Political Repression Is Becoming A Trend In Nicaragua And Beyond
November 23, 2021—It’s a tale as old as time: A revolutionary hero defies a dictatorship, said hero becomes an international icon and beats the dictatorship. (Maybe even the rock band The Clash releases an album named after the movement.) And then, finally, that hero becomes a new dictator himself.
That’s the history you can see repeating itself in the Russian and Cuban revolutions. And now, in Nicaragua, and it’s happening with President Daniel Ortega.
Unfortunately, a trend is surfacing, and it’s bad for democracy. Acts of repression by the Nicaraguan government are becoming the new normal in many parts of the world.
Ortega Rule
For years Ortega ruled under what many would call a “Mixed Government.” It wasn’t fully a dictatorship, but it certainly it wasn’t a full democracy,
Now after seeing the way his government handled the recent presidential election, it’s hard not to see that his rule is a full-on dictatorship.
During the months and weeks before the election, he incarcerated any viable opponent. He locked up 39 rivals, including presidential challengers Cristiana Chamorro and Arturo Cruz Jr. Others, Ortego persecuted until they decided to leave the country.
Elections Without A Choice
On November 7, Nicaragua held an election. With the opposition already crushed by government forces, Ortega easily won. With that, the dictator secured a fourth consecutive term.
Many leaders and NGOs around the world called the elections into question. Critics included left-wing presidents like Pedro Castillo from Perú and Alberto Fernandez from Argentina. And the Organization of American States called it an illegitimate election after its commission on human rights condemned large-scale violations. (See Editor’s note below)*
At the same time, the usual suspects made sure to give the reelected president a pat on the back. Russia, China, and Venezuela quickly defended the electoral process and the Nicaraguan government in general. Also, alarmingly enough, far-right president Jair Bolsonaro from Brasil immediately congratulated Ortega.
Normalizing Tyranny
The problem is, it is not just Ortega. The issue is really how the Nicaraguan situation has become part of a normal occurrence. More and more governments around the world are ignoring the concerns of the international community and just plunging ahead with totalitarian attitudes—human rights, the United Nations, and public opinion be damned.
In a recent op-ed for Variety, aptly titled “The Bad Guys are winning”, Anne Applebaum explains that how this phenomenon is the main feature of politics in the first half of the 21st Century. Democracy is receding in big parts of the world.
The worrisome part is how the democratic powers don’t seem to be able to react. You can see it in how the European Union seems to be “concerned” about policies applied by its own members like Hungary and Poland. Or look further West to see how the United States seems to not be ready to get back to the front line of geopolitics after the Trump Administration receded the U.S. position as a “Leader of the Free World.”
The thing is, the impunity that some governments seem to have is inspiring others. It’s impossible to know the impact. But it’s hard to imagine Ortega doing what he has done without seeing an effect on governance in the region. Will we see others follow the playbook of cracking down on protesters and ignoring international observers in their own elections? Already, the OAS is issuing a warning about violence ahead of the November 28 Honduras elections.
Comfortable Dictators
If Alexander Lukashenko, Nayib Bukele and Nicolas Maduro succeed in keeping their power with comfort, why wouldn’t Ortega do the same? And now that Ortega has done it, what’s really stopping Bolsonaro from doing the same?
Unfortunately, a trend is surfacing, and it’s bad for democracy. Acts of repression by the Nicaraguan government are becoming the new normal in many parts of the world. If the West keeps letting more and more governments skip and deny human rights without any repercussion, more dictatorships will emerge. And it will be harder to help the people living under these governments to fight against their oppressors.
EDITOR’S Note: The U.S. government imposed new sanctions against Nicaragua on Nov. 15, 2021, in response to the “sham elections” that “denied Nicaraguans their ability to vote in free and fair elections, following months of repression and the imprisonment” of presidential candidates, opposition members, journalists, students, and members of civil society. The U.S. and E.U. governments imposed prior rounds of sanctions over the Summer after mass arrests of candidates.
In the latest round, the Treasury Department named the Nicaraguan Public Ministry and nine Nicaraguan government officials in the new sanctions. According to a release by the State Department, “These nine individuals facilitate the Ortega-Murillo regime’s repression, including its human rights abuses, or manage institutions that finance the undemocratic Ortega-Murillo regime or otherwise sustain it at the expense of the Nicaraguan people.”
The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, a division within the OAS, released its findings that police officers, para-State agents, and government supporters harrassed and committed acts of violence against opposition leaders, human rights activists, members of civil society organizations, and journalists.
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