Irving Cordero
Academic Director of Fundación Libertad para Nicaragua
Nicaragua, since 2018, has experienced one of the deepest socio-political crises in recent years, as a result of the permanence of the dictatorial and dynastic Ortega-Murillo regime that has been characterized by corruption and by the closure of all democratic spaces with the aim of retaining power at any cost causing discontent among the population.
This discontent led to peaceful protests that were violently repressed by the National Police and paramilitary forces, created by the regime to undermine the marches, using institutional resources.
The accumulated abuses of the regime led to a social detonator that began on April 18, 2018 and has extended to date.
This crisis has left more than 300 people killed, a large number of injured, people deprived of liberty and persecution of human rights defenders, journalists and the civilian population in general, according to the Nicaragua Country Report of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.
Likewise, state institutions have been at the service of the regime, such as the National Police, which together with the Judiciary have opened criminal cases against citizens without any legal basis.
Society continues to demand through civic means the democratization of Nicaragua and free and transparent elections, to which the dictatorship responds with more violations of individual rights, imprisonment, siege, intimidation and selective assassinations of the population, causing citizen insecurity and an atmosphere of uncertainty in the country.
Likewise, this crisis has caused great economic losses in companies that are besieged by paramilitary groups of the regime and that have looted businesses and destroyed private property.
The regime, through state terrorism, is promoting the invasion of private property, looting and hatred through its official media and generating greater risk in the increase of organized crime, significantly deteriorating economic growth indicators.
For this year 2021, although there is a resolution of the Organization of American States (OAS) that evidences that the nature of the Ortega-Murillo regime is illegal and illegitimate for lacking real and democratic processes, it had reached some agreements with the regime to provide a solution to the crisis by holding elections.
Among the agreements reached with the regime to generate conditions for fair elections were the modernization of the Supreme Electoral Council (CSE); the rights of peaceful assembly and freedom of expression; the open registration of new political parties; updating of voting records; international electoral observation; distribution of identity cards; the publication of results in real time and adequate procedures for the presentation of complaints.
However, the regime failed to comply with these agreements and reformed the electoral law in order to block opposition political parties, inhibit candidates and elect new magistrates in the CSE openly sympathetic to the dictatorship to guarantee electoral fraud.
Likewise, on October 19, 2020, Law 1040, Law for the Regulation of Foreign Agents, was published, which has as its main objective to establish regulatory frameworks applied to national and/or foreign natural and legal persons with the purpose of blocking foreign financing to civil society organizations that have been openly critical of the regime.
Likewise, protests have been criminalized and the country lives in a de facto police state, under constant siege of opposition groups by criminal gangs in complicity with the National Police and the Nicaraguan Army, both institutions are the only means of sustaining the regime through violence.
It is important to highlight that in addition to hindering political organizations, they have stripped the legal status of several opposition political parties and have opened criminal investigations against presidential pre-candidates, such is the case of Mrs. Cristiana Chamorro, who has been charged with the alleged crime of money laundering and without any legal basis, she was sentenced to house arrest on Wednesday, June 2, 2021. It is important to highlight that Mrs. Chamorro is one of the most visible and credible leaders in Nicaragua.
Likewise, on Saturday, June 5, opposition academic Arturo Cruz was arrested under the pretext of alleged interference and for violating the alleged Law for the Defense of the Rights of the Peoples, popularly known as the “guillotine law”.
That same day, opposition leader and presidential pre-candidate Felix Maradiaga was summoned to testify by the Attorney General’s Office in a process of unknown cause. It is important to highlight that Mr. Maradiaga, as well as other opposition leaders, is forbidden to leave his house and is being held by the police, although there is no open process or sentence that declares him guilty to date.
In this context, the dictatorship has received constant economic sanctions from the international community; however, in view of these measures, they have hardened their positions and closed to date the possibilities of a frank dialogue that would allow a political solution to the crisis.
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