Many analysts claim that Ortega´s recent arrests of 21 opposition leaders and candidates was to provide him with bargaining chips for future negotiations with the United States. This article places his actions within a long term transition strategy Ortega had before the April 2018 uprising, which extends far beyond these elections, and therefore necessitates the action of the international community now, and especially the Vatican, to avoid more death and destruction.
Why should the international community be mobilized?
By Manuel Orozco, Confidencial July 1, 2021
Nicaraguan is not on the road to elections, but to a repressive escalation of Ortega and Murillo with more violence and repression.
The repressive actions of the Government have been instrumental, not to “win” the 2021 elections (they are an inconvenience), but to ensure their own transition.
The transition plan of the regime
Since Ortega “won” the presidential elections in the 2016 fraud, without political competition, the regime designed a transition plan that consisted in ending this period, “winning” in 2021, and passing the torch halfway through the period to someone who has the trust of the FSLN leadership in 2024. The plan was to turn over an economically stable country, with a new leadership elite coming from the Sandinista, pro-Ortega circle.
Thus, the presidential cycle of Ortega-Murillo would end their era “on good terms.”
But the 2018 crisis complicated those plans because of the economic deterioration as well as the overwhelming blue and white opposition unity that pressured for political reforms and their departure from power. So, since June 2018 they adapted the plan, using their monopoly over the security forces and the law. Since 2016 between fraud and patronage, the regime already had 80% of the votes in the Assembly, in the Supreme Court and the Supreme Electoral Council. In the new stage the regime adjusted the plan to criminalize protest, increase division within the opposition, and gradually force the elimination of the opposition, while they promoted abstentionism between May and September, to carry out fraud in November, in order to claim victory with 1.6 million votes. Now in May 2021 M&R had been responsible for “announcing” the popularity of Ortega close to those figures.
Nevertheless, Ortega did not count on the emergence of a true competitive, legitimate and representative Blue and White unity, which is why he compressed in time and space his actions to decapitate the opposition leadership though the jailings, and keep his plan on track.
Now in the midst of a political, economic and health crisis, worsened by the regime itself, in the face of an economy that will not grow more than 2%, and without growth in tax income, he is left with $400 million in foreign financing for two years. He also has funds from BANCORP which they are thinking of channeling through PRODUZCAMOS. But those $400 million in loans from international financial institutions represent 10% of current tax income, which even with limitations in spending it, provides him with a certain amount of discretion to use the funds to maintain the patronage of economic favors.
In order to pass power on to someone of the leadership and share the risk of inheriting a divided, impoverished country (with income at the level of 2017), on a downward spiral, with a lot of migration (with more than 100,000 people leaving this year), the circle of power of the Ortega-Murillo has to ensure the transition exchanging the loyalty of their militants for the discretion to repress, harass and make use of anti-imperialist discourse. That is why it is a mistake to think that Ortega is seeking a negotiation with the United States or the rest of the world and exchanging political prisoners for softening the sanctions: he did not do so before, and he will not do it now.
Ortega needs the political oxygen of his militant grassroots to come out unharmed from the battle of 2021 and to pass on power. And in order to do so he is sacrificing the entire country. The urgency of ensuring that transition justifies his level of repression, and the terms of the transaction have made that struggle for power for democracy an unequal task: Ortega gives rifles to his people, and cudgels and bullets to the opposition, while the opposition only wants a non-violent struggle. The asymmetry is obscene.
What to do before November 7th
To restore the balance of power in favor of the civic struggle, the blue and white Nicaraguans need from the international community as well as from leaders, what Nicaraguans most value, the Catholic Church to evoke civic mindedness without bloodshed.
First of all, in the face of the concession of Ortega of loyalty in exchange for authorizing a green light to his strongest base, the unleashing of violence on the streets is looming on the part of that Ortega militancy. That is why it is urgent that the international mobilization be immediate to prevent violence and more repression. This international mobilization should no longer be about the electoral process, because there are no conditions for free elections, but to stop the institutional, social and economic deterioration of the entire country. The international community, the United States or the OAS cannot wait until after July 28th, the date for the registration of candidates, while greater systematic repression is put together. It is important to understand Sandinism as a cuasi-ethnic structure. It is a political movement which has constituted itself as a social cultural subgroup different from the rest of the population, where the Ortega-Murillo circle of power constitutes a clan within the tribe. They have their habits, beliefs, and loyalties which are very different from the average population, but they use fear, patronage and transaction to maintain a link to them. With a minority in power (with a base smaller than 20% of the population), they look on the entire national scenario with the lens of a threat, the majority stalking them. They are willing to kill and die in order to continue in charge of the State. In the face of the institutional weakening of the State, the ageing of Ortega-Murillo and the growing popularity of the opposition in the midst of an electoral period, the use of street force for them is a real option.
