The strong reaction from the international democratic community to dictator Daniel Ortega’s announcement that Nicaragua will never again hold elections has been striking.
For Nicaraguans living in exile, across the diaspora, and inside the country who still hold on to the hope of democratic change—and who understand that such change can only come through sustained international pressure—that reaction has been welcome and encouraging. It could, and should, mark the beginning of turning the prospect of democratic change in Nicaragua into a reality.
What has been equally notable, and deeply concerning, is the silence of the Central American governments of El Salvador and Honduras in the face of such a grave declaration by Ortega.
By contrast, the governments of Guatemala, Costa Rica, Panama, and the Dominican Republic recognized their regional political responsibility and rejected Ortega’s statement, which constitutes an unacceptable violation of the fundamental principle underpinning the Central American integration system, as well as regional coexistence and hemispheric security: representative democracy, expressed through the regular holding of free, inclusive, pluralistic, and competitive elections.
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Marco Rubio´s call
In his forceful statement responding to Ortega’s remarks on July 19, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio called on the international community to “not stand idly by while the Murillo-Ortega dictatorship intensifies domestic repression and creates instability that threatens the national security of the United States.”
The message was both clear and timely. It is therefore difficult to understand the indifference of the governments of Honduras and El Salvador, both close allies of the United States. They are also members of the Shield of the Americas, the strategic alliance established by Washington to combat and defeat forces that threaten hemispheric security.
Every democratic government in Central America should unequivocally condemn Nicaragua’s dictatorship—not only individually, but also through the Central American Integration System (SICA), which has only recently been freed from the obstructionist and paralyzing influence of the Ortega-Murillo Sandinista regime.
It cannot be argued that SICA is unable—or should refrain from—addressing the internal political affairs of a member state when those affairs directly or indirectly affect the interests of the entire Central American community. There is precedent for such action, and it involves Nicaragua itself. In June 2005, SICA responded decisively to Nicaragua’s political crisis, triggered by an alliance between Daniel Ortega’s Sandinistas and Arnoldo Alemán’s Liberals to strip then-President Enrique Bolaños of his principal constitutional powers through a dubious constitutional reform that amounted, in practice, to an attempted legislative coup.
Based on that precedent, SICA could—and should—collectively condemn the Nicaraguan dictatorship’s full descent into totalitarianism. It should also request that the Permanent Council of the Organization of American States convene a special session of the General Assembly to declare the Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo regime illegitimate. Such a declaration would merely reaffirm what the OAS had already established after Nicaragua’s fraudulent November 2021 elections.
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Once the regime’s illegitimacy is reaffirmed, the international community could begin implementing the political measures necessary to bring the Ortega-Murillo dictatorship to an end and allow the Nicaraguan people to reclaim their freedom and democracy.
Ultimately, it is a matter of having the political will to do what is necessary in defense of international law and democratic principles.
