Daniel Ortega, a former guerrilla, won his fourth consecutive term as president after jailing most of his potential opponents and forcing others into exile
“The election had no legitimacy,” says María Lilly Delgado, a journalist. Hard men from the ruling Sandinista party, who had gone from house to house telling people to vote, hung out at polling booths, menacingly. President Joe Biden denounced the poll as “a pantomime”. Several countries have refused to recognise the result. One organisation reckons that 80% of Nicaraguans boycotted the vote.
The regime spreads disinformation. On November 1st Facebook said that, in the month before, it had shut down a “troll farm” of more than 1,000 fake social media accounts operated by state employees. Most media are controlled by the children of the Ortegas or their allies. Independent journalists are mostly in exile.
Since 2018 the regime has relied more on brute force, says a political scientist . That year thousands of young people took to the streets to protest against proposed changes to welfare payments. Police and pro-regime thugs opened fire on them. More than 300 people died. Many more were locked up. Political prisoners are deprived of food and subjected to constant bright lights.
The ruling couple will shrug off criticism from abroad. The United States and the European Union have already imposed sanctions on the regime’s inner circle, including Ms Murillo and at least three of the couple’s nine children, and may add more. Mr Biden’s administration is considering expelling Nicaragua from Central America’s free-trade agreement, but rather than harm Mr Ortega, that would mostly affect the lives of ordinary folk.
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