) was active
in northern Angola—the Bakongo region, from where this movement
originated—and had developed a lethal antagonism toward the MPLA
owing to major ideological, ethnic, racial, regional, cultural, and various
other differences.
Problematic penetration through northern borders, forced the MPLA to
change its military strategy in the mid-1960s in favor of military operations
along the long eastern border with Zambia, a country that gained
independence in October 1964. But the eastern front was equally
problematic because another nationalist movement, the União Nacional
para Independência Total de Angola (UNITA, National Union for the
Total Independence of Angola) had also established itself there. Mirroring
the relationship between the MPLA and the FNLA, important ethnic,
racial, and ideological differences also prevented the MPLA from
cooperating with UNITA to face a common enemy. Instead, both move-
ments spent much of their precious resources fighting each other. As
Minter4 points out, “as early as 1967–1968 UNITA clashes with the MPLA
were at least as common as its confrontations with Portuguese troops.” For
the MPLA in eastern Angola in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the
consequences of both Portuguese operations and UNITA activities were
militarily devastating. Thus, by the end of 1972, the MPLA had at
best a symbolic military presence in eastern Angola. Visibly debilitated
politically and militarily owing to internal squabbles while facing various
enemies on the ground, the MPLA struggled to remain a dominant pres-
ence in the last stages of liberation war. It eventually survived and devel-
oped into the dominant political force in Angola mainly because of external
factors.
Key to Survival: The

External Connection
An important key to the MPLA’s survival and eventual success was its abil-
ity to remain connected with key revolutionary forces around the world,
notably the former USSR. Within the cold war context and the equally
significant Sino-Soviet rivalry, the USSR was willing to support the MPLA
both for purely ideological reasons and because China was providing the
MPLA’s archenemy, the FNLA, with considerable resources including war
materiel and military trainers.5 For the USSR, an MPLA victory in post-
colonial Angola would constitute a significant ideological and geostrategic
coup. It would mean that the much anticipated triumph of revolutionary
movements around the world was proceeding at good pace. Furthermore,
Angola could provide the frontline bases for an eventual liberation of the
entire Southern African subcontinent and its immense natural resources
under pro-Soviet regimes. Equally important, the opportunity to inflict
important setbacks to its main global adversaries—the United States and
China—proved irresistible for the former Soviet Union. Thus, in August
1974, the former USSR delivered $6 million to its Angolan benefactors,6
marking a significant boost in Soviet engagement in the Angolan conflict
Angola ● 215
that increased with the intensity of the civil war. Soviet support was
later complemented by assistance from Cuba and ultimately enabled the
MPLA to prevail over its main internal adversaries and take over the gov-
ernment from the departing settlers on November 11, 1975. But neither the
former USSR nor Cuba could help the MPLA deal with its enormous
postindependence challenges. Equally significant, neither could sustain the
MPLA’s revolutionary agenda much beyond the first few years of
independence.
Revolutionaries in Power:
The Struggle to Survive
Internal Opposition
In early 1975, the FNLA made several moves that accelerated the onset of
the postcolonial civil war and cemented its popular view as a nonrevolu-
tionary movement. Buoyed by increased American help, the FNLA
attempted to establish a firm foothold in Luanda by acquiring a major
newspaper and a TV station in preparation for what was expected to be a
difficult electoral campaign. More ominously, the FNLA moved into
Luanda several hundred notoriously undisciplined soldiers from Zaire who,
with little delay, proceeded to harass the civilian population and MPLA
installations. Since the MPLA had been in even greater military disarray at
the time of the coup in Portugal, it attempted to close the military gap vis-
à-vis the FNLA by creating “People’s Power committees”—grassroot struc-
tures scattered around Luanda’s peri-urban belt, where the bulk of the
MPLA’s supporters resided. These structures had important political and
military roles. At the political level, they served as key channels for
disseminating the MPLA’s political program and were ideally suited for
canvassing the local populations. But they also had a more menacing
military component because the MPLA transformed them into powerful
paramilitary bases by arming its militants who operated them. For the
FNLA, these committees, not the recently returning MPLA lead-
ers and their guerrillas, presented the greatest political and military
challenge.
In the context of the zero-sum competition that had characterized
FNLA-MPLA relations since the early 1960s, the “People’s Power commit-
tees” loomed increasingly larger for the survival or demise of the liberation
movements in late 1974 and early 1975. In other words, the MPLA’s sur-
vival in the critical months leading to independence depended significantly
on the strengths of these committees. Conversely, the FNLA’s hopes of
controlling the capital city by independence depended on its ability to cage

in, if not destroy, these same committees. The FNLA’s strategy of harass-
ment culminated in the killing of 50 MPLA recruits in Caxito on March
23, 1975. However, the FNLA’s strategy backfired horrendously because,
within months, the MPLA’s committees had sufficient means to drive the
FNLA out of the capital.
External Intervention
After the collapse of the colonial regime in Portugal as a result of the April
25, 1974 military coup in Lisbon, the MPLA tolerated sharing the political
arena with UNITA and the FNLA simply because it was necessary to nego-
tiate the modalities of decolonization leading to independence on November
11, 1975. But the political framework for independence avoided the funda-
mental issues that had divided the nationalist movement for much of the
anticolonial war. Predictably, these perennial divisions resurfaced and
ignited a civil war that quickly became internationalized: Cuban troops
intervened on the side of the MPLA while the South African Defense Forces
(SADF) supported UNITA and the Zairian Army fought alongside FNLA
soldiers. The MPLA/Cuba eventually prevailed with the help of significant
deployment of Soviet weapons and military advisers. Demoralized and
humiliated for failing to install their respective allies in power, both the
South African and the Zairian Armies retreated within months of indepen-
dence. However, independence and the defeat of the UNITA/SADF and
FNLA/Zairian Armies in 1976 constituted a short pause in the civil war. It
continued with greater intensity, albeit now in the form of a protracted
guerrilla war.
The withdrawal of the invading South African troops from Angola in
February 1976 after failing to prevent a postcolonial MPLA takeover left
UNITA virtually destroyed. But although the MPLA had prevailed over
invading armies and internal enemies such as UNITA, it had been trauma-
tized by the complex and violent birth of the new state. It was also cogni-
zant of the fact that surrounded by enemies like South Africa and Zaire it
would indefinitely remain on life-support. Thus, since independence, the
MPLA regime viewed its long-term security as being intrinsically tied to its
ability to foster a friendlier regional environment. Thus, the new Angolan
government provided open and unconditional military and diplomatic sup-
port for South Africa’s African National Congress (ANC), Namibia’s South
West Africa Peoples Organization (SWAPO), and Zaire’s Front National
pour la Libération du Congo (FNLC, National Front for the Liberation of
Congo). Both South Africa and Zaire’s regimes responded by supporting
Angola ● 217
their own proxies in Angola. With the FNLA out of commission as a

military force, UNITA became the proxy of choice.
South Africa’s response to the perceived threats emanating from the new
Angolan state came in the form of the so-called total strategy that involved
a set of policies aimed at ensuring the survival of the apartheid system
through a combination of reform and repression at home and coercive
regional intervention. Consequently, from the late 1970s through the
1980s, Angola suffered the brunt of the apartheid regime’s total strategy.
South Africa used two main instruments to threaten Angola’s territorial
integrity: first, frequent and well-planned military invasions deep into
Angolan territory and, second, the instrumentalisation of UNITA as a
proxy in its regional destabilization policies. UNITA in the mid-1970s,
faced with a situation peculiarly similar to its predicament a decade earlier,
willingly accepted a new proxy role as a means of ensuring its own
survival.
Between its withdrawal in 1976 and its final disengagement in 1988, the
SADF carried out 12 major military operations in Angola. These actions
were crucial for UNITA’s development as a major military force. Although
virtually destroyed by the MPLA and Cuban troops in 1975–1976, UNITA
was reorganized into a significant military force by 1979. According to
Conchiglia7 since 1980, UNITA was restructured “by the South Africans
along the lines of a conventional army with the ability to take advantage of
South Africa’s regular incursions to advance behind SADF, occupy ‘liber-
ated’ territory and defend it with weapons captured by the South African
army.” This seriously disrupted food production in rural areas, brought the
vital Benguela Railway to a standstill, and threatened to disrupt onshore oil
production and diamond exploration.
By the end of the 1980s, the MPLA faced important pressures to find a
political end to the war. Apartheid South Africa’s twin strategies toward
Angola—regular military invasions and support for UNITA—convinced
the Angolan government that a regional settlement with South Africa was
in its best interest. Thus, the MPLA accepted the Reagan Administration’s
“linkage” policy tying the withdrawal of Cuban troops from Angola to
Namibia’s independence on the basis of UN Security Council (UNSC)
Resolution 435 of September 29, 1978. This resolution reaffirmed the legal
responsibility of the United Nations over Namibia and approved a UN
Secretary-General report containing a proposal for a settlement of the issue
based on the withdrawal of South Africa’s illegal administration from
Namibia and the transfer of power to the people of Namibia.
The New York Accord of December 22, 1988 was the culmination of
this process. The Peace Accord signed by Angola, Cuba, and South Africa
provided for the removal of Cuban troops from Angola in exchange for
South African commitment to implement UNSC Resolution 435. Angola
saw this accord as a major foreign policy victory inasmuch as it was expected
to bring the MPLA closer to finally achieving a measure of domestic secu-
rity. The Angolan regime believed that full implementation of UNSC
Resolution 435 would bring two important benefits: first, remove the South
African threat from its southern border,. second, lead to the collapse of
UNITA as a military threat because its main supply routes via Namibia
would be cut off by a SWAPO-led government. Alas, the optimistic sce-
nario whereby UNITA would disappear owing to discontinued South
African support did not materialize because UNITA was also a proxy
within a wider global ideological war—an important instrument in the
implementation of the “Reagan Doctrine.” This relationship lasted until
the rebels’ decision to return to war after losing both parliamentary and
presidential elections held in September 1992.
Self-inflicted Wounds
Although the MPLA prevailed over its adversaries and seized power, several
factors complicated the MPLA´s “victory.” Some of these factors were visible
soon after the euphoria of independence subsided. As the political and mil-
itary dust from the struggle for independence settled, the widening gulf
between the new regime and society became apparent. This schism was the
result of various domestic conflicts related to class, race, ethnicity, and
overall inability to cope with the administrative challenges of post-colonial
governance that resulted, in no small extent, from the precipitous departure
of the settler population that had hitherto controlled the economy and
dominated colonial society.
This destabilizing exodus notwithstanding, the MPLA’s major
post-colonial challenges were primarily political. In a classic example of
“statist” approaches to African development in the 1970s, the postcolonial
policies implemented by the MPLA tended to emphasize an exclusivist
vision of politics where a single party sought to represent the diverse aspira-
tions of a highly fragmented society. The ideological underpinnings of the
new system drew heavily on Soviet rhetoric, theories of development and
underdevelopment, and the revolutionary experiences of other third world
countries. It was seen as a way to prevent the development of neocolonial
dependency that characterized the relationships between many African
countries and the West. Theoretically, the MPLA hoped to carry out a
fundamental and revolutionary transformation instead of simply replacing
the colonial elites with indigenous ones without significant changes in the
Angola ● 219
socioeconomic order. In reality, however, this new ideology proved to be

little more than rhetoric. The repressive colonial order was not replaced by
popular and effective democratic institutions and governance. Instead—as
elsewhere in one-party Africa at the time—the new order became charac-
terized by excessive centralization, elite privilege, extravagance, corruption,
repression, and economic collapse.
The MPLA’s abandonment of its former revolutionary ideals were a
result of a series of fundamental misconceptions, including the illusion that
the many and complex political problems it was inheriting from the long
colonial overlay—particularly the critical questions relating to how indi-
viduals with multiple identities and groups with unfulfilled political aspira-
tions would relate to the new state—could be solved by instituting a
one-party regime. Second, a further misconception rested on the belief that
new institutions, upon which the post-colonial state would be erected,
could be created virtually overnight. The handful of committed revolution-
aries who undertook to create the new state soon realized that it was an
unmanageable task, particularly because those skilled Angolans who did
not belong to the governing party were excluded from any relevant partici-
pation in the erection of this embryonic state. Thus, the government became
overstretched—unable to fulfill the expectations of a populace emerging
from colonial oppression—and, therefore vulnerable to accusations of
incompetence. Even worse politically, this systematic exclusion of non-
MPLA members from important positions within the new state—even if
only in symbolic roles—made the governing party appear illegitimate to a
significant portion of the population, especially those individuals who sup-
ported the two defeated liberation movements. In other words, unwittingly,
the MPLA´s policies after independence created an important disconnect
between the governing party—still including a disproportionate number of
mulattos in the years immediately after independence—and society.
Predictably, many Angolans deeply resented the fact that, even after
independence, European descendants could still live comfortably—now as
members of the ruling elite—while the majority of the population suffered
the consequences of the regime’s economic policies. This dissatisfaction
caused major dissensions even within the ruling party and exploded into a
violent coup attempt led by Nito Alves, the powerful and popular interior
minister, on May 27, 1977. Although the coup was crushed with the help of
Cuban troops, it marked the beginning of the end of the MPLA’s revolu-
tionary vision.
Significantly, in the aftermath of the coup, the MPLA became a more
exclusive, secretive, and less accountable organization. The hunt for the
coup organizers provided an ideal opportunity for the governing elite to rid
itself of those MPLA members who, whether or not sympathetic to the

