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Nicaragua’s Ortega Tightens Grip on Power Following Fraudulent Election

Nicaragua, El American

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We may be facing the most Dantesque, criminal and shameless electoral fraud in the last decades in Ibero-America, which might surpass the already quite fraudulent, authoritarian practices of Hugo Chavez and Maduro in Venezuela. Well, this Sunday, November 7, a fake presidential election took place in Nicaragua.

In crude terms, what has Ortega done? He replicated the agenda written by the Castros in Havana and implemented for the first time and successfully by Hugo Chavez: liquidation of democracy by dismantling autonomous institutions (Congress and Judiciary) and turning the state of Nicaragua into the personal patrimony of the Ortega’s and some good Sandinista comrades.

The historic student and university youth demonstrations, which ended with a balance of horror, repression and blood, with more than 300 dead and 100 arrested (only in Managua) took place in late 2018 and mid-2019. The media was banned, civil organizations suffered the same fate and seven presidential candidates were imprisoned: Cristina Chamorro, Arturo Cruz, Felix Madariaga, Juan Sebastian Chamorro, Miguel Mora, Medardo Mairena and Noel Vidaurre.

During the massacre of 2019, among the first voices that reacted against the tyrant Ortega were the United States that, through its Embassy in Nicaragua, condemned on Twitter the brutal Sandinista repression. In the same vein, there were reactions from OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro and later the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) which has issued strong reports evidencing the authoritarian character of the Sandinista regime and the systematic violations of human rights, unfortunately all these actions without much fruit.

The destruction of Nicaraguan democracy didn’t begin in 2018, but came practically from the very moment that Ortega and the Sandinistas began in January 2006. However, Ortega’s harassment, authoritarianism, violence, permanent violation of the Constitution, and fraudulent elections became more visible since 2016, when he had himself elected without any scruples for a third consecutive term.

What sets this fourth “reelection” apart is the rampant impunity of Ortega in front of the hundreds of young people murdered in 2019, his crimes against humanity, and the systematic elimination of all his political adversaries who stood a chance of winning the presidential elections and were imprisoned. One of them was blocked by the Supreme Electoral Council, which disqualified the “Citizens’ Alliance for Freedom”, the political platform of Óscar Sobalvarro.

The striking thing about all this is that the United States, now under the Biden administration, is focused on trying to prevent the authoritarian advance in El Salvador with the government of Nayib Bukele, while it has been very lukewarm towards Ortega. The truth of the matter is that this past Sunday we witnessed Ortega’s election circus, where the result had been set since long before: Ortega’s triumph and surely an effusive announcement of his victory in Managua’s Plaza de la Revolución.

This fourth mandate of Ortega and his Sandinista criminals is absolutely illegitimate, since it is the result of a totally flawed electoral process, without competition or minimum guarantees and without an electoral campaign. In short, it is null and void. We hope that the International Community will initiate all available actions of the international system to help the Nicaraguan people to recover the freedom and democracy snatched by the macabre couple of Ortega and Murillo.

Nahem Reyes is a PhD in history from the Andrés Bello Catholix University and associate member of the American Studies Center of the Central University of Venezuela. // Nahem Reyes es doctor en Historia de la Universidad Católica Andrés Bello y miembro asociado del Centro de Estudios de América de la Universidad Central de Venezuela.

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