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MEXICO CITY — As Nicaragua has steadily marched toward dictatorship in recent years, its government has attacked opposition politicians, the Catholic Church, journalists and universities.
Now it’s about the beauty queens.
Just when the authorities seemed to have suppressed all forms of dissent, slim, 23-year-old Nicaraguan Sheynnis Palacios won the Miss Universe pageant on November 18. People poured into the streets of the Central American country cheering. The government initially praised the victory – then photos emerged of Palacios taking part in mass anti-government protests in 2018 that were eventually crushed by security forces.
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Since the pageant, the tall, gentle brunette has become a symbol of national pride and Nicaraguans’ longing for change. Now the government of President Daniel Ortega is fighting back.
On Friday evening, Nicaraguan police accused the family that runs the country’s Miss Universe franchise of “conspiracy against the nation.” A police statement said Karen Celebertti, a former beauty queen who has run the Miss Nicaragua pageant since 2001, used “rooms allegedly dedicated to promoting ‘innocent’ beauty pageants” in a foreign-backed plot to stimulate opposition. Her husband and son were also named in the complaint.
Analysts said the attack on the Miss Universe franchise was the latest sign of paranoia from a government that has jailed or deported nearly all opposition leaders, revoked the licenses of news organizations and jailed Catholic bishops and priests.
“It’s this strange mix of fear on their part coupled with a sense of impunity,” said Ricardo Zúniga, senior adviser at the US Institute of Peace and a former top State Department official for Latin American affairs.
Rosario Murillo, Ortega’s wife and government spokeswoman, did not respond to an email seeking comment.
Ortega, now 78, helped lead a left-wing revolution that toppled right-wing dictator Anastasio Somoza in 1979. More than four decades later, Nicaragua remains one of the poorest and most politically oppressed countries in the Western Hemisphere. Since the crackdown on protests in 2018, the number of Nicaraguans fleeing in search of U.S. asylum has skyrocketed. A recent study by AmericasBarometer found that half of the population wanted to emigrate.
Palacios was the first Central American to win Miss Universe, and her triumph gave the oppressed nation a rare moment of joy. But the government appeared unsettled as people took to the streets cheering and waving the blue and white flag of Nicaragua. In a country where the flag has become a symbol of protest, this is an offense punishable by prison. Murillo, who is also vice president, criticized protesters for trying to “turn a beautiful and legitimate moment of pride and celebration into a destructive coup.”
The security forces went into action. When Celebertti flew home after the pageant on November 23, she was refused entry to Nicaragua, according to media reports. She is said to be in Mexico. According to media reports, police arrested her husband and son at their home in Managua, the capital of Nicaragua, last Tuesday. The government did not provide any information about their whereabouts.
The police document said Celebertti, her husband and son took part in the anti-government protests in 2018. After the uprising was suppressed, in which more than 300 people died, the family maintained contact with “supporters of treason,” according to the complaint. They allegedly turned the Miss Nicaragua beauty pageants into “political ambushes” aimed at undermining the government with the support of “foreign agents,” police said.
Celebertti’s lawyers and relatives declined to comment on the case. Palacios, who won the Miss Nicaragua pageant in August, was not named in the statement.
The police statement warned that Celebertti, her husband and son “must serve the sentences provided for by Nicaraguan law.” They are accused, among other things, of organized crime and financing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. (It was not clear if the weapon was Miss Universe).
Nicaragua’s Ortega puts the political opposition on trial
Palacios appears to be an unlikely threat to the Ortega government. She’s not even in Nicaragua; She recently moved to New York for her Miss Universe duties. Her old Facebook account, where she posted photos of herself during the 2018 protests, has been deleted. She has not commented publicly on the country’s politics.
Nevertheless, she radiates an attraction that Ortega finds difficult to resist.
While Palacios wowed the Miss Universe audience with her elegance as she swept across the stage in a silver dress and light blue cape, she comes from a humble background. She paid her way through college by winning scholarships and selling buñuelos, a sweet fried treat.
She has emphasized her Catholic faith at a time when the church in Nicaragua is under siege. The government has effectively severed ties with the Vatican and seized control of Palaciaos’ alma mater, the Jesuit-run University of Central America.
“She is deeply Nicaraguan, in a way that appeals to almost everyone,” Zúniga said. “There’s no one on the Joint Chiefs of Staff who says, ‘I wish we could hit her in the head and drag her to prison.'”
The United States, the European Union and Canada have sanctioned senior officials in Ortega’s government, including Murillo, for anti-democratic behavior and corruption. Still, they don’t seem to make much of a difference. In January 2022, Ortega was sworn in as president for the fourth consecutive term, after what the Biden administration called a “pantomime election” that did not allow for real competition.
Nicaragua’s government has asserted increasing control over social and political life in recent years, closing more than 3,000 nongovernmental organizations, including Mother Teresa’s Missionaries and a local branch of the Rotary Club. Authorities accused some of being foreign agents.
But can it control a beauty queen? Police stopped some artists in the northern town of Estelí from painting a mural of Miss Universe last month, according to media reports. The picture was painted over. But in a video making the rounds on social media, a Nicaraguan rapper named Witto El Menor sings a tribute to the beauty queen.
“In your silhouette I see my flag,” he raps, holding up the blue and white Nicaraguan flag. “They reflect our country’s constant struggle to move forward.”
Ismael Lopez in San Jose, Costa Rica contributed to this report.