coup plotters, defended a people-centered approach to post-colonial poli-
tics. Thus, besides the coup leaders, tens of thousands of mostly MPLA
sympathizers—some of the few educated Angolans who remained in the
country—were killed. Additional steps taken by the MPLA to regain its
political balance further accentuated the cleavage between state and soci-
ety. For example, the governing party underwent a “rectification campaign”
that ensured that only chosen militants, not just sympathizers, could qual-
ify for positions of relevance within the state apparatus. In effect, a few
hundred individuals literally controlled the state without accountability. As
a result, corruption greased with vast sums of oil money quickly evolved
into the defining feature of the state with the new elites brazenly using state
resources for their personal enrichment. This was part of a generalized sys-
tem that included the country’s notorious “Bermuda triangle” comprising
the state oil giant Sonangol, the National Bank of Angola and the Futungo
de Belas presidential palace into which most of the revenues generated from
oil exploration seem to vanish.
Corruption has become such a way of life for the elite that some of its
more powerful members no longer make an effort to disguise it even when
the vast majority of the population survives amidst widespread misery. As a
result, most citizens—destitute and helpless—now regard the elite’s grip on
the state as a nightmarish throwback to colonial times when power, pres-
tige, and privilege were closely associated with class and race. Revolutionaries
have in many ways become the new reactionaries. What accounts for the
abandonment of the MPLA’s revolutionary program?
The Political Dimension

As mentioned above, the MPLA did not fully appreciate the complexity of
the political problems inherited by the post-colonial state. It attempted to
address, if not resolve, those political challenges within or through the one-
party system. This was an important misconception. A further misconcep-
tion rested on the belief that new institutions, upon which the post-colonial
state would be erected, could be swiftly knocked together. The early postin-
dependence hopes that the MPLA would make good on its promises to
govern as a “movement of the masses” gradually succumbed to the realities
of corrupt elite governance where members of the new ruling class used its
superior education, political skills, and economic power to take control of
the governing party and other sources of state power. Instead of building
on the connections with workers and peasants initiated during the
anticolonial struggle, the new ruling class grew increasingly detached from
the common citizen and—not unlike the settler elite it replaced—used the
Angola ● 221
repressive means of the state to preserve its privileged political status and
enhance its control over growing oil revenues while society’s main demands
were left largely unattended. Angolan society—emerging from a bruising
encounter with colonialism whose last years involved repression and war—
was unprepared to find peaceful and constructive alternatives to postcolo-
nial violence. As a result, a widespread sense of powerlessness set in as the
average citizen’s life became consumed with the essential tasks of survival—
the search for personal security and other basic needs. As the state
acquired traits of violence—both physical, as administered through its
security apparatus and structural owing to growing corruption and
unaccountability—most segments of society were inclined to disengage
from the political activities thus further widening the gap between state
and society. This gap also has an important economic component.
Economic Dimensions
Many of the unique distortions characterizing the Angolan economy and
society today can be attributed to the length and nature of the Portuguese
colonial presence as well as to Portugal’s own position as a peripheral player
in the global political economy. In particular, the reliance on forced labor
and foreign capital for Angola’s colonial “development” had lasting nega-
tive consequences. The main consequence for Angola, beyond the variety
of social traumas caused by the reliance on forced labor for much of the
colonial overlay, was that much of its productive labor was relegated to
activities that created few, if any, opportunities for accumulation of capital
by the local, nonsettler populations. Portuguese settlers were the key inter-
mediaries of foreign capital and owned the plantations and, later, factories
while colonial labor laws ensured a reliable supply of low-cost labor.
Unsurprisingly, therefore, at the time of independence, Angolans owned
little capital. Equally deplorable was the fact that as a society newly inde-
pendent Angola lacked a critical mass of individuals with the skills neces-
sary for capital accumulation at the level to sustain a viable economy.
Furthermore, as colonial Angola was little more than a rich source of impe-
rial wealth, Portugal did not undertake to create an indigenous institu-
tional framework for managing a modern economy. Thus, at independence,
Angola lacked the expertise and the institutional framework to erect a via-
ble economy with the capacity to meet its citizens’ aspirations for material
well being. In addition to these factors, however, postcolonial policies
contributed significantly to the rickety nature of the new state.
After winning a power struggle against its rivals, the MPLA undertook
to build a postcolonial “socialist” Angola. A new constitution was drafted,
subordinating state organs to the ruling party. Thus, the basic decisions
concerning the organization of the economic system—from economic

strategy to the choice of instruments for its implementation—were made by
the governing party. It was the party, therefore, that adopted centralized
planning, large-scale nationalization of productive enterprises, and strict
state control of economic activities as key policy measures designed to help
Angola establish a socialist economic system.
A National Planning Commission was established soon after indepen-
dence as an organ of the Council of Ministers to coordinate economic
planning. By 1978, state monopolies had been established in foreign trade,
banking, and insurance. Furthermore, the widespread nationalization of
enterprises after independence provided the state with a virtual monopoly
in the most other productive sectors of the economy, including coffee and
diamond mining.
At its First Party Congress in 1977, the MPLA reviewed the country’s
economic performance since independence and concluded that the drive
toward building a socialist economy should be accelerated through improve-
ments in centralized planning and supervision of the economy, continuing
nationalizations and confiscations, and the establishment of rural cooperatives.
In 1980, a year after Neto´s death, the MPLA held an extraordinary con-
gress. Besides confirming the position of José Eduardo dos Santos as its
new leader, this congress also attempted to come to grips with the immense
difficulties of undertaking a fundamental restructuring of the economy
away from colonial character and hinted at some of the critical prob-
lems ahead. Thus, while announcing that progress had been made on the
road to creating structures for building a socialist society, it also recognized
that faster progress had been hampered by delays in drawing up the
all-important national plan. Without the plan the state could not reestab-
lish links between industry and agriculture and thus reduce rural-urban
migration. Furthermore, the MPLA faced the daunting task of establishing
a viable postcolonial economic framework while simultaneously averting
the economic collapse that the settlers’ exodus threatened to precipitate.
The Second MPLA Party Congress of December 1985 reaffirmed
Angola’s choice of socialist development and adopted the national plan as
the main instrument of economic management. It recognized, however,
that the economic results achieved in the first 10 years of independence had
not been entirely satisfactory. The Congress indicated that important
changes were needed in economic policy and called for an improvement in
the methods of socialist planning. All institutions created in the
postcolonial period would thenceforth be designed to comply with three
principles: unified management, centralism, and planning. First, through
“unified management” the governing party attempted to safeguard its role
Angola ● 223
in directing all facets of the country’s economic life—from central to local

levels. This was further reinforced by the second principle of centralism
ensuring that all decisions made at the top party and government levels
would be implemented by lower units. Third, through planning, the MPLA
attempted to harmonize the economic system by defining national priori-
ties and ensuring intersectoral as well as interregional cooperation while
identifying the most efficient uses of scarce factors of production.
The bureaucratic administrative structures created on the basis of these
principles faced severe problems including high levels of inefficiency and a
culture of dependency. Given the omnipresence of the party, all authority
was subordinated to its political power. Consequently, little or nothing was
decided at the lower levels without proper consultation and approval from
the overseeing party and government departments resulting in very slow
decision-making and implementation of policies at all levels. Moreover, the
new Angolan state, not unlike its colonial predecessor, was being erected on
a mound of regulations and government interventions in the main areas of
economic policy including price controls, licensing, investments, banking,
and so on. The resulting bureaucratic structure of economic management
was, at best, rigid, complex, and distorted. Thus, despite a vibrant oil sec-
tor, Angola’s economy remained comatose for much of the postcolonial era.
Beginning in the mid-1980s, the Angolan government undertook major
restorative efforts to nurse its economy back to health with mostly disap-
pointing results.
Economic Reforms: The Final Break with

the Revolutionary Past
By the mid-1980s, the economy was on the verge of collapse. Economic
activity in all sectors outside the oil enclave suffered dramatic declines
owing to a combination of factors including the mass flight of skilled
Portuguese workers, the difficulties arising from the introduction of central
planning, and the rising intensity of the civil war. The economic pain was
felt mostly in the form of hyperinflation and through rationing of essential
goods. In addition, the government had to contend with severe balance of
payment deficits caused by collapsing exports, a result of both declining
economic activity and the arbitrary setting of foreign exchange rates at
artificially high levels.
If precarious domestic conditions pointed to the necessity of rapid
reform, a changing global environment facilitated the probing of possibilities
for such reforms. Ironically, Angola’s main patron, the former USSR, was
also confronted in the mid-1980s with difficult choices regarding ways to
rescue a collapsing economy. In many respects, therefore, Gorbachev’s rise

to power in the former USSR in 1985 and the belated attempt to rescue a
moribund Soviet economy provided the necessary inspiration, if not ideo-
logical justification, for the MPLA’s own attempts to restructure Angola’s
economy. But there was another unavoidable reality. A sharp drop in oil
prices in 1987 severely shook the fiscal foundation of a government almost
totally dependent on oil revenues. That drop in oil prices, combined with a
rise of war-related expenditures, forced the Angolan government into a
period of deficit spending for more than a decade. Given the quickly dete-
riorating military and economic conditions in the 1980s, the regime was
faced with two options for initiating the unavoidable transformation pro-
cess. The first option was mainly political and involved ending the war
through a peace process involving constitutional changes leading to free
multiparty elections. The second choice involved liberalizing the economy.
Either choice, whatever the sequence, would go a long way to strengthen
the regime.
The first option was not particularly appealing to the ruling class
because it might take the form of a national constitutional assembly, as in
other parts of Africa, with the authority to restrict or take away some pow-
ers of the regime. Furthermore, if the government allowed itself to become
one of various participants in the peace process, its power and legitimacy
would be diluted by the structures emanating from civil society to oversee
the transition to peace and democratic government. This would prevent the
government from taking full credit for the anticipated peaceful settlement
of the civil war and reaping the political benefits in a future multiparty
election. Second, popular dissatisfaction with the regime was attributable
mainly to the economic system’s inability to produce goods and services in
sufficient quantities and adequate quality to meet domestic demand. As a
result, Angola opted to implement structural adjustment programs ahead
of political liberalization.
To counter immediate economic difficulties and with an eye to begin
addressing the wider structural dysfunctions in the economy in anticipa-
tion of admission into the IMF and the World Bank, in 1987 the MPLA
government introduced its first International Financial Institution (IFI)–
inspired, if not yet prescribed, structural adjustment program. The Program
for Financial and Economic Reorganization (SEF, Programa de Saneamento
Económico e Financeiro) was designed to transform Angola into a market
economy. This overly ambitious goal could not realistically be met owing
to the absence of the critical institutional and legal environments that
would make such transition possible and the escalation of the civil war that
made such radical transformations even riskier politically for President dos
Santos. In the end, other than convincing the IFIs of its commitment to
Angola ● 225
change—and thus winning membership within these institutions—the

