Nicaragua in 2019: The Surprising Resilience of Authoritarianism in the Aftermath of Regime Crisis

Abstract

The April 2018 protests in Nicaragua inaugurated the Latin American protest wave that subsequently spread across the region in 2019. The protests and their governmental suppression ushered Nicaraguan politics into a regime crisis. Yet, despite international pressure, the harsh reality of a serious economic downturn, low and diminishing public support and the continued opposition resistance throughout 2019, the orteguista regime has proven to be remarkably resilient to change. In fact, it has tightened its grip on power and managed to deflect demands for change during negotiations with the opposition which eventually failed. Focusing on the main opposition and regime actors and strategies, the article argues that the neopatrimonial characteristics of the regime explain this surprising resilience.

Fiddling while Democracy Burns: Partisan Reactions to Weak Democracy in Latin America

“…Yet regime insiders insist that Nicaragua is a democracy. After his most recent reelection in 2016, for example, Ortega declared that Nicaragua has “consolidated its democracy.” 15 A recent publication in the party newspaper argues that elections are free and fair and that “Nicaragua is constructing a democracy that the North America Empire [the United States] never wanted us to have.” 16 Instead of rejecting these changes, the FSLN has increasingly consolidated around Ortega and his family (Martí i Puig and Serra 2020; Buben and Kouba 2020), and the FSLN-controlled congress has recently passed laws weakening media freedom, empowering the president, and allowing Ortega’s wife to serve as vice president despite a constitutional ban on such intra-familial ties. Multiple key members of the regime have labeled the recent protests as a conspiracy coordinated by the United States whose participants are “terrorists” and “devils” and argued for their suppression 17…”

The effect of national protest in Ecuador on PM pollution

“…At the end of the year, Latin America was the main stage of demonstrations against governments in Mexico 9 , Chile 10 , Bolivia 11 , 12 , Colombia 13 and Ecuador 14 . Massive demonstrations and severe riots flared up in the capital cities and in some cases spread all over the country, lasting from a few weeks (Ecuador, Bolivia) to months (Chile, Mexico, Nicaragua, Colombia) and even spilling into the next year (Argentina, Peru, Colombia, Nicaragua and Mexico) 15 , 16 .…”

The Democratic Cost of Consecutive Re-election and Presidential Term-Limit Evasion in Latin America

“…For example, the abolition of term limits in Nicaragua was a two-step process as the incumbent Sandinista president Daniel Ortega first removed the absolute proscription of consecutive re-election in 2009 and then moved to fully undo all term limits in 2014 (Close 2019). Both were isolated constitutional reforms and both helped fragment the opposition, reduce political competition and gradually move the country towards an authoritarian regime (Buben and Kouba 2020). Compare this to Bolivia, where the term-limit relaxation by Evo Morales was originally adopted as part of the new constitution in 2009, but which developed along a similar path to Nicaragua as President Morales ignored the original two-term limit (and the results of the 2016 referendum where a majority of Bolivians rejected another term extension).…”