Using international leverage to arrest Nicaragua’s downward spiral toward authoritarian rule could prevent President Daniel Ortega from “morphing” into another Robert Mugabe, argues Kevin Casas-Zamora, senior fellow in foreign policy at Washington’s Brookings Institution.
Ortega’s Sandinista movement has reacted violently to the alleged rigging of last month’s elections, cancelling the registration of two opposition parties, and harassing its critics – including former Sandinista poet Ernesto Cardenal – as well as domestic and international civil society groups.
“Our democracy is in grave danger,” said Carlos Tunnermann, a former Sandinista ambassador. “There are dictatorial tendencies taking away Nicaraguans’ right to choose.”
As the largest bilateral provider of aid, the U.S. should follow the lead of European states, and reconsider cooperation links with the Ortega regime, Casas-Zamora argues, “prudently, but firmly” using as leverage the $175 million five-year Millennium Challenge agreement signed in 2005.
With the lowest approval rating of all six Central American heads of state at just 22 percent, Ortega has been courting unsavory international allies, including Iran and Libya. “Ortega has become a deeply unpopular president after a series of scandals,” the U.S.-based Stratfor consulting firm notes. “Making grand gestures in the international system is one way for Ortega to step into the spotlight and perhaps attract an international sponsor.”
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