SEF was an unmitigated failure.
Since the SEF’s demise, Angola implemented a series of other adjust-
ment programs, all ambitiously designed and poorly implemented. Not sur-
prisingly, much like the original program, most attempts to reform Angola’s
economy failed. In 1990, a year after joining the IFIs, Angola introduced
the Program of Action for the Government (PAG, Programa de Acção do
Governo) aimed mainly at controlling inflation through strict monetary
policy and a currency change. But given the political context—imminent
peace with UNITA and the prospects of the first multiparty elections in the
near future—the government was unwilling to take the short-term political
risks inherent in fully implementing a program that included freezing 95
percent of the value of all bank accounts. Consequently, PAG was aban-
doned in 1991. In the decade between the Bicesse peace process of 1991 and
the end of the civil war in 2002, the government implemented several other
adjustment programs: Program for Economic Stability (PEG, Programa de
Estabilização Económica) of 1993; Economic and Social Program (PES,
Programa Económico e Social) of 1994 and 1995; Program “New Life”
(PNV, Programa Vida Nova) of 1996; and Program for Medium-term
Economic Stability and Revival (PEREMP, Programa de Estabilização e
Recuperação Económica de Médio Prazo) of 1998. The only thing com-
mon to all these programs was that all ended without success.
Aimed at arresting and, more optimistically, reversing the decay of its
ailing economy through of a series of liberalizing mechanisms, “economic
reform” proved highly problematic in Angola, as elsewhere in Africa.
Specifically, measures to liberalize the economy through privatization and
currency and exchange rate reform produced mixed results and succeeded
mainly in entrenching the elite’s stranglehold on the economy. This was
particularly the case with the policy of privatizing public assets. The MPLA
regime conveniently used privatization as a means of transferring the own-
ership of public enterprises into the hands of top officials as well as their
families and friends in the party, government, and the military. Thus,
privatization benefited primarily those already close to the center of a com-
plex patrimonial set of relationships lubricated by oil revenues. Using oil
revenues, these individuals could then “buy” newly privatized assets. This
was the main “success” of economic reform in Angola.
Conclusion
During its fifty year history, the MPLA has moved away from its initial
character as a liberation movement to the pragmatism that ensured its
survival and its descent into kleptocratic governance. Internal struggles in
its early years dashed the revolutionary movement’s chances of achieving a

dominant position within the liberation struggle. Thus, it came to power
fundamentally weak inside. To put it bluntly, external intervention by its
allies—not internal factors unique to its historical trajectory, ideological
orientation, organizational structure, or popular base of support—played
the decisive role in enabling the MPLA to seize power at independence. But
external interventions by the Western allies of the MPLA’s internal nemeses
in the immediate postindependence period meant that the new revolution-
ary movement did not have the opportunity to develop the necessary
traction to consolidate its power and begin to implement its revolutionary
program. Instead, it existed on survival mode for nearly the first three
decades in power. Survival for the regime required embracing pragmatism
at all levels. Thus, for example, the new regime did not find it contradic-
tory to welcome major American oil companies while the U.S. government
was overtly supporting UNITA rebels’ attempts to overthrow it. Nor did it
reject prescriptions from the IFIs to liberalize the economy. As a result, the
initial flirtation with the Socialist economic model was slowly aban-
doned through the late 1980s and into the 1990s and is now a distant
memory. In sum, the revolutionary movement may have succeeded in
seizing political power in Angola but the revolution never materialized.
Notes
1. Ronald H. Chilcote, Emerging Nationalism in Portuguese Africa: Documents
(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1972), p. 181.
2. John Marcum, The Angolan Revolution. Volume II: Exile Politics and Guerrilla
Warfare, 1962–1976 (Cambridge, The MIT Press, 1978), p. 30.
3. Marcum, The Angolan Revolution, p. 307.
4. William Minter, Operation Timber: Pages from the Savimbi Dossier (Trenton,
NJ: Africa World Press), p. 13.
5. Marcum, The Angolan Revolution, p. 30; Gillian Gunn, “The Legacy of Angola”
in The Suffering Grass: Superpowers and Regional Conflict in Southern Africa and
the Caribbean, ed. Thomas G. Weiss and James G. Blight (Boulder, CO and
London: Lynne Rienner, 1992), p. 41; Suzanne Katsikas, The Arc of Socialist
Revolutions: Angola to Afghanistan (Cambridge: Schenkman, 1982), p. 66.
6. Gunn “The Legacy of Angola,” p. 41.
7. Augusta Conchiglia, UNITA, Myth and Reality (London: ECASAAMA/UK,
1990), p. 45.
CHAPTER 11
Can the Transition Succeed?
Kalowatie Deonandan
Introduction
Revolutionaries to politicians, how successful have they been at pursuing
revolutionary goals in the electoral context? According to Marxist journalists
Jorge Martin and William Sanabria (whose observations are derived from
the Venezuelan experiment), the odds on success are not high as “the elec-
toral front is not the most favorable field for the revolution to advance.”1
Daniel Hellinger expands on this arguing that, “[e]lections usually focus
the attention of political leaders on the task of winning or holding onto
office, not social transformation.”2 While electoral politics contain inher-
ent challenges for revolutionaries, the revolutionary struggles carry with
them the potential to limit the democratic conduct amongst politicians
who were formerly guerrillas. The process of armed struggle, the discipline
demanded of the guerrilla fighter and the adherence to a hierarchical lead-
ership structure “may generate political practices that prefigure undemo-
cratic outcomes in the wake of revolutionary success.”3 How successful
have the revolutionaries in our case studies been in overcoming the chal-
lenges inherent in the electoral route and those stemming from their experi-
ences on the battlefield? While generalizations about such a panoply of
cases are difficult given the diversity in national contexts, conditions, his-
tories, and in the personalities involved, nevertheless, some common and
cross-cutting themes have emerged that help to shed some light on these
questions. It is through the lens of these themes that this final chapter will
revisit the case studies. First however, it will present an overview of the
various movements and discuss some of the general factors which influ-
enced the transition from revolutions to elections.
Since the latter half of the twentieth century, leftist armed movements
from the Americas to Africa have been fighting to overthrow entrenched
elites, corrupt military strongmen, caudillos, dictators, and other authori-
tarian types and to establish more just and egalitarian societies in confor-
mity with the principles of socialism. They promised liberation for the
masses marginalized by poverty, hunger, oppression, racism, and exploita-
tion. However, by the end of the century, the armed route had been aban-
doned by almost all (Colombia being an exception amongst the cases in
this study) and the electoral option embraced. Such a dramatic change in
course demanded, as Carlos Figueroa Ibarra and Salvador Martí i Puig’s
chapter on Guatemala tells us “a drastic reformulation of the ends of the
revolutionary Left. It demanded accepting representative democracy as the
starting point for social transformation, instead of continuing to assume
that revolutionary transformation was the point of departure for social
transformation” (53).
In this volume that examines 10 revolutionary movements, spanning
two continents, that have transformed themselves into formal political par-
ties, we ask several questions: What factors compelled them to opt for elec-
toralism? Is their electoral political program different from that of
established parties with no revolutionary history? In other words, do they
continue to pursue their revolutionary agenda within the electoral context?
Have their political strategies been affected by their revolutionary histories,
primarily the armed struggle? If they are able to continue pursuing revolu-
tionary goals, what has made this possible and what has been the cost? If
not, what are some of the factors that can account for this, and what is the
alternative path chosen?
The nature of the cases being examined are described in the Introductory
chapter by David Close and Gary Prevost They fall into four broad group-
ings and this bears repeating briefly. First, all are revolutionary movements
which embraced socialism, though their specific circumstances may have
dictated modifications of the theory to fit their condition. Second, all were
armed movements, with one exception, the case of Guyana and the People’s
Progressive Party (PPP) that has always embraced the electoral route, à la
Allende, to socialism. Third, some of these movements have won state
power, and they have done so either by insurrection or by negotiated settle-
ments. Amongst those in the former category are Angola’s Popular
Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA, Movimento Popular para
Liberação de Angola), Mozambique’s Front for the Liberation of
Mozambique (FRELIMO, Frente de Libertação de Moçambique), Eritrea’s
People’s Front for Democracy and Justice (PFDJ) and Nicaragua’s
Can the Transition Succeed? ● 229
Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN, Frente Sandinista de

Liberación Nacional), though this last case has some twists and turns and
Close explains. In the latter grouping are revolutionaries who have cap-
tured state power through negotiated agreements and they are South
Africa’s African National Congress (ANC) and Zimbabwe’s African
National Union (ZANU). The Tupamaros of Uruguay and PPP can also
be included within this grouping. While the PPP was never a guerrilla
movement, its electoral success was largely a result of negotiations that
eventually culminated in free and fair elections. The Tupamaros are
included somewhat cautiously here as they recently took office as part of a
coalition, the Frente Amplio (Broad Front). They did not win state power
as a former revolutionary organization, but as a part of a broader alliance
of center-left groups. Finally, there are those revolutionary movements that
were neither defeated militarily, nor successful in capturing state power,
but have laid down their arms through peace talks and are contesting elec-
tions as members of party organizations. Amongst these are the Guatemalan
National Revolutionary Union (URNG, Unidad Revolucionaria Nacional
Guatemalteca) and the Armed Revolutionary Forces of Colombia (FARC,
Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia–Ejército del Pueblo).4
Caveats should be noted with respect to the classification of the FARC in
this final category. In the mid-1980s, as a result of peace talks with the
government, it experimented with electoralism by forming the Patriotic
Union (UP, Unión Patriótica) with other leftist parties and contested elec-
tions. While some degree of electoral success was achieved, this strategy
eventually collapsed in the wake of opposition from the elites and the mil-
itary and from the ongoing cycle of violence. Eventually the FARC aban-
doned the electoral experiment and the UP and has since continued its
unsurgency.
Having summarized the various categories of cases in terms of the meth-
ods by which they achieved power or joined the electoral process, the next
section of this chapter examines the forces, both international and national
that impelled the former guerrillas to lay down their arms.
Explaining the Transition from

Revolutionaries to Politicians
The International Context
The international context has been important for almost all the case studies.
For some it was important in their winning state power, and for others it
was critical in their decision to opt for the electoral option. First, there are
the armed insurgents, such as Angola’s MPLA who were able to endure and
seize state power due to the assistance they received from international
allies. According to Malaquias, a key factor in explaining the survival of the
organization was its ability to maintain relations with revolutionary groups
around the globe, especially the former Soviet Union and Cuba. It was the
moral, military and financial support from these two states that enabled
the MPLA to prevail over internal and external enemies. The same holds
true for Nicaragua’s FSLN which was able to defeat the Somocista dictator-
ship in part because of the moral and material support provided by these
two states. Of course the level of involvement in Nicaragua, in terms of
military commitment for example, was to a much lesser degree than it was
in Angola.
For others, international developments, in particular the seismic shift
that occurred in the global power structure with the demise of the former
USSR, rendered them vulnerable. Having lost a key ally, they were forced
to consider alternative routes to realizing their objectives. This was true, for
example, of the ANC in South Africa that was forced to consider a negoti-
ated settlement with the apartheid regime since military victory did not
seem feasible in light of the changed global configuration. The ANC’s deci-
sion was also influenced by the fact that negotiated settlements had occurred
in neighboring Namibia and Angola, states which had been included in the
ANC’s calculations as part of its strategic strengths.
The same logic that governed the ANC’s shift also impelled others such
as Guatemala’s URNG to explore the nonviolent route and to sign peace
agreements with the dictatorships they had been fighting for decades. In
the URNG’s case, it was given added impetus by international players such
as the United Nations which helped to broker the peace talks and supervise
the implementation of the agreements. Loosely fitting in this category is
also the case of the PPP in Guyana. Basking in capitalism’s victory over
communism, Western leaders were willing to contemplate the return to
power of the Marxist Cheddi Jagan, whom they had ousted in the 1960s.
With democracy (that is electoral democracy) being the currency in vogue,
the U.S. and the international organizations affiliated with it, were now
willing to work to ensure free and fair elections in Guyana.
Domestic Context
Inlfluential too in aiding the transition from revolutions to elections were
many factors within the domestic contexts. Military exhaustion was one of
them. After decades of warfare, many insurgent movements eventually
came to the conclusion that they were at a stalemate. Neither they nor the
counterinsurgency state they were battling could claim victory, despite the
lapse of decades, changing military tactics, new and better weapons, and
the constant examination and reexamination of the theoretical bases for
their struggles. In Guatemala, the URNG and the Guatemalan armed
forces had fought each other to a stand still, with neither side being able to
claim victory after almost 30 years of civil war and over a quarter of a mil-
lion dead. Furthermore, not only were the insurgents themselves exhausted
but so too were the masses who supported them. Following this logic and
speculating about the future of the Colombian situation, Wilson and
Carroll suggest that a peace settlement and an end to the ongoing insur-
gency in that country might come about if both sides fight each other to a
stalemate and to a state of exhaustion.
Economics also played a role in bringing an end to insurgency in many
cases. Domestic economic instability combined with a global economic
downturn seriously aggravated elite insecurity in the various states leading
them to entertain the possibility of negotiating with their nemesis. In the
case of South Africa, the unrest in the townships hindered the apartheid
government’s ability to secure international credits and this was aggravated
by falling world prices for the country’s commodity exports. Compounding
these problems were the international boycotts, which after the United
States and Britain joined, seriously aggravated the already deteriorating
economic conditions and contributed to the De Klerk regime’s willingness
to negotiate apartheid’s end. Similarly, in the Guatemalan case, the global
recession combined with the fact that Guatemala was deemed a pariah state
for its human rights violations convinced the dominant elites that an alter-
native approach was necessary. Negotiations with the guerrillas were tacti-
cal measures to address the economic crisis and restore international
confidence in the Guatemalan state and economy. While neither the mili-
tary nor the guerrillas may have entered the process fully intending to end
the war, enough momentum was achieved that the negotiations eventually
culminated in genuine peace agreements and in the transition to free and
fair elections. Likewise, with Guyana, the country’s dire economic status
compelled the ruling People’s National Congress (PNC) to sign an
International Monetary International Fund’s (IMF) Economic Recovery
Package. This in turn meant that the regime was vulnerable to international
pressures to restore multiparty democracy.
In many cases, civil society forces also played a role in the transition.
Churches, women’s groups, NGOs, and other organizations of the masses,
which before may have been operating clandestinely now openly added to
the momentum towards transition. In Guatemala for example, the Assembly
of Civil Society (ASC), a forum representing virtually all sectors of civil
society (except big business) demanded and gained input into the peace
talks. International NGOs were also influential. The Carter Center was
instrumental in Guyana not only in the negotiations towards democratic
transition but also in overseeing the actual implementation of the process
through its electoral monitoring commissions. Even divisions within civil
society were instrumental. In South Africa, in the wake of the unrest in the
townships, the white population became divided over how to handle this
crisis and this schism helped to open up the space for negotiations
Evaluating the Transition
With the transition from guerrillas to politicians made, the question
becomes how successful has it been? To assess this across the various cases,
a thematic approach has been adopted. Specifically, this chapter evaluates
the various transitions in terms of the following criteria: (1) the degree to
which the party has tried to maintain its original ideological commitment;
(2) the extent to which the party has democratized internally and has
allowed space for opposition (if it controls state power); (3) the strategies of
the party to rejuvenate its leadership; and (4) finally, the factors which help
to explain electoral successes or lack thereof.
Ideological Commitment
Revolutionaries to Power through Insurrection
In her study of postliberation politics in Africa, Sara Dorman observed
that, “[m]any liberation movements have a clear and well articulated ideol-
ogy that has been honed in the bush to attract recruits and civilian support-
ers as well as for presentation to the media and academics.”5 It is also the
ideology that is supposed to guide policies which in turn should lead to the
establishment of a more just and inclusive social order. What becomes of
this well articulated ideology (and in all our cases the reference is to social-
ism) once former guerrillas enter the formal political arena? To simplify, in
general, the evidence shows two possible outcomes and these depend partly
on the means of arrival to power, by the barrel of a gun or through negotia-
tions. The first outcome is that the revolutionary ideology becomes hege-
monic. Unfortunately, what this has translated into in practice is that the
ideology remains strong at the level of rhetoric, but in practice it is used to
advance the interests of the governing elites through statist policies and to
guarantee that there are no pretenders to their throne. The poor and mar-
ginalized in whose name the revolution was fought, remain so, poor and
marginalized.
This outcome, hegemony of the revolutionary ideology, is more likely in