Second, the international community has many means at their disposal. The United States has several tools in hand, and sanctions are only one of them. The application of the legal resource of the Nica Act in the face of the current conditions justifies the application of articles 4 and 5 of that law that stipulates that this country can influence the policies of international organizations like the IMF or the World Bank. The loans of nearly 200 million of the IMF are being poorly used, and in a dictatorial context which provide the regime with oxygen. Now it is morally, politically, and economically indefensible that the IMF would continue disbursing funds to a regime which has been condemned by the international community and the great majority of the members of the board of the IMF. Likewise, it is in the legislation of the US to impact this and other disbursements of the World Bank or the IADB. At this point no financing to the dictatorship has a humanitarian component. It is important to suspend such support without the need to cancel it. But conditioning its restoration in exchange for adherence to democratic constitutional order.
The US Congress also can call human rights organizations to testify through the Lantos Commission about the current situation of Nicaragua. They can also ask for an accounting of the State Department on the actions that the Government will take on Nicaragua in the short term.
The silence of the United States is not feasible, since the Nicaraguan crisis directly affects the region and that country. This year more than 100,000 people will be leaving Nicaragua (nearly 2% of the population), as a result of the crisis. Just in the first five months of 2021 more than 15,000 Nicaraguans have tried to enter the US border. In the southern border, each week there are thousands of people requesting visas to enter Costa Rica and many others trying to cross over in an irregular manner. The intention to migrate among more than 30% of Nicaraguans increases even more among those who believe that there will be electoral fraud, and the human rights conditions are the principal problem of the country. This intention is similar to the conditions that are causing many Central Americans to migrate.
Third, the United States and other countries of the region also have the obligation to influence Central America, and particularly in Honduras to suspend the financing from CABEI. Honduras has been loath to criticize Nicaragua because its president is thinking about using this country to go into exile after he finishes his period. Nevertheless, the CABEI has to consider its reputational viability on continuing providing financing to this dictatorship, when the rest of the world has made clear the serious human rights violations under the Ortega regime.
Fourth, the community of nations can promote the selection of a special envoy for Nicaragua in the name of the United Nations who might intercede to mediate and stop the repression and demand the suspension of the police state. This envoy is vitally urgent right at the moment in which the escalation of violence might begin after the celebration of the anniversary of the Sandinista revolution on July 19th. Diplomats with experience in mediation can contribute to finding an end to this crisis. The European Union and Spain have been vocal in rejecting the strategy of official disinformation which lies to the Nicaraguan people day after day, while it censors and represses the independent press.
Fifth, the Nicaraguan diaspora has a very important role. Its remittance to 750,000 homes continues literally propping up this economy, nevertheless, the relatives of the diaspora as well as their income can be used as a strategy of resistance, whenever they administer their spending without benefitting the State.
Sixth, at this moment it is vital to count on the leadership of the Catholic Church and the Vatican. Their role is paramount to attest to reconstructing the different opposition blocks who have been decapitated and mediating with the international community in moments in which the opposition is being silenced. Religious authority is highly valued in Nicaragua and can contribute to applying pressure to restore civil and political rights, even electoral conditions. The role of the Vatican has been vitally important for mediating between the opposition and the Government on many occasions, which is why their voice, not their silence, in the face of so much repression becomes a moral, religious and humanitarian obligation to prevent a Rwanda-rization of this country.
Within the Sandinista sector, and among public servants – civilian and military – there is a broad dissident sector that does not support the recent jailings and does not accept their justification, but they need incentives to manifest themselves in the midst of the reigning repression. The moral and religious authority of the Church and the Vatican are vitally important to appeal to the political awareness of these dissident and even pro-Government sectors.
Otherwise, the Nicaraguan decline in the coming two years will be characterized by more political violence, crime and migration. The Ortega-Murillos have no scruples, and like William Walker, are willing to set the country on fire first, before giving up power.