On September 11, 2024, a group of seventy-six deputies from the Central American Parliament (Parlacen) requested that the Russian Federation, through the State Duma, be admitted as a permanent observer to the subregional body. During the next plenary assembly of Parlacen, scheduled for September 26-27, 2024, a vote will be held to formalize Russia’s incorporation. Given the significant number of deputies who supported the request—76 out of 120—it is highly likely that the initiative will be approved.
Russia’s entry into Parlacen would occur just thirteen months after the People’s Republic of China joined the same subregional body, resulting in the exclusion of the Republic of China (Taiwan). Furthermore, the modus operandi and key actors appear to be the same, as the Nicaraguan dictatorship has been behind both initiatives, and on both occasions, it has acted through the former President of the Parlacen Board of Directors and current Vice President, Central American Deputy Daniel Ortega Reyes. At the time, Taiwan described the Nicaraguan bloc’s proposal as a manipulation and a conspiracy scheme by China to undermine democracy in Central America and expand its influence in the region. Now, a new protagonist has emerged in this manipulation and conspiracy scheme promoted by the regime of Daniel Ortega: Russia.
We would then be witnessing the continuation of a campaign initiated in April 2022 to displace Taipei from Central America and insert the autocracies of Beijing and Moscow into the region, starting with Parlacen but extending to the Central American Integration System (SICA) and the Central American Bank for Economic Integration (CABEI). However, in these institutions, the Ortega regime would encounter more significant obstacles in achieving its goals. This is because SICA operates under a consensus rule, meaning any member state could block Russia’s entry, while CABEI requires the establishment of more structured synergies for the participation of extra-regional actors through partnerships and donor trust funds.
In the case of Russia, although its incorporation as an observer of SICA was approved in 2018, the consensus rule has prevented Putin’s regime from formalizing its status within the Central American integration system. Regarding Parlacen, the incorporation of the State Duma of the Russian Federation as a permanent observer would also contradict the democratic nature of the body, bordering on illegality. This is because Parlacen became a regional and permanent organ of political and democratic representation of SICA after the adoption of the protocol of reforms to its constitutive treaty. Among the new responsibilities for the parliament outlined in the protocol is the duty to “contribute to the consolidation of the democratic, pluralistic, representative, and participatory system in Central American countries, as well as to the respect and promotion of human rights.”
In other words, a state that is neither democratic nor respectful of human rights or international public law should not aspire to be an observer of Parlacen or SICA, as it cannot contribute in any way to the consolidation of Central America as a region of peace, freedom, democracy, and development. Russia has evidently ceased to be a democracy and has no regard for human rights or international law—just ask the family of the late opposition figure Alexei Navalny and the brave Ukrainian people, who continue to resist Russian aggression to this day.
Parlacen emerged after the Esquipulas Accords, which proposed a formula to end the bloody civil wars that plagued Central America during the second half of the 20th century, building on the prior work of the Contadora Group (Colombia, Mexico, Panama, and Venezuela). The idea behind Parlacen and integration through SICA was that democratization in Central America would help maintain peace in the region. However, the authoritarian and dictatorial trajectory that Nicaragua has taken under the Ortega-Murillo regime now poses a threat to the democratic stability of Central America and to Central American institutions such as Parlacen and SICA.
The continuation of the Ortega-Murillo dictatorship is a direct affront to the historic Tobar Doctrine, formulated by Ecuadorian Foreign Minister Dr. Carlos R. Tobar in 1907 and applied for the first time that same year in Central America. This doctrine establishes that, in defense of legitimate democracy, governments should avoid recognizing de facto regimes. The Ortega regime’s disdain for democratic institutions is so extreme that it withdrew Nicaragua from the Organization of American States and imposed its candidate as Secretary-General of SICA for the 2022-2026 term, with the acquiescence of all member states of the system who sought to appease it. Now, the goal of the Nicaraguan dictatorship, through multiple machinations and emissaries, is to insert yet another autocracy into Parlacen—Russia—by the end of September this year, thereby continuing to undermine the fragile democratic institutions of Central America.
The author is an associate researcher at Expediente Abierto.