those cases where revolutionaries have militarily defeated the old order
outright and thus have fewer or no compromises to make. The second out-
come, in keeping with what has been the case generally in competitive
party politics, is a modification of the ideological position to woo the larg-
est spectrum of voters and to win the support of the international commu-
nity. This phenomenon is observed primarily amongst those cases where
the transition was a negotiated one. As expected, under these circumstances,
compromises had to be forged to end the conflict and this has placed
restrictions on the degree to which the revolutionary ideology can be pro-
moted or advocated. Overall, however, despite the differences, a common
trait is shared by the cases in both scenarios. While their reasons may vary,
both groups have deviated in theory or practice, or both, from their original
ideology and goals, and many are opting for the social democratic path, or
a variation thereof. Both groups too, practice forms of authoritarianism,
though the degree and tactics may vary.
The former position, the hegemonic one, is particularly evident in the
cases of Eritrea and Angola where the guerrillas secured power through
force of arms. As Dorman suggests, with respect to the African context, in
those cases where insurgencies or armed liberation movements seized state
power, one competing claim was privileged and used to shape postlibera-
tion discourse and development. Referring to Eritrea specifically, she points
out that “there is no space . . . for the articulation of any alternative view-
point whether within or outside the ruling party.” (171) While it is expected
that former revolutionaries would aim to pursue their original objectives
within the changed context, what has become evident in the cases above is
that this is done via exclusionary strategies Furthermore, what has been
disappointing and disillusioning is not only the authoritarian nature of
these new revolutionary regimes, but also the fact that their revolutionary
commitment has been merely at the level of language and rhetoric rather
than in any comprehensive and substantive way. In other words, policies to
benefit those in whose name the revolution was fought have not been a
major thrust of these governments. Rather the beneficiaries have been the
ruling elites and those who surround them.
In the case of Eritrea, having won control of the state militarily, and
having done so after having overwhelmed other revolutionary forces (“born
powerful” as Dorman suggests) such as the Eritrean Liberation Front
(ELF), the ruling EPLF (Eritrean People’s Liberation Front) has had the
political field almost to itself, a status it would like to maintain. To this end
it has resorted to a variety of authoritiarian policies to ensure that it faces
no challengers to its throne. The result is that the revolutionary ideology still
dominates though it is frequently used in the service of entrenching party

dominance and promoting the interests of party elites rather than advanc-
ing the pressing causes of the poor. Similarly, in Angola, as Malaquias
writes, the MPLA was committed to creating a socialist state, to transform-
ing fundamentally Angolan society, not just replacing colonial elites with
homegrown versions. In pursuit of this goal, it adopted both statist and
exclusivist strategies. Central planning, nationalization and strict control of
economic activities were some aspects of its statism. In terms of its “exclu-
sivism,” the MPLA adhered to a strategy whereby a single party sought to
represent a diverse aspirations of a highly fragmented society.” (218) Non-
MPLA members were completely excluded from governance in any way. In
the end, this approach to building socialism succumbed to the forces of
corruption, elite rule, and economic disaster, “creating an important dis-
connect between the governing party . . . and society.” (219) The demise of
the revolution was made more substantive when the MPLA was forced to
sign on to a series of IMF restructuring packages to rescue a diving econ-
omy. Malaquias summarizes the Angolan transition by saying that “the
revolutionary movement may have seized power but the revolution never
materialized.” (226)
While the Eritrean and Angolan examples illustrate guerrillas to politi-
cians transition resulting in adherence, at least at the level of rhetoric, to the
revolutionary ideology, the case of the Nicaragua’s FSLN points to a slight
variation. That is, it reveals that guerrillas who have seized power by arms,
and have done so in part by making tactical compromises with groups not
completely compatible ideologically, will face severe constraints in their
efforts to advance their revolutionary goals.
Having militarily defeated the Somoza dictatorship in 1979, the former
guerrillas eventually entered multiparty elections and were successful until
1990. This loss, however, inaugurated a 16-year political drought for the
FSLN. They were not returned to office until 2006. Like that of the
Eritrean guerrillas, the program of the FSLN at the time of its seizure of
power was revolutionary, as Close discusses (see chapter 2). As he notes, the
FSLN “proposed a radical redistribution of economic, political and social
power.” (21)
Unlike the EPLF, however, while the FSLN was militarily successful, it
did not have the same degree of “freedom” as the former once in power. Its
victory had been made possible by compromises, such as the incorporation
of sectors of the anti-Somoza elite including business leaders and intellec-
tuals, into the campaign against the dictatorship. It was further ideologically
constrained by the inclusion of elements of these groups into the ruling
revolutionary junta immediately after the revolution. “In other words,”
writes Close, “the Sandinistas did not have a complete monopoly on polit-
ical life, even if they were by far the preponderant force.” (23). Evidence of
the Frente’s limited control soon became obvious when segments of the
anti-Somoza elite quickly abandoned the ruling revolutionary junta and
openly campaigned against the revolution in collusion with the United
States.
Not surprisingly, facing enemies from within and without, and con-
fronted with a devastating social and economic crisis brought about pri-
marily by the machinations of its enemies, the FSLN was forced to temper
its radicalism. It did so by endorsing political pluralism and a mixed eco-
nomic program. Although this toleration of a more pluralistic approach
may have rendered the FSLN more democratic, it also led to its removal
from office for close to two decades. In the interim, major reversals in the
revolutionary program were implemented by successor regimes.
One fate the FSLN did share with its African counterparts, such as the
guerrillas in Eritrea and Angola who came to power by insurrection, was
that it too was tainted by corruption and scandals. Seemingly frustrated by
his exclusion from power and driven by political ambition, the party’s
perennial leader, Daniel Ortega, entered into an extraordinary pact with
President Arnoldo Alemán of the ruling Liberal Party ( the party of
Somoza). In essence, the agreement subverted the democratic processes in
the country and guaranteed the two men and their parties extensive control
over the political system while concomitantly marginalizing other groups.
Despite this anti-democratic and glaring power-grab, the FSLN still por-
trays itself as a revolutionary party.
Now that the party is back in power and facing an international
environment emphasizing free trade and a national economy heavily
directed by IMF dictated structural adjustment measures, it is interesting
to speculate whether the FSLN will be able to maintain its leftist rhetoric.
At the moment the evidence is mixed. During the recent electoral cam-
paign the party did define for itself a clearly leftist position (though it
would be difficult to classify it as revolutionary). It was the only party to
have opposed the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) with
the United States; poverty alleviation is high on its agenda; and Ortega has
forged strong links with regional leftist leaders such as Venezuela’s Hugo
Chávez and Bolivia’s Evo Morales. A the same time, like Angola’s MPLA,
while the FSLN may be in control of state power, it is presiding over an
economy that is weak and under the control of the international financial
institutions. This goes a long way in explaining why Ortega has been cau-
tious in endorsing the more radical criticisms of U.S. policy emanating
from his leftist partners.
Revolutionaries to Power through Negotiations

Other revolutionaries, especially those who became politicians through
negotiated settlements are even more constrained in terms of their adher-
ence to a revolutionary ideology. Negotiated transitions involve compro-
mises. Failure to accommodate negotiating partners can result in major
economic instability and even violence. The case of the ANC offers insights
into the nature of such transitions when it comes to ideological
commitments.
Unlike its counterpart in Mozambique which also came to power
through negotiations with settler rule, the ANC did not seek to eliminate
its opponents. Rather it tried to accommodate them (for example by main-
taining large segments of the pre-existing bureaucracy). This strategy
accounts in part for the party having strayed some distance from the revo-
lutionary ideology. Its adoption of a market oriented economic program
and its demobilization of civil society organizations which have been a large
part of the party’s support base gives some indication of this ideological
departure. As a result, despite the transition to majority rule, white South
Africans still dominate the economy. This limits the ANC’s flexibility in
terms of the economic policies it can implement to address the concerns of
the poor. According to Prevost, while the government has devoted signifi-
cant resources to the townships, its critics charge that the its priority has
been not to address the needs of the impoverished, but to create a black
middle. He further went on to argue that what the ANC has done ideolog-
ically since 1990 is to move to the political space described as the “Third
Way.” This is a more conservative stance than the project of social democ-
racy. However, like revolutionaries elsewhere, despite this shift to the right,
the party continues to use the rhetoric of socialism.
In Manning’s chapter on Mozambique we see an example of a revolu-
tionary movement, FRELIMO, that cames to power through a negotiated
settlement but tried to impose one dominant ideology, through force if
necessary, and to pursue development through statist policies. This experi-
ment however failed and the party was forced to modify its ideological
position, though it still tried to ensure its dominance.
Upon assuming power in 1975, FRELIMO (which officially established
itself as a Marxist-Leninist party in 1977) faced significant challenges, both
from settler organizations as well as from parties led by former ex-FRE-
LIMO members who had been expelled from the party. FRELIMO’s
approach to dealing with these was to “behead” its opposition by eliminat-
ing those who challenged it. As Manning explains “The ideals of national
unity, social justice and development that were forged during the indepen-
dence struggle left no room for the consideration of opinions and experiences
that diverged from them.” (189) Despite this, she adds, there was still strong
public support for FRELIMO. However, the party confused enthusiasm for
it and for independence with support for its revolutionary agenda. By 1983,
the limitations of its Marxist-Leninist strategies were coming to the fore.
The economy was in a state of collapse from the centralization policies and
FRELIMO’s support base had dramatically narrowed. It was in this context
that the party began its ideological shift to the right.
It signed on to IMF structural adjustment packages and began to open
political spaces. At its Fifth Congress in July 1989, it opened up member-
ship to religious leaders, business owners, and others who had been excluded
during the Marxist-Leninist era. By 1990, it had accepted multiparty elec-
tions (though FRELIMO continued to dominate as discussed below).
Referring to the new orientation, and to the reality versus the rhetoric, one
FRELIMO official explained to Manning that for the party claim adher-
ence to a Marxist ideology is to deceive militants because it is not actually
following a revolutionary program in practice.
In the Guyanese case, a similar shift occurred. Faced with an economy
ranked as one of the poorest in the hemisphere, and burdened by a massive
debt crisis, the PPP openly admitted its ideological shift to the right. The
PPP leader, an avowed Marxist, announced that the conditions in Guyana
dictated that the party move to a “national democratic project” which
would involve political and ideological pluralism and a mixed economy.
The national democratic state, [according to the party program], would be
an inclusive one representing all classes and groups. Thus, unlike other
cases, the PPP seems to have avoided the disconnect between rhetoric and
reality by explicitly shifting its project to the right to accommodate the
national conditions. Perhaps, the party was able to do this because it does
not really face any other serious electoral challengers on the left (though
there are leftist parties they are very weak) which might be able to take
advantage of its ideologicial detour and score electoral gains.
Revolutionaries in Elections but Not in Power

