Nicaragua - A dictatorship consolidates

There are few options for the international community, but at the very least, we should pay sustained attention and not lose focus.

Daniel Ortega's ‘victory’ in Sunday’s sham election was a foregone conclusion. His regime jailed all seven presidential candidates who represented a true opposition. They tightly controlled the conditions of the elections and the vote counting process. Facing unfair conditions, Ortega’s opponents announced ahead of time they wanted people to stay home. Unofficial estimates suggest voter turnout was only around 20%, perhaps lower. Before the election, I told multiple clients that Ortega’s “victory” was the easiest election prediction I would make all year. 

However, while the outcome was nearly certain, it wasn’t easy for Ortega. Elections are always stress points for authoritarian regimes. Stealing elections is never simple. Every authoritarian regime spends significant time and resources campaigning and organizing elections, even when they are rigged, because there are “legitimacy” issues that even dictators face to maintain their circles of power and influence. And in Ortega’s case, the stolen election on top of the violent wave of repression that began in 2018 has proven to be particularly costly.

The country has faced a multiyear recession. Businesses were once excited to invest in Nicaragua, even under Ortega, because the country had a relatively pro-business environment. Now, businesses tolerate the situation, try to keep their heads down to avoid repression, and hope to economically survive until conditions improve. Political allies who once supported Ortega because of what Sandinismo represented have turned on him and in many cases been jailed or forced to flee. The country that once supported Ortega or at least accepted him as a legitimate head of state no longer views him as a revolutionary but as a repressor.

For Ortega, the last three weeks have been a deluge of negative international media coverage and criticism. Efforts to manipulate media coverage have been mocked and ignored outside of a few relatively irrelevant publications. 

The lack of turnout on election day exposed just how little support Ortega has and how strong the opposition is to him. It wasn’t just exposed to the international community. The lack of support for Ortega was exposed to the military leadership, the police, and to the government workers and Sandinista base that were forced to vote and attend rallies well into the night to attempt to create an illusion of support for the few pro-Ortega media crews that were allowed in. Using plata y plomo to keep those domestic powerbrokers in line moving forward just became more complicated for the ruling regime.

Ortega is the de facto president of a country he has run into the ground. His legacy, already tarnished by corruption and allegations of sexual abuse, has been totally destroyed by the turn of events in recent years. He has betrayed those who fought with him to overthrow the previous dictatorships. The comparisons of Ortega to Somoza are absolutely justified and at this point almost cliche. Ortega and his family have decided their own personal power is more important than whatever long term damage they do to the country and its population.

We’re left with a question of what to do, and there is no simple answer.

The US and international partners will announce new sanctions. Ortega and his allies deserve to be sanctioned for their destruction of democracy, their human rights abuses and their corruption. Yet, Ortega has demonstrated he’s prepared to pay that price, even if it does cause him some financial and political pain. Sanctions won’t push him out. 

This will be a test for the new US sanctions policy. Any sanctions efforts or trade restrictions that harm the Nicaraguan population more than Ortega should be rejected by the Biden administration. International coordination should be prioritized. Even if this sanctions effort is not likely to succeed, it is worth watching to see if US sanctions can evolve to be more effective in their goals while being less harmful to populations.

Ortega still has room to maneuver. International allies including the current president of Honduras and the FMLN in El Salvador have backed Ortega’s election. This provides him not only with the veneer of legitimacy, but with real options for countering economic pressure (because he can still trade with his neighbors) and political pressure at places like the OAS. The fact Ortega retains these sorts of alliances makes discussions of coordinated action more difficult. 

To suggest more than sanctions, something along the lines of covert or military action, is to reflect back upon the worst legacies and mistakes of US history in the 20th century both in Nicaragua and the hemisphere. There are lots of reasons it’s a terrible idea to go those routes. It's even worse to debate doing so only half-heartedly and without a full consideration for everything that can go wrong in the process.

To suggest that we stick with sanctions or even less aggressive action means accepting that a country will suffer under a dictator and his family for years or even decades to come. Perhaps it’s not the US or other countries’ job to help fix Nicaragua. But with a consolidated dictatorship in place, Nicaraguans are a long way away from reaching a transition without outside help.

Even worse, in succeeding, Ortega is setting the path for other authoritarians and authoritarian wannabes across the hemisphere. Repress hard and without remorse, survive the occasional wave of criticisms and sanctions, and then hold on. 

At the very least, the best thing we can do is pay attention. Ortega has had a miserable few weeks due to all of the international attention on his regime and its abuses. My fear is that it goes away and by January the hemisphere has moved on to other issues. Keeping up the attention and highlighting the abuses at least makes his life more difficult.

Second, the Biden administration needs to move more quickly and with greater resources on building out a hemispheric anti-corruption mechanism and the Ortega regime deserves to be a priority case for investigations and prosecutions. Corruption is at the heart of how the Ortega regime pays off its allies and remains in power. Doing more to shut down corruption networks will make some allies uncomfortable and seem at times like too much US interference in other countries’ affairs, but it’s worth doing well and doing transparently. It’s one area where Ortega and his allies could feel a lot more pressure, but it requires resources and attention to make it happen.

Thanks for reading

If you’ve never read it before, here’s my blog post from 2012 discussing how the Sandinistas stole municipal elections in Nicaragua.