Nicaragua | An announced “victory”, an opposition muzzled

The people of Nicaragua are called to the polls this Sunday in an election handcuffed by the strong man of the country, Daniel Ortega, who has arrested and accused in recent months a host of opponents in order to guarantee his ” Victoire “.

Marc Thibodeau
Press

The practically assured obtaining of a fourth presidential term in a row by the former Sandinista guerrilla, who governs in tandem with his wife, Rosario Murillo, marks a new stage in the authoritarian drift of the regime and should quickly lead to the imposition of new international sanctions.

Kai Thaler, a Latin American specialist attached to the University of California at Santa Barbara, notes that the wave of arrests that occurred during the summer in anticipation of the election deprived the poll of all credibility.

“Daniel Ortega finds himself in competition with selected opponents who come from minor parties that pose no risk to him or from parties controlled like puppets by the regime,” he said.

The president has manipulated elections in the past while allowing opponents to come forward, but he had never used such a radical approach until this year, notes Thaler.

The real opposition “is no longer something the regime seems willing to tolerate,” says the analyst.

Period of “terror”

A Nicaraguan scholar who closely follows the political situation noted on Friday in an interview with Press that several of those arrested had been surprised by the regime’s action.

The announcement in early June of the house arrest of Cristiana Chamorro, daughter of ex-president Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, set the tone and marked, he says, the beginning of a period of “terror”.

“They locked everyone up, even potential candidates who posed no risk for the election. The threshold required to become the target of the regime suddenly became much lower, ”notes the academic, who asked not to be identified by name for fear of reprisals.

Ryan Berg, a Nicaraguan specialist attached to the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, notes that the regime witnessed its growing radicalization in 2018 by bloody suppressing a popular uprising precipitated by a controversial aid reform social.

This indifference to external criticism is reflected in particular, according to the analyst, by the fact that the Nicaraguan security forces arrested the leaders of a major employers’ organization following a condemnation of the country by the Organization of States. Americans (OAS).

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights decried ten days ago in a new report the establishment of a police state made possible by an excessive concentration of power in the hands of Daniel Ortega.

“There are no longer any checks and balances in Nicaragua, since all the institutions are now subject to the decisions of the executive”, notes the organization, which sees it as the culmination of a process that began about fifteen years ago. years.

International response

Mr. Berg believes that the gravity of the political situation in the country justifies a hardening of the response of the international community.

The United States, the European Union and Canada, in addition to loudly condemning this Sunday’s election, should unite by applying targeted sanctions to a considerably larger number of the regime’s caciques and related organizations. , he said.

Action should also be taken to curb financial aid from organizations like the International Monetary Fund, adds the analyst, who would like to see more countries in the region adopt a more muscular approach towards Nicaragua and support his eventual suspension from the OAS.

In the absence of a broad consensus, the action of the United States and its allies in the matter is likely to be effectively brandished by Managua as a new illustration of the threat posed by “Yankee imperialism”, underlines Mr. Berg.

Nicaraguan academic joined by Press believes that the future of the country depends first and foremost on what the local population themselves can do.

The opposition on the spot remains fragmented and struggles to build a coherent discourse going beyond its aversion to the regime of Daniel Ortega, who poses as a defender of the Sandinista revolution.

“Some of the people who are now side by side in prison would not even have greeted each other in the street before their detention,” notes the academic.