While the above discussion summarizes the cases of revolutionaries in
power, what is the situation, in terms of commitment to socialism amongst
those guerrilla organizations that are contesting elections but are not in
control of the state.? From our examples, they too believe that they must
broaden their appeal by moderating their ideological commitments. The
Uruguayan Tupamaros and their political party the Movimiento de
Participación Popular (MPP) made significant electoral gains in the 2004
elections, but did so by becoming part of the ruling coalition, the Frente
Amplio (they were also part of it in the 1970s for a period) which includes
social democrats, democratic socialists, socialists and communist. However,

being in the coalition was only made possible after the guerrillas modified
their ideological platform, choosing not socialism, but social democracy.
According to Weinstein, the Tupamaros are actually perceived as being less
extreme amongst the coalition members and not part of los grupos radicales.
For the 2004 elections, they agreed to a joint parliamentary electoral list
with the small but respected Nuevo Espacio party and this, says Weinstein,
not only displayed their coalition building skills but also contributed to the
MPP’s image as a movement which is more moderate than radical. As part
of the Frente in the 2004 contest, the Tupamaros made more electoral
advances than they had in previous electoral contests. So significant were
their gains they garnered two ministerial positions (labor and agriculture)
as alliance partners.
In Guatemala too, where the transition was through negotiations, there
has been a rethinking of the ideological agenda by the URNG after it
became a political party. Referring to the party’s program, Figueroa and
Martí note that “the terms socialism, communism, and proletariat all dis-
appeared, as did revolution, agrarian reform, and imperialism. The docu-
ment was actually surprisingly moderate.” (53) However, the party’s
disastrous showing at the polls has led to an ideological reformulation that
indicates that the struggle will be for social democracy. As the authors note:
“There is . . . a broad base of ideological and programmatic agreement
within Guatemala’s Left today. It insists that democracy cannot be had
without social justice, that the market must regulated and limited in its
reach, and that a strong state is necessary to assure that the public interest
prevails over the private.” (60)
Democratic Practices Within and Without

While revolutions are fought for greater democracy, what has been observed
from amongst these cases is that most of the revolutionaries who gained
power, be it by insurrection or negotiation, tend towards one-party domi-
nance. This phenomenon prevails both in situations where there is an
explicit one-party structure, as in Eritrea and Angola, and as in multiparty
contexts. One explanation is that the ruling party, in control of state power,
adopts explicit strategies to ensure its dominance. These could be exclu-
sionary tactics, including force and the delegitimization of opponents, even
those also claiming a revolutionary mantle or they could be inclusionary
methods such as absorption of potential challengers into the governing
party. In addition, the ethnic composition of the society, as in South Africa
and Guyana, can also play a role in promoting one party dominace. Voting
in these societies is still heavily along racial lines and where one racial group
dominates statistically, so will the party it supports. Finally, the weakness
of opposition parties to mount an effective challenge must also be consid-
ered as a factor.
In one-party states suc as Eritrea, this dominance has been exercised
through a variety of methods: tolerance for only one dominant ideology,
exclusion of opponents by force, and even absorption of potential challeng-
ers to limit the need for compromises. Ideologically, using the language of
developmentalism,the governing EPLF has made the argument that the
state should have the primary role in advancing economic growth and as
such, all other players, be they individuals or organizations must submit to
its authority. Not only has this translated into the EPLF’s monopolization
of the state and the economy through party dominated enterprises, but it
has also meant that all challengers to the EPLF’s position, be they within or
outside the party are dealt with harshly. In terms of inclusionary tactics, the
EPLF has also been able to absorb its opponents thus limiting threats to its
supremacy. For example, during the liberation struggles, it succeeded in
defeating the other liberationist organization, the ELF, and even brought
some of the ELF’s members in to the party.
Similarly, in Zimbabwe, both exclusionary and inclusionary tactics were
also used to maintain one-party dominance. Both before and after inde-
pendence, ZANU did consider completely restricting opposition groups
but never officially carried though with this though in essence, the country
is a one-party dominated state. To maintain its control, especially over the
other guerrilla organization, the Zimbabwe African People’s Union
(ZAPU), ZANU resorted to violence against ZAPU supporters to exclude
them from the scene. The language of liberation is also used to ensure the
exclusion and delegitimization of opponents, even those with a revolutionary
history. ZANU portrays itself as the party of the revolution. When chal-
lenged by opposition groups not part of the coalition, “the exclusionary
language of liberation reemerges . . . claims are repeatedly made that
Zimbabwe cannot be governed by a party that is not rooted in the struggle.”6
Its use of inclusionary tactics was evident when it eventually absorbed
ZAPU and renamed itself ZANU(PF) to reflect this.
In Angola, an explicitly one-party state, this dominance is ensured
through the use of force against opponents (as seen in the aftermath of the
coup attempt). It is also guaranteed through exclusivist strategies. For
example, the centrally directed policies discussed earlier ensured that only
MPLA members were dominant throughout the state apparatus and this
safeguarded their control over state resources which in turn is used to rein-
force the MPLA’s control.
In Mozambique there is a variation on the one-party dominance theme.

There, and unusually so, the two dominant revolutionary movements have
also emerged as the two dominant political forces in the country. As
Manning observes, despite many electoral contests, and despite the fact
that “more than a dozen parties have competed in all three general elections
(1994, 1999, and 2004), in practice Mozambique remains a two-party
system” (183) This was not always so she points out:
FRELIMO transitioned initially into an authoritarian political environ-

ment where it immediately became the ruling party. Its major difficul-
ties during this period stemmed from the party’s extremely ambitious
project to transform Mozambican society on a political, economic, and
even cultural level. Internal challenges to this project, whether from
within the party or from society at large were dealt with through a com-
bination of ideological discourse and persuasion and blunt force. These
strategies proved inadequate, however, particularly in the face of an
increasingly effective armed insurgency led by RENAMO. By 1990,
FRELIMO had made the decision to shift to a formally democratic,
multiparty political system. (205)
While the challenges posed by RENAMO have guaranteed a high degree

of pluralism in Mozambique, the reality is that FRELIMO is still the dom-
inant of the two parties, and the electoral results of 2004 show that the
former’s fortunes are on the wane, at least electorally. Part of the explana-
tion for the position of the two parties is rooted in their respective histories.
In comparing the two, Manning tells us that FRELIMO’s history allowed
it to develop stronger decision making structures, better mechanisms for
managing internal dissension, and despite having had such iconic leaders
such as Samora Machel, it does not suffer from personalism. “RENAMO,
on the other hand, did not have the luxury of adjusting first to civilian life,
and then to democratic politics. And at the time of its transition from
armed opposition group to political party, its internal organizational struc-
tures were extremely underdeveloped in comparison to FRELIMO’s.
RENAMO was a personalized, highly centralized party run by a handful
of leaders (193).
A related explanation is the length of time in which the ruling party,
(FRELIMO) has been in charge of the economy as this has enabled it to
entrench its position. Despite extensive privatization, “ access to the state
remains an important source of socioeconomic advancement. This increases
the stakes of political competition and helps hold the ruling party together,
as the opportunity costs of separating oneself from the party are consider-
able. It also helps keep fledgling parties comparatively resource-poor.”
(193). This undoubtedly plays into RENAMO’s inability to unseat FRELIMO,

though its staying power has helped to ensure the two-party-dominant
structure.
Elsewhere, as in Guyana and South Africa, ethnicity has played a role in
ensuring one-party dominance as voting patterns in these societies are
influenced significantly by race. Guyana like South Africa, is a racially
divided country and the governing PPP is supported by the majority race.
While all the parties in the system speak of plurality and the significance of
having a multiracial base, the two dominant parties, the PPP and the PNC
(the opposition), still appeal to their racial constituencies during the elec-
toral contests. As long as elections are free and, and as long as race is a factor
in voting, the PPP is likely to dominate.
As well, in societies such as South Africa and Guyana, one-party domi-
nance has partly resulted from the lack of effective opposition. In the case
of South Africa, it was suggested by Gumede that the opposition parties do
not offer a more attractive alternative to the ANC and hence the latter can
hardly be held responsible for its continued electoral success.7 Similarly, the
various opposition parties in Guyana have been unable to mount an
effective challenge to the PPP’s dominance. Thus far, they have only been
able to garner one or two seats at most in the country’s legislature.
Centralization of Leadership
Linked to the issue of one-party dominance is that of hierarchical leader-
ship, a pervasive problem amongst for revolutionaries who have made the
transition to politicians. All the armed insurrectionary movements fol-
lowed the classic strategies of the battlefield, strict discipline, rigid hierar-
chy in the command structure and unbending loyalty from amongst the
combatants. For Figueroa Ibarra and Martí i Puig, this rigidity and
hierarchy become more entrenched when “crossing Leninism with a politi-
co-military command structure.” (60) However, while this form of leader-
ship may have functioned well on the battle field, it has generated
undemocratic behavior in the transition to electoral politics. As Dorman
observes, “when confronted with conditions of political crisis and vulnera-
bility, leaders’ concerns with control take precedence over either libera-
tion or democracy, leading to increasing authoritarian or exclusivist
politics.”8
In every example that is presented here, revolutionary leadership in the
electoral arena have been charged with varying degrees of centralization,
whether the movement is in power or out (though in Mozambique, as
Manning explains, measures were taken eventually by FRELIMO to
strengthen democratic decisionmaking within the party). It is exercised

through an intolerance of dissension as is seen in the cases of Angola,
Eritrea, Zimbabwe, and elsewhere. It can also be done through constitu-
tions which centralize power in the hands of the leader. In Guyana, a cen-
tralized constitution, much criticized by Jagan when he was in opposition,
was maintained by him when the PPP came to power (though it was abol-
ished a few years after his death). The pact signed by Ortega and Alemán in
Nicaragua also falls into this category. Commenting on Ortega’s leader-
ship, Ernesto Cardenal, a revolutionary priest and former minister under
Ortega in the revolutionary FSLN government of the 1980s, stated: “There
is only one Sandinismo, the Sandinismo that has remained honest and
revolutionary. The other is of corrupt millionaires and thieves who have
betrayed the revolution, betrayed themselves, and betrayed the people of
Nicaragua.”9 Centralization is also maintained through party control of
the state institutions as Dorman, Manning and Malaquias explain in their
respective chapters.
Even if centralization is not necessarily a deliberate strategy, it still rep-
resents a challenge for revolutionary movements. The problem is that many
of these movements have been founded, or led for most of their existence,
by leaders known for their inspirational or charismatic personalities. The
demise of such leaders renders the movement vulnerable. Take for example,
Uruguay’s Tupamaros. Weinstein argues that while the group has made
significant electoral gains in the 2004 elections, becoming part of the rul-
ing coalition, the Frente Amplio, its weakness lies in the fact that the party
is identified in the minds of voters with its leader, José Mujica. Mujica was
a founding member of the guerrilla organization and a man known for his
charisma and pragmatism. Currently the minister of agriculture, he is not
in good health and not likely to be able to lead the MPP in the 2009
elections. This raises questions as to the future of the organization.
This is not unlike the situation which prevails in Guyana where the PPP
is still strongly identified with its founder and leader, the late Cheddi Jagan,
and in whose name the party still seeks to justify its actions and policies as
a means of legitimizing them.
One of the many challenges with centralization of leadership, aside from
its undemocratic nature, is that of recruitment of new leaders and rejuvena-
tion of the party. In the case of Guyana, as with South Africa, the PPP and
the ANC are likely not to face serious competitors in the short term due to
ethnic voting. However, in such cases, electoral victory is not necessarily a
reflection of internal party stability or of its democratic nature. If internal
democracy is lacking, this will likely lead to internal dissension and weak-
ening of the organization (whether it is in power or not). This is what iPuig
and Ibarra have argued has been a major factor in the splintering and
weakening of the URNG in Guatemala.
Revolutionaries and the Lack of Electoral Success

