Nicaragua will see another electoral process next month, exactly a year after the November 2021 general election that gave way to the fourth term of Daniel Ortega, president since 2007.
Local elections on November 6 will elect mayors, deputy mayors and members of advisory councils to 153 mayoral offices, 135 of which have been in the hands of the ruling Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) as of 2017. In addition, five others have fallen under the control of the FSLN since early July this year, when opposition mayors were removed to appoint de facto co-religionists of the ruling party.
The expectation of change in these elections is certainly less high than last year, although the importance of these elections is no less, given that the results could spell the definitive demise of the democratic pluralism that Nicaragua is already suffering from. It will also be a radical blow to institutionality. At the national level, the Sandinista government already controls the other three branches of government. Soon this influence would take over the entire communal structure.
The question at this point is whether this electoral process will share the same characteristics that the OAS used to characterize the 2021 presidential electoral law. The OAS General Assembly concluded with 25 votes in favor, seven abstentions and only one vote against from Nicaragua that these elections “were not free, fair or transparent and [tuvieron] democratic legitimacy. The answer is obvious as local conditions have not changed or, according to available information, have even deteriorated.
That year, through Law 1116, the National Assembly reformed the electoral law — which had already been reformed for the 2021 presidential election — but did not change provisions that unduly restrict rights to political participation and public liberties. Therefore, regulations are in force obliging parties to apply for police authorization to meet with their supporters at a rally during the campaign (Art. 89.1), or prohibiting citizens from holding demonstrations reserved only for those who take part in elections (Article 95).
Law 1116 cut the length of the election campaign by more than half, from 42 to 20 days. In a context like the current one, where the ruling party controls 92% of the mayoral posts and is running for 111 acting mayors and deputy mayors, this cut would hamper other policy options that have been denounced as not having enough time to become known or disseminate and discuss their proposals with the electorate. This would be at a disadvantage in terms of the general conditions of equal access to public office, a right recognized by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
The three political parties arbitrarily dissolved by the Supreme Electoral Council in 2021 will not take part in the municipal competition. One of them, Citizens for Freedom, administered a quarter of opposition mayors through July. It is predictable that many candidates willing to serve and contribute to the development of their communities will also not attend given the imprisonment of seven presidential candidates and other political and civil society leaders months ahead of the 2021 general election – today condemned as traitors to the country – It is not exactly an incentive to apply.
More recently, repression has been more blatant in the country outside the capital, particularly vehement in certain communities like Masaya, where in September a deployment of hundreds of police officers thwarted processions honoring their patron saint. Weeks earlier, in Sébaco and Matagalpa, 15 people, including priests and lay people, had been held by the security forces in church facilities for between three and 15 days. Eight of those people, including the Bishop of Matagalpa, are currently in custody or under house arrest for allegedly trying to organize violent groups to destabilize the state and attack the authorities.
In September, police in the municipalities of Jinotepe, Juigalpa, Managua, Matagalpa, Nagarote and Nueva Guinea arrested members of UNAMOS, a party that originated in a split from the FSLN more than 25 years ago. Although UNAMOS has no legal standing to participate in elections, it is one of the most influential political organizations in the country. In addition to arresting ten of its members over the last month, police have also arbitrarily arrested other members’ spouses, children and siblings, sending the implicit and explicit message that they will not be released until their party family member is released. handed over to the authorities. This unspeakable action has occurred in more than one instance and reinforces patterns of political persecution practiced in Nicaragua since 2018.
The recent wave of repression has not shut out the local media. According to civil society, of the 26 media outlets that have been closed in Nicaragua so far this year, 23 were operating in 19 municipalities in Chinandega, Estelí, Jinotega, León, Matagalpa, Nueva Segovia and Río San Juan departments and Autonomous Regions. the southern and northern Caribbean coasts. The closure of these radio and television stations means that the channels of communication, information and discussion on matters of public interest will be restricted in view of the municipal elections.
Organized civil society at the local level has also not escaped the state’s fierce onslaught to reduce civil society and democratic space. Of the more than 2,514 organizations that suffered disincorporation in 2022 — an unprecedented number according to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to peaceful assembly and association — a good proportion operated in neglected communities and far from home of the capital, including those on the Atlantic coast with a large indigenous and Afro-descended population.
These are some of the elements that make up the scenario ahead of the November 6 municipal elections, after which Nicaragua could be even more subject to a government resistant to discrepancy and pluralism that will concentrate all political power in its hands. which contradicts the basic principles of a democratic constitutional state. For this reason, the international community cannot abandon the people of Nicaragua, who have fought and are fighting for decades for the recognition of their rights and a return to life in genuine democracy.
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