Nicaragua: Why Its Authoritarian Manual Seems to be Written in Russian and Why This Matters
Image Courtesy of the U.S. Naval Institute
By: Fernanda Álvarez Pineiro
As an anti-imperialist ideologue in 1979, Daniel Ortega was revered as a champion of the Sandinista Revolution that brought freedom to Nicaragua by overthrowing the authoritarian Somoza regime. Now, in 2021, Ortega has fallen from grace and has impersonated the villainous political character he originally repudiated and ceaselessly fought against in the first place. Weakened rule of law, suppression of the free press, chronic nepotism, brazen violations of the Constitution, and a rhetoric that bifurcates Nicaraguan society amongst ‘loyalists’ and ‘foreign agents’ are the keys closing the return to democracy in the country. It is therefore unsurprising that the US former National Security Advisor, John Bolton, coined Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua as the “troika of tyranny” of Latin America.
Democratic erosion in Nicaragua is not unprecedented. Ortega has served as the de facto leader of Nicaragua since 2007. In 2011, he secured the approval of the Supreme Court to run for a subsequent presidential term, and again, gained the approval from the Nicaraguan National Assembly to amend the constitution in 2014 so that he could secure the presidency in 2016 for a third time. On top of his institutional iron-grasp on power, his regime also violently suppressed mass protests in 2018 which featured opposition groups decrying the seemingly irreversible truncation of political and social freedoms. His grip on power has undoubtedly continued to ossify as he has gradually come to embody a 21st Century caudillo.
Nicaragua’s growing authoritarianism fits into a global trend characterised by the backsliding of democracy and the rise of hybrid and authoritarian regimes. It is when narrated within this context that Nicaragua’s dictatorial politics crescendo to a tangible concern about the future of democracy– particularly in Latin America. Worst of all, however, is that some of Nicaragua’s recently established buttons and levers used to stifle opposition and criticism eerily resemble practices used in Vladimir Putin’s Russia.
The parallels between the two regimes allude to a newly emerging concept within political science known as ‘authoritarian learning’. According to a paper published by Hall and Ambrosio, “authoritarian regimes adopt survival strategies based upon the prior successes and failures of other governments”. The collapse of the USSR, for instance, which was catalysed by Mikhail Gorbachev’s policies of glasnost and perestroika, signalled to the Chinese Communist Party at the time that, in order to prevent political downfall at home, media freedom would need to be circumscribed alongside associational life. Similarly, Cuba’s Raúl Castro is reportedly attempting to emulate the Chinese and Vietnamese politico-economic models to open the country’s economy to the global community whilst maintaining political control.
Considering the pressures Nicaragua faces from a growing grassroots opposition and a changing US-Latin America agenda driven by the Biden administration, it is reasonable to assume Ortega could be drawing inspiration from successfully entrenched authoritarian regimes like Russia. The most notable instantiation of this was the adoption of a draconian law in December of last year wherebyNGOs and foreign media outlets have to register as ‘foreign agents’ if they receive money from international organizations. At best, violators of the law face shutdown and the confiscation of property – a result which has already been observed with the shutting down of a defender of free press, the Fundación Violeta Barrios de Chamorro. At worst, they face unabated repercussions facilitated by Nicaragua’s weak rule of law. Curiously enough, the bill has been denoted as the ‘Putin’ law due to its uncanny resemblance with a law passed in Russia in 2012. The original Putin law forced organizations engaging in political activity receiving foreign funding to register as foreign agents, even if the funding did not pay for any sort of political activities.
The objectives in Managua and Moscow are nearly carbon copies of each other – the respective foreign agent laws seek to ostracize civil society and suppress any budding sources of opposition against authoritarianism. As two strongmen who know a thing or two about political longevity, it seems that Ortega can extract lessons from Putin’s successful retention of power. For instance, Ortega is said to be weighing an amendment to Nicaragua’s constitution that would convert the country from a presidential to a parliamentary system in order to circumvent presidential limits by becoming the Prime Minister. Putin exercised a similar move in 2008 by becoming Russia’s Prime Minister, temporarily ceding the presidency to only recuperate it in 2012.
Of greatest concern, however, are the reforms that have been made to directly undermine free and fair elections. After all, what is a democracy if, at its core, it does not have elections? In Nicaragua, the ‘Law in Defence of the Rights of the People to Independence, Sovereignty and Self-Determination for Peace’ effectively prevents the opposition from running for election later this November. With the authority the law grants Ortega, he essentially has free reign in designating someone as ‘traitor to the homeland’ and hand out prison sentences as a result. On the other side of the same coin, following the Siberian city council election where Ksenia Fadeeva defeated Putin’s handpicked contender, opposition candidates can now be labelled on the ballot as ‘foreign agents’– an awkward label that can directly dissuade voters.
It is difficult to concretely discern if Ortega is, in fact, intentionally been taking notes on his Russian counterpart’s authoritarian behaviour. As Hall and Ambrosio admit, the reason why authoritarian learning is such an understudied concept is due to the near impossibility of collecting information about the paper trail that precedes the implementation of certain policies. But perhaps the other underlying reason is that, up until now, democracy had been the dominant political model to follow. The idea that democracy was the inevitable destination for all nations was a reigning dogma up until recently. This sanctification of democracy created a myopic focus on studying and promoting democracy whilst forgetting that democratic backsliding and erosion are symptoms that can sicken all political regimes that are –or were– on a democratizing path.
The parallels between Nicaraguan and Russian authoritarianism might indicate that the world has become safer for authoritarian regimes, meaning it is becoming increasingly more likely that they will have opportunities to learn from each other’s failures and successes. The November elections in Nicaragua, therefore, might become a breaking point for democracy in a region already surrounded by hybrid regimes like El Salvador and Honduras. If Ortega’s dictatorial hand continues to be raised victoriously, another chapter will be added to the manual of techniques that can be used by strongmen to further entrench their grip on power.
Fernanda Álvarez Pineiro is a second-year student of Politics and International Relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Originally Mexican, she is passionate about the political history of Latin America, particularly that of her home country.
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