While some movements have experienced success in the “guerrillas-to-
politicians” transition in that they are either in control of state power or are
part of the opposition, there are others which have abandoned the electoral
experiment and are once more fighting an insurgency. The FARC is an
excellent example of this. In their chapter, Wilson and Carroll argue that
while the FARC had participated in the electoral process in the 1980s after
a cease-fire agreement with the government, the mistrust between the mil-
itary and the elites on the one hand, and the guerrillas on the other destroyed
the experiment.
Following the the cease-fire agreement, the FARC had established its
own political organization the Unión Patriótica (UP, Patriotic Union) and
made significant electoral gains at various levels (municipal, mayoral, and
provincial). However, UP members also faced state brutality as many party
members were assassinated, leading to brutal retaliations by the FARC.
This process of retaliation and counter retaliation decimated the revolu-
tionary party. With the experiment a failure, FARC guerrillas renewed
their insurgency operations and with the current Uribe government’s crack-
down on the Left through its strategy of “democratic security,” the authors
suggest that the only way out of the FARC-government warfare is either
through a negotiated settlement or until both sides have been militarily
exhausted and have lost the support of their base due to the civilian
death tolls.
The FARC example perhaps offers us some insights as to why Guatemala’s
URNG has been languishing in the wings, if not fading away completely,
when it comes to electoral gains. While the Peace Accords between the
military and the guerrillas brought about an end to the war, there still exists
in the country a high level of mistrust and hostility between these two group-
ings and their supporters, reminiscent of the FARC/UP electoral experi-
ment. In Guatemala the military is still a dominant force as exemplified by
the fact that former that General Rios Montt, responsible some of the coun-
try’s greatest atrocities, ran for the presidency. He is still popular among the
peasants whom he had organized as Civil Defense Patrols (PACS, Patrullas
de Autodefensa Civil), the forces that helped to carry out the massacres.
Furthermore, it has been suggested with reference to El Salvador, but it
certainly applies to Guatemala as well, that one of the primary reasons for
the lack of electoral success of the revolutionaries is that the elites have been
very successful in using fear to undermine support for them, raising the
specter that a victory by the former guerrillas will return the country to the
instability of the war years.10 In this campaign, the media which they con-
trol has been a powerful instrument transmitting this message.
Conclusion
While the case studies in this volume do not cover the entire array of
possibilities of revolutionaries to politicians, they do point to some recurring
themes amongst these transitions that have contributed to their generally
disappointing attempts at pursuing a revolutionary and democratic agenda
in an electoral context. Some of the issues revolve around the mode of
arrival to power, be it by force of arms or negotiated settlements, some
relate to the nature of armed struggle, others are rooted in the constraints
of the international system and/or the ongoing threats from the old order,
and still others deal with the level of development within the respective
national contexts. Unfortunately, one consistent theme seems to be that
while revolutionaries may speak the language of democracy, their practices
do not always mirror this. Many have become as corrupt as the old orders
they have overthrown as they seek to maintain their grasp on power and
others have been reluctant or unable to adjust hierarchical battlefield
strategies of leadership to governance in the political arena. The majority,
however, have been forced or pushed into adopting variations of the free
market development strategies, an approach fundamentally antithetical to
the liberationist goals for which they struggled.
What is the alternative then? It has been suggested that perhaps revolu-
tionaries facing a global context governed by neoliberalism should seek to
defend social democracy rather than socialism. As we have seen from the
examples, some have been attempting to do just that. However, a social
democratic project will also lead to disappointing results if it is accompa-
nied by the same challenges as the socialist one, that is excessive centraliza-
tion of power, intolerance, exclusion, corruption, mismanagement and elite
dominance. What then? Perhaps the Chavista model in Venezuela may
offer a modified blue print that may lend guidance to revolutionaries
transitioning to politicians.
Notes
1. Jorge Martin and William Sanabria, “Venezuela’s Presidential Recall
Referendum: Mass Wave of Enthusiasm Must be Used to Complete the
Revolution,” In Defense of Marxism, July 4, 2004, <http://www.marxist.com/
venezuela-recall-referendum040704-4.htm> (February 2007).
2. Daniel Hellinger, “When ‘No’ Means ‘Yes’ to Revolution: Electoral Politics in

Bolivarian Venezuela,” Latin American Perspectives 32, 3, Issue 142 (May
2005), p. 9.
3. C. Leys and J. Saul, “Liberation Without Democracy? The SWAPO Crisis of
1976” Journal of Southern African Studies 20 (1994), p. 146.
4. While not a formal case study in this volume, El Salvador’s Farabundo Marti
National Liberation Front (FMLN) also falls in to this category.
5. Sara Rich Dorman, “Post-liberation Politics in Africa: Examining the Political
Legacy of Struggle,” Third World Quarterly 27, 6 (2006), p. 1085.
6. Dorman, “Post-Liberation Politics,” p. 1092.
7. W. M. Gumede, Thabo Mbeki and the Battle for the Soul of the ANC (Cape
Town, South Africa: Zebra Press, 2005), p. 234
8. Dorman, “Post-Liberation Politics,” p. 1086.
9. Quoted in Tim Rogers, ““In Nicaragua, Old US Foe Rises Again,” The Christ
ian Science Monitor, July 7, 2006, <http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0707/
p07s02-woam.html> (February 27, 2007).
10. Edelberto Torres Rivas, “Comentario: El Salvador YSUCA-El Cuarto Triunfo
de ARENA,” Commentary posted on the listserv of the Latin American
Studies Association, March 29, 2004.
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Notes on the Contributors
Leah A. Carroll is program coordinator of the Haas Scholars Program at

University of California, Berkeley and secretary of the Latin American
Studies Association’s Colombia Section. Her dissertation (forthcoming as a
book by University of Notre Dame Press) addresses the effects of
democratization in several of Colombia’s rural war zones that had both
active guerrilla fronts and leftist electoral majorities.
David Close is professor of political science at the Memorial University of
Newfoundland. In addition to several journal articles, he has also pub-
lished three books on Nicaragua, his two most recent being Undoing
Democracy: The Politics of Electoral Caudillismo, 2004 (with Kalowatie
Deonandan) and Nicaragua: The Chamorro Years, 1999.
Kalowatie Deonandan is an associate professor in the Department of
Political Studies at the University of Saskatchewan. She has published on
Guyana, Nicaragua, and Cuba. Aside from several journal articles and
book chapters, her most recent work is a coedited volume (with David
Close), Undoing Democracy: The Politics of Electoral Caudillismo, 2004.
Sara Rich Dorman is a lecturer in the School of Social and Political Studies
at the University of Edinburgh. She researches on African politics, focusing
on postliberation states: Zimbabwe and Eritrea. Her publications include
several book chapters as well as articles in journals among others:
Commonwealth and Comparative Politics: Journal of Southern African
Studies, Third World Quarterly and African Affairs. She is also co-editor of
the aforementioned African Affairs.
Carlos Figueroa Ibarra is a professor of sociology at the Instituto de Ciencias
Sociales y Humanidades, Universidad Autónoma de Puebla, México. He
has published extensively on Guatemala, and amongst his works are the
following books: El proletariado rural en el agro Guatemalteco, 1980;
El recurso del Miedo: Ensayo sobre Estado y terror en Guatemala, 1991; Los que
264 ● Notes on the Contributors
siempre estarán en ninguna parte: La desaparición forzada en Guatemala,

1960–1996, 1999; Paz Tejada Militar y Revolucionario, 2001, second
edition 2004; and La transformación de la izquierda revolucionaria en
Centroamérica, 2006 (coedited with Salvador Martí í Puig).
Assis Malaquias is an associate professor of government at St. Lawrence
University in Canton, New York. He has published extensively on issues
pertaining to security and governance in Africa. His works have appeared
in the following: Organization for Social Science Research in Eastern and
Southern Africa Bulletin, Journal of International Affairs, Review of African
Political Economy and O Mundo em Portugues.
Carrie Manning is an associate professor in the Department of Political
Science at Georgia State University in Atlanta. She is the author of more
than a dozen articles on post-conflict democratization and state-building
in Africa and in the Balkans and the book The Politics of Peace in
Mozambique, 2002. Her work has appeared among others in the following:
Comparative Politics, Journal of Democracy, Studies in Comparative
International Development and Democratization.
Salvador Martí i Puig is a professor in the Departamento de Ciencia
Politica y Derecho Publico of the Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona.
Amongst his extensive publications are several books including: La trans-
formación de la izquierda revolucionaria en Centroamérica, 2006 (with
Carlos Figueroa); The Origins of the Peasant-Contra in Nicaragua,
1979–1987, 2001; Tiranías, rebeliones y democracia: Itinerarios políticos com-
parados en Centroamérica, 2004; América Central, las democracias inciertas,
1998; and Nicaragua 1977–1996, La revolución enredada, 1997.
Gary Prevost is a professor in the Department of Political Science at Saint
John’s University and the College of Saint Benedict in Minnesota, and has
written on both the FSLN (Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional) and
the ANC (African National Congress). His books include: Politics in Latin
America-The Power Game, 2005–2006 (with Harry Vanden); Neoliberalism
and Neo panamericanism: The View from Latin America, 2002 (with Carlos
Oliva Campos); The Undermining of the Sandinista Revolution, 1997 (with
Harry Vanden); The 1990 Elections in Nicaragua and their Aftermath, 1992
(with Vanessa Castro); and Politics and Change in Spain, 1985 (with Thomas
D. Lancaster).
Martin Weinstein is professor of political science at the William Paterson
University of New Jersey. He is the author of over three dozen articles and
chapters on Uruguayan politics as well as two books, Uruguay: Democracy
Notes on the Contributors ● 265
at the Crossroads, 1988 and The Politics of Failure, 1975. He is the recipient
of two Fulbright awards related to his research and teaching in Uruguay.
Suzanne Wilson is associate professor of sociology at the Gustavus Adolphus
College of Minnesota. She has published articles examining the political
economy of the cocaine trade and hate crimes against street children in
Colombia. Her research focuses on theorizing right-wing violence in
Colombia and elsewhere in Latin America.
Index
Afewerki, Issais, 230, 234 Armed Revolutionary Forces of

African National Congress (ANC), 4, Columbia. See Fuerzas Armadas
8, 17, 149, 188, 189, 191, 193, 195, Revolucionarias de Colombia
197, 198, 200, 202, 203, 204, (FARC)
206, 207, 208, 209, 210, 211, 212, Arzú, Álvaro, 80
214, 215, 216, 217, 219, 220, 222, Asturias, Rodrigo, 71, 84, 85, 87
223, 224, 226, 233, 291, 306, AUC. See Autodefensas Unidas de
308, 317, 324, 326, 331, 340, 354, Colombia (AUC)
360 Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia
Afro-Guyanese, 152, 153, 154, 157, (AUC), 125, 130
160, 177, 179
Alemán, Arnoldo, 21, 23, 37, 39, 41, Barama, 168
45, 47, 48, 49, 58, 60, 316, 326 Barco, Virgilio, 113
Arnoldistas, 42 Batista, Fulgencio, 1, 203
Alianza Democrática M-19 (AD M-19), Batlle, Jorge, 98
111, 118, 119, 120, 122, 124, 126, Beijing Consensus, 214, 224
128, 132, 133, 134, 135, 139, 140, Betancur, Belisario, 112, 113, 115, 116,
142, 144, 334 124, 129, 137, 139, 347
Alianza Liberal Nicaragüense (ALN), Black Economic Empowerment (BEE),
23, 43, 44, 47, 49, 62 213
Alianza Nueva Nacíon (ANN), 71, 82, Blair, Tony, 205, 206
84, 85, 86 Blanco Party (Partido Nacional), 106
Alliance for a New Nation. See Alianza Bolaños, Enrique, 38, 39, 60
Nueva Nacíon (ANN) Bordaberry, Juan Maria, 108
Alliance for Change (AFC), 171, 172, British Labor Party (BLP), 189
174 Burnham, Linden Sampson Forbes,
Alternate Way Movement, 126, See 151, 154, 155, 156, 157, 160, 168,
Movimiento Vía Alterna 172, 174, 176, 182, 184, 354
Alves, Nito, 296
Andrés Pastrana, 125, 126, 129 CACIF. See Comité Coordinador de
Anti-privatization Movement, 217 Cámaras del Agro, Comercio,
April 19th Movement. See Movimiento Industria y Finanzas (CACIF)
19 de Abril (M-19) Calland, Richard, 210, 224, 334
268 ● Index
Camilist Union-National Liberation 207, 208, 210, 212, 213, 214, 216,
Army 217, 219, 220, 222, 223, 224, 336
See Unión Camilista-Ejército de Conservative Party (CP), 193, 214
Liberación Nacional Constitutionalist Liberal Party. See
(UC-ELN), 118 Partido Liberal Constitucionalista
Carter Center, 156, 168, 182, 311, 334 (PLC)
Castro, Fidel, 1, 19, 59, 159, 219, 221, Coordinadora Democrática, 32
334, 344, 360 Corriente de Renovación Socialista
centralization, 151, 174, 176, 285, 296, (CRS), 118, 122, 127, 128, 134,
319, 324, 326, 330 139, 141, 144
Chamorro, Violeta, 34, 35, 36, 41, 59, corruption, 39, 79, 84, 100, 151, 164,
60, 62, 64, 358 171, 179, 243, 265, 266, 296, 297,
charisma, 159, 174, 176, 182, 326, 333, 298, 314, 330
342 COSATU. See Congress of the South
Chávez, Hugo, 48, 49, 50, 57, 62, 64, African Trade Unions (COSATU)
97, 316 Council of State (Nicaragua), 30, 31,
China, 288 32
Chipenda, Daniel, 287 CRS. See Corriente de Renovación
churches, 75, 235, 238, 241, 242, 310 Socialista (CRS)
Civil Defence Patrols. See Patrullas de Cruz, Arturo, 32
Autodefensa Civil (PACs) Cuba, 1, 19, 103, 203, 219, 220, 234,
civilians, 112, 113, 115, 131, 229 246, 290, 291, 294, 308, 339, 341,
Clinton, Bill, 206 347, 358
cold war, 3, 9, 98, 132, 147, 156, 158, Cuito Cuanavale, 220
162, 164, 181, 204, 227, 228, 229,
285, 288, 350 da Cruz, Viriato, 287
Colom, Álvaro, 82, 85 Davos Economic Summit, 206
Colorado Party, 106 Davos Economic Summit 2005, 206
Combat Party, 51 DeKlerk, F.W., 193, 195
Comité Coordinador de Cámaras del Demerara Timbers, 168
Agro, Comercio, Industria y democracy, 10, 12, 19, 28, 66, 76, 77,
Finanzas (CACIF), 80 78, 86, 87, 97, 98, 102, 103, 104,
Comité de Unidad Campesina (CUC), 136, 148, 149, 156, 157, 160, 162,
67, 74 171, 174, 206, 228, 232, 233, 235,
Communist Party of Angola. See 253, 258, 265, 280, 305, 308, 310,
Partido Comunista de Angola 321, 324, 327, 330
(PCA) anti-democratic, 316
Communist Party of Colombia. See democratization, 35, 75, 77, 136,
Partido Comunista de Colombia 171, 202, 253, 358, 359
(PCC) Democratic Alliance (DA), 111, 203
Concerned Citizens Group, 217 Democratic Party (DP), 4, 17, 58, 103,
Congress of the South African Students 193, 208
(COSAS), 191 Democratic Pole. See Polo Democrático
Congress of the South African Trade (PD)
Unions (COSATU), 191, 206, Development Research Centers, 202
Index ● 269
Dhlakama, Afonso, 258, 268, 270, Esperanza, Paz y Libertad (EPL), 112,
279, 283 113, 118, 120, 124, 127, 128, 132,
dos Santos, José Eduardo, 299, 301 134, 140, 142, 144
Durban, 195, 217, 222
Faku, Nceba, 216, 217
East Germany, 197 FAR. See Fuerzas Armadas Rebeldes
Economic Recovery Programme (ERP), (FAR)
164, 166 Farabundo Martí National Liberation
Edgar Ibarra Guerrilla Front. See Frente Front (FMLN), 4, 13, 14, 77, 87,
Guerrillero Edgar Ibarra (FGEI) 88, 90, 94, 149, 331
Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN), FARC. See Fuerzas Armadas
111, 112, 113, 116, 118, 124, 126, Revolucionarias de Colombia
128, 132, 134, 144 (FARC)
Ejército Guerrillero de los Pobres Fraser-Moleketi, Geraldine, 215
(EGP), 66, 67, 70, 71, 73, 74, 80, free trade, 15, 107, 168, 316
91, 93 Freedom Charter, 195, 208, 219
Ejército Popular de Liberación (EPL), FRELIMO. See Frente de Libertação de
112, 113, 118, 120, 124, 127, 128, Moçambique (FRELIMO)
132, 134, 140, 142, 144 Frente Amplio, 3, 96, 97, 101, 103,
El Salvador, 4, 13, 20, 55, 65, 67, 72, 104, 105, 106, 107, 306, 320, 326
77, 82, 88, 90, 149, 198, 331, 354 Frente de Libertação de Moçambique
elections, 2, 3, 4, 8, 9, 13, 15, 16, 19, (FRELIMO), 4, 7, 13, 14, 17, 19,
21, 23, 24, 25, 26, 28, 30, 32, 34, 55, 151, 252, 253, 254, 255, 256,
38, 39, 41, 43, 45, 49, 51, 53, 59, 257, 258, 260, 261, 262, 263, 264,
60, 65, 73, 78, 79, 80, 82, 84, 85, 265, 266, 267, 268, 272, 273, 274,
86, 91, 94, 96, 97, 101, 102, 103, 275, 276, 278, 279, 280, 282,
104, 105, 106, 107, 110, 111, 112, 284, 305, 318, 319, 323, 324, 325,
113, 115, 116, 119, 120, 123, 125, 339, 342
126, 127, 128, 131, 132, 137, 138, Frente Democrático Nueva Guatemala
139, 140, 144, 145, 146, 151, 154, (FDNG), 79, 80, 82, 83, 84, 85
156, 157, 158, 159, 160, 171, 172, Frente Guerrillero Edgar Ibarra
176, 177, 179, 188, 193, 195, 198, (FGEI), 66
200, 214, 215, 216, 219, 232, 235, Frente Nacional de Libertação de
238, 249, 252, 254, 255, 257, 258, Angola (FNLA), 287, 288, 290,
261, 266, 268, 269, 270, 272, 291, 293
273, 276, 277, 280, 284, 295, 301, Frente Sandinista de Liberación
302, 305, 306, 308, 310, 314, 319, Nacional (FSLN), 2, 4, 8, 13, 14,
321, 323, 324, 326 16, 21, 22, 23, 24, 26, 27, 28, 29,
Electoral Sandinismo, 32 30, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39,
Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF), 230, 40, 41, 42, 43, 45, 47, 48, 49, 50,
313, 322 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59,
Eritrean People’s Liberation Front 60, 62, 88, 149, 157, 198, 203,
(EPLF), 17, 230, 236, 238, 239, 220, 305, 308, 314, 316, 326,
244, 313, 314, 322, 350 360
Erwin, Alec, 215 Frente Social y Politico (FSP), 126
270 ● Index
Front for the Liberation of GUYSUCO. See Guyana Sugar

Mozambique. See Frente de Corporation (GUYSUCO)
Libertação de Moçambique Guzmán, Luis Humberto, 36
(FRELIMO)
Front National pour la Libération du Heavily Indebted Poor Country
Congo (FNLC), 292 Initiative (HIPC), 166
FSLN. See Sandinista National Hinds, Samuel, 172, 174, 176, 177,
Liberation Front 186, 342
FSP. See Frente Social y Politico (FSP) HIPC. See Heavily Indebted Poor
Fuerzas Armadas Rebeldes (FAR), 66, Country Initiative (HIPC)
67, 70, 71, 73, 74, 90, 91, 93 HIV/AIDS, 217, 219
Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Hope, Peace and Liberty. See
Colombia (FARC), 16, 110, 111, Esperanza, Paz y Libertad (EPL)
112, 113, 115, 116, 118, 120, Hoyte, Desmond, 156, 157, 164
122, 123, 124, 125, 126, 128,
130, 132, 134, 144, 198, 306, Ilón, Gaspar. See Asturias, Rodrigo
328 Independent Democratic Pole. See Polo
Democrático Independiente
G-15, 232, 234 (PDI)
Gates, Bill, 206 Indigenous Social Alliance Movement.
Gauteng, 213 See Movimiento Alianza Social
Gaviria, César, 118, 119, 120, 123, 124, Indígena (ASI)
131 Indo-Guyanese, 152, 153, 157, 177,
Gorbachev, Mikhail, 197, 301 179, 182, 343
Governing Council of National Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP), 200
Reconstruction. See Junta de International Monetary Fund (IMF),
Gobierno de Reconstrucción 157, 164, 165, 166, 181, 182, 184,
Nacional (JGRN) 208, 265, 301, 310, 314, 316, 319,
Growth, Employment and Recovery 345, 354
(GEAR), 202, 208, 210, 212, 223 Iraq, 198
Guatemalan Labour Party. See Partido Irish Republican Army (IRA), 5, 198
Guatemalteco del Trabajo (PGT)
Guatemalan National Revolutionary Jagan, Cheddi, 3, 25, 149, 151, 153,
Union. See Unidad Revolucionaria 156, 159, 164, 176, 179, 181, 182,
Nacional Guatemalteca (URNG) 184, 308, 326, 342, 343, 353
Guatemalan Peace Accords. See Janet, 176
Acuerdos de Paz Firme y Jarquín, Edmundo, 23, 58
Duradera, 1996 Jorge Soto, 71, 84, 87
Guerrilla Army of the Poor. See Ejército July 26th Movement (M26J), 203
Guerrillero de los Pobres (EGP) Junta de Gobierno de Reconstrucción
guerrilla demobilizations, 135 Nacional (JGRN), 28, 30
Guevara, Che, 189, 220, 341
Guyana Sugar Corporation Kasrils, Ronnie, 215
(GUYSUCO), 168 Kuwait, 198
Index ● 271
Kwazakele, 215, 220, 224, 225 Movement for Democratic Change

KwazuNatal, 200 (MDC), 232, 240, 241, 249
Movimento Popular da Libertação de
leadership, 13, 17, 22, 35, 37, 41, 53, Angola (MPLA), 4, 7, 15, 19, 195,
60, 65, 71, 87, 94, 104, 112, 113, 285, 286, 287, 288, 290, 291, 293,
131, 151, 153, 159, 171, 174, 176, 295, 296, 297, 298, 299, 300, 301,
177, 179, 189, 191, 193, 195, 199, 302, 303, 305, 307, 308, 314, 316,
200, 202, 209, 210, 213, 216, 219, 322
229, 230, 232, 255, 257, 258, 260, Movimento Popular de Libertação de
261, 262, 263, 270, 272, 273, 274, Angola (MPLA), 4, 195, 285, 305
276, 277, 278, 287, 304, 311, 324, Movimiento 19 de Abril (M-19), 4, 111,
326, 330 112, 113, 118, 119, 120, 122, 126,
Lenin, V.I., 206, 212, 224 131, 133, 139, 140, 144, 146, 334,
Lewities, Herty, 47 356
Lima, Turcios, 66, 91 Movimiento Alianza Social Indígena
(ASI), 122, 128, 130, 131, 134,
M-19 Democratic Alliance. See Alianza 135, 140, 144
Democrática M-19 (AD M-19) Movimiento de Liberación Nacional
Mandela, Nelson, 189, 191, 193, 195, (MLN-Tupamaros), 3, 16, 79, 96,
197, 198, 206, 208, 209, 210, 219, 97, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104,
220, 223, 346, 347 105, 106, 108, 109, 306, 319, 321,
Manley, Michael, 159, 179 326, 344
Manuel, Trevor, 71, 123, 208, 210, 224 Movimiento Renovador Sandinista
Mbeki, Thabo, 189, 195, 197, 204, (MRS), 23, 43, 44, 45, 47, 49, 58
206, 210, 214, 215, 220, 222, 224, Movimiento Vía Alterna, 126
331, 340 Mozambican National Resistance. See
media, 10, 20, 23, 25, 32, 58, 59, 64, Resistência Nacional
74, 75, 90, 103, 104, 109, 112, Moçambicana (RENAMO)
123, 126, 131, 137, 138, 140, 142, MPLA. See Movimento Popular da
144, 146, 179, 181, 182, 184, 186, Libertação de Angola (MPLA)
208, 214, 219, 220, 222, 224, MRS. See Movimiento Renovador
226, 238, 244, 245, 246, 248, Sandinista
256, 281, 282, 283, 284, 303, 311, Mugabe, Robert, 20, 230
330, 331, 333, 334, 335, 337, 339, Mujica, José (Pepe), 97
340, 341, 342, 343, 344, 345,
346, 347, 348, 349, 350, 352, 353, National Constitutional Assembly
354, 355, 356, 358 (NCA), 240, 249
Mitrione, Daniel, 101 national democracy, 151, 163, 164,
Monsanto, Pablo. See Jorge Soto 166, 319
Montealgre, Eduardo, 23 National Directorate, FSLN, 35, 55,
Montenegro, Nineth, 85 59, 73
Montt, Gen. Efraín Ríos, 93 National Economic Development &
Morán, Rolando. See Ramírez de León, Labor Council (NEDLAC),
Ricardo Arnoldo 212
272 ● Index
National Front for the Liberation of Organización del Pueblo en Armas

Angola. See Frente Nacional de (ORPA), 66, 67, 68, 70, 71, 74,
Libertação de Angola (FNLA) 91, 93
National Front for the Liberation of Organization of African Unity (OAU),
Congo. See Front National pour la 229, 287
Libération du Congo (FNLC) Organization of the People in Arms.
National Liberation Army. See Ejército See Organización del Pueblo en
de Liberación Nacional (ELN) Armas (ORPA)
National Liberation Party. See Partido Ortega, Daniel, 21, 22, 23, 34, 35, 36,
Liberación Nacional (PLN) 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 45, 47, 49,
National Party (NP), 106, 188, 191, 53, 57, 58, 60, 316
193, 195, 197, 198, 200 Danielistas, 42
National Union for the Total Ortega-Alemán Pact, 28, 62
Independence of Angola. See Oslo Accord, 75
União Nacional para a
Independência Total de Angola Pacheco Areco, Jorge, 101, 102
(UNITA) Palestinian Liberation Organization
National Union of the Opposition (PLO), 4, 198
(UNO), 34, 35, 36, 43, 44, 56 Pan Africanist Congress, 189
Nationalist Liberal Party, 53 Partido Comunista de Angola (PCA),
neoliberalism, 9, 19, 79, 87, 120, 149, 286
151, 168, 179, 208, 213, 217, 219, Partido da Luta Unida dos Africanos de
258, 330 Angola (PLUA), 286
nepotism, 265 Partido Guatemalteco del Trabajo
Neto, Agostinho, 286, 287 (PGT), 65, 66, 67, 70, 71, 72, 73,
Netshitenzhe, Joel, 215 74, 79, 87, 90, 91, 93
New Global Order, 181 Partido Liberación Nacional (PLN), 26
New Guatemala Democratic Front. See Partido Liberal Constitucionalista
Frente Democrático Nueva (PLC), 21, 23, 37, 39, 42, 43, 44,
Guatemala (FDNG) 47, 49, 53, 55, 62
New Progressive Agenda, 204 Partido Revolucionario de los
New York Accord, 294 Trabajadores (PRT), 118, 122,
Nicaraguan Liberal Alliance. See 127, 128, 134, 141, 144
Alianza Liberal Nicaragüense Patriotic Union. See Unión Patriótica
(ALN) (UP)
Nkomo, Joshua, 230 Patrullas de Autodefensa Civil (PACs),
non-governmental organization 69, 92, 93, 189, 215, 328
(NGO), 235, 236, 237, 238, 240, People’s Front for Democracy and
241, 247, 248, 249, 250, 310, 311, Justice (PFDJ), 230, 232, 239,
334, 336, 337 242, 246, 250, 305
Nqakula, Charles, 215 People’s National Congress (PNC), 151,
152, 154, 156, 157, 159, 160, 164,
Obando y Bravo, Cardinal Miguel, 37 168, 171, 172, 177, 179, 181, 183,
Omai, 168, 169 184, 186, 310, 324
Operación Victoria, 68 Reform, 151, 156, 177, 181
Index ● 273
People’s Progressive Party (PPP), 3, 7, Resistência Nacional Moçambicana

16, 17, 148, 149, 151, 152, 153, 154, (RENAMO), 8, 17, 19, 151, 252,
155, 156, 157, 158, 159, 160, 162, 253, 254, 255, 258, 260, 261, 263,
163, 164, 166, 168, 169, 170, 171, 265, 266, 267, 268, 269, 270, 272,
172, 174, 176, 177, 179, 181, 182, 275, 276, 277, 278, 279, 280, 282,
184, 305, 306, 308, 319, 324, 326 283, 284, 323, 324, 346, 355
Civic, 148, 160, 181 Revolutionary Armed Forces of
Persian Gulf War, 198 Colombia. See Fuerzas Armadas
Plan 2015, 210 Revolucionarias de Colombia
Policy Network, 204 (FARC)
Polo Democrático (PD), 111, 131, 146, rights
350 human, 66, 75, 77, 78, 85, 93, 94, 104,
Polo Democrático Alternativo (PDA), 107, 108, 112, 113, 122, 135, 310
111, 131, 132, 134, 135, 137, 146, women’s, 20
147, 350 Rizo, Jose, 23
Polo Democrático Independiente Rodney, Walter, 172, 184, 344
(PDI), 131, 146, 350 Russia, 202
Popular Liberation Army. See Ejército
Popular de Liberación (EPL) Samper, Ernest, 124
Popular Movement for the Liberation Sandinista Assembly, 35, 59
of Angola. See Movimento Sandinista National Liberation Front
Popular da Libertação de Angola (FSLN)
(MPLA) See Sandinista National Liberation
Port Elizabeth, 200, 214, 215, 216, Front, 2, 6, 13, 21, 22, 24, 26,
220, 222, 224, 226 28, 29, 30, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36,
Portugal, 283, 290, 291, 298, 339 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 45,
Poverty Reduction Strategy, 166 49, 51, 53, 54, 55, 59, 62, 77,
Pretoria, 217 88, 90, 198, 316
privatization, 19, 168, 217, 255, 274, Sandinista Renewal Movement. See
275, 302, 323 Movimiento Renovador
Proletarian Tendency, 26 Sandinista (MRS)
Sanguinetti, Julio Maria, 105
Quintín Lame, 118, 140 Savimbi, Jonas, 285, 303
Shilowa, Mbhazima, 213
Ramírez de León, Ricardo Arnoldo, 91, Shining Path of Peru, 198
337 Sithole, Ndabaningi, 230
Ramírez, Sergio, 35, 36 Slovo, Joe, 195, 220
Reagan, Ronald, 191 Social and Political Front. See Frente
Rebel Armed Forces. See Armadas Social y Politico (FSP)
Rebeldes (FAR) See Frente Social y Politico (FSP), 126
Reconstruction and Development social democracy, 32, 41, 86, 119, 163,
(RDP), 208 204, 206, 228, 313, 318, 321, 330
Redebe, Jeff, 215 Socialist Renovation Current. See
RENAMO. See Resistência Nacional Corriente de Renovación
Moçambicana (RENAMO) Socialista (CRS)
274 ● Index
Solana, Javier, 206 União Nacional para a Independência

Somoza García, Anastasio, 26, 27, 30, Total de Angola (UNITA), 7, 15,
42, 52, 55, 62, 203, 314, 316 288, 291, 293, 295, 302, 303
South African Communist Party Unidad Revolucionaria Nacional
(SACP), 195, 197, 200, 206, 207, Guatemalteca (URNG), 4, 7, 13,
208, 210, 214, 215, 216, 217, 220, 16, 67, 69, 71, 72, 73, 75, 77, 78, 79,
222 82, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 90, 91, 93,
South African Defense Forces (SADF), 94, 149, 306, 308, 310, 321, 328
291, 293 Unión Camilista-Ejército de Liberación
South African National Civic Nacional (UC-ELN), 118
Organization (SANCO), 200 Union of the Peoples of Angola. See
South West Africa Peoples União dos Povos de Angola (UPA)
Organization (SWAPO), 4, 195, Unión Patriótica (UP), 3, 7, 111, 113,
292, 295, 331, 345 115, 116, 120, 122, 123, 126, 128,
Soweto Electricity Crisis Committee, 130, 132, 134, 138, 142, 144,
217 306, 328, 339
students, 30, 67, 105, 112, 163, 235, UNITA. See União Nacional para a
237, 242, 261 Independência Total de Angola
SWAPO. See South West Africa (UNITA)
Peoples Organization (SWAPO) United Democratic Front (UDF), 191
Swedish Social Democrats, 206 United Self-Defense Forces of
Colombia. See Autodefensas
Tambo, Oliver, 189, 193 Unidas de Colombia (AUC)
Terceristas (The Third Way), 17, 26, University of the Western Cape, 202
204, 206, 219, 222, 318 UPA. See União dos Povos de Angola
Third Way, The (UPA)
See Terceristas (The Third Way), URNG. See Unidad Revolucionaria
204, 222 Nacional Guatemalteca (URNG)
Thomas, Clive, 154, 158, 177, 182, US Government. See USA
222, 281, 303, 341, 354, 360 USA, 22, 38, 48, 49, 55, 57, 59, 62, 64,
Treatment Action Committee (TAC), 96, 101, 107, 108, 130, 137, 139,
217 144, 156, 157, 160, 182, 186, 191,
Tricontinental Conference, Havana, 197, 198, 204, 219, 220, 224, 249,
189, 220 283, 288, 310, 316, 333, 334, 335,
Tripartite Alliance, 223 336, 337, 339, 342, 353
Tupamaros. See Movimiento de USSR, 17, 19, 102, 164, 168, 189, 197,
Liberacion Nacional (MLN- 198, 204, 288, 290, 300, 301, 308
Tupamaros)
Turok, Ben, 215, 226 Vázquez, Tabaré, 16, 97, 105, 106, 107,
108
UN Observation Mission in Venezuela, 48, 49, 53, 57, 97, 316, 330,
Mozambique (UNOMOZ), 267 331, 341, 347
União dos Povos de Angola (UPA), 287 verticalism, 10, 11, 17, 41, 53
União Nacional para a Independência Vietnam Syndrome, 198
Total de Angola (UNITA), 15, 288 Virgilio Barco, 115, 116, 118
Index ● 275
Washington. See USA Zaire, 245, 290, 291

Washington Consensus, 204, ZANU. See Zimbabwe African
224 National Union—Patriotic Front
West Germany, 197 (ZANU-PF)
Wilson, Harold, 16, 110, 137, 139, 142, ZAPU. See Zimbabwe African People’s
206, 310, 328, 334, 335, 339, 356, Union (ZAPU)
360 Zimbabwe African National Union—
Workers Revolutionary Party. See Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF), 8, 17,
Partido Revolucionario de los 20, 230, 232, 233, 235, 238, 239,
Trabajadores (PRT) 240, 241, 249, 306, 322
Working People’s Alliance (WPA), 172, Zimbabwe African People’s Union
174, 177 (ZAPU), 230, 232, 233,
World Bank, 165, 166, 181, 184, 245, 322
208, 265, 301, 345, 356 Zimbabwe National Liberation War
Veterans Association (ZNLWVA),
Yeltsin, Boris, 198 239

Kalowatie Deonandan, David Close, Gary Prevost - From Revolutionary Movements To Political Parties - Cases From Latin America and Africa (2007)

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From Revolutionary Movements to

To the people of South Africa and their

1 Introduction: Transitioning from Revolutionary

8 Born Powerful? Authoritarian Politics in

Introduction: Transitioning from

Our situation probably applies more broadly. Second, although the

Orienting Themes, Concepts,

Table 1.1 The cases under study

The Armed Movements: Context

Themes and Questions

Another trait that is absolutely necessary in war is secrecy. However,

public sector and an open, largely unregulated economy. Also a revolution-

Likely to apply to all parties in this class

Figure 1.1 Characteristics of parties evolving from

The Plan of the Book

dramatically different political success. FRELIMO began as a guerilla

From Guerrillas to Government

Addressing these questions takes us through a number of steps. First, we

Are Armed Opposition Movements

In short, when thinking about revolution as a political end and armed

Figure 2.1 The Sandinistas: A chronology

Transforming the FSLN I: From

constitutional framework, one might think that a revolutionary movement

The Practice of Electoral Sandinismo

It was also during their period as Nicaragua’s elected government that

Transforming the FSLN II: Nicaragua’s

The Administration of Violeta

The Administration of Arnoldo

The Administration of Enrique

Daniel Ortega and the

Victory, at Last! The 2006 Elections

Table 2.1 Nicaraguan presidential election results, 1990–2006

Year FSLN Opponent 1 Opponent 2 Opponent 3

1990 40.8% UNO, 54.8% Others, 4.4% –

UNO: National Union of the Opposition

How Daniel Did It: The

Candidate/Party February May August October

Source: Data from Angus Reid Global Monitor.32

fuel to Nicaragua; although these were distributed by the government,

What Will the Sandinistas

leader-dominated, pragmatic to a fault, and on the lookout for quotas of

Lessons from the Sandinistas’ Journey from

Postscript: Daniel Ortega’s Return to Power

Rosario Murillo, as director of the Consejo de Comunicación y Ciudadania

semi-industrial model used on agribusiness properties could be successfully

45. B. Morel, “Chávez sera el principal asistente financiero de Nicaragua,” El

Guatemala: From the Guerrilla

The Evolution of Armed Struggle

to power, while maintaining its vision of a multifront “revolutionary

endorsing popular revolutionary war.7 Particularly noteworthy in this

The counterinsurgency began in urban areas, focusing on eliminating

The Organizational Logics of the Guerrillas

structure of organizational power, due to its limited size and extremely

Guatemalan revolutionaries, like those in El Salvador, were also

The clandestine groups conceived of the social movements they were

Table 3.1 Revolutionary organizations and their affiliated mass organizations

Politco-Military Group Popular Organization

Partido Guatemalteco del Trabajo, PGT (1949) Federación Autónoma Sindical de

Fuerzas Armadas Rebeldes, FAR (1968) Comité Nacional de Unidad Sindical,

Organización del Pueblo en Armas, ORPA (1979)

The Peace Accords and Their Effect on the URNG

• the Agreement to Resettle Populations Displaced by Armed

• the Accord for a Definitive Cease-fire, which also treated constitutional