The Contagion of the Ortega Model

The outright fraud that Nicolás Maduro is pushing forward with support from top military officials constitutes a true coup d’etat against the will of the people. It has led political analysts and the international media to compare it with the practices of the Ortega Murillo regime.

Thomas Shannon, a prestigious American diplomat and expert on the region, expressed that one way forward for Maduro is to radicalize his regime to follow the Nicaraguan model. Enrique Marques, former director of Venezuela’s National Electoral Council (CSE), fears that Maduro instead of listening to Lula Da Silva, Manuel Lopez Obrador, and Gustavo Petro will follow the advice from Ortega.

This prediction has led us to consider the differences, until now, between the Chavista-Madurista model and Ortega’s. As well as the reasons that would explain the sympathy for the Orteguista dictatorial model which makes it replicable in Latin America.

Up until July 28th, Venezuela was considered a hybrid regime that moved from an imperfect democracy towards an authoritarian regime. On the other hand, Nicaragua has a consolidated totalitarian regime without political pluralism or agreeable electoral conditions. Furthermore, the effects of the trade, economic, and financial sanctions on Venezuela gave them an incentive to negotiate some degree of openness. For lack of these incentives, the Ortega-Murillo lack the interest to grant any democratic concessions.

Both regimes secured full control of all powers of the State and public institutions. They applied a security model developed by the Cubans, in which public institutions and party organizations ensure social control and are always ready to repress. They possess elements of a market economy with tolerance for some traditional businessmen, but under crony capitalism, rooted in corruption and abuse of power.

Nicaragua, to a greater degree than Venezuela, closed all spaces of participation. It canceled all opposition parties, banished and denationalized its leaders and territorial cadres, closed private sector organizations, restricted religious freedoms, dismantled Church institutions, and incarcerated and expelled bishops and pastors both Evangelic and Catholic.  It closed private universities, independent media, and media outlets of the Churches, eliminated the legal status of more than five thousand Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), and confiscated their assets.

In short, a scorched-earth campaign against everything that is not under its control or that may challenge its absolute rule over society, a process to which Venezuela is heading to become, just like Nicaragua, an outlaw state, characterized by non-compliance with laws and international conventions, and by ignoring the decisions of organizations whose purpose is to preserve the world order.

There is a similarity between the repressive and persecution policies of both regimes that commit crimes against humanity. Venezuela’s Operation “Tun Tun” is similar to the “Vamos con Todo” that the Ortega Murillo family carried out against thousands of Nicaraguans who exercised their right to protest, political, social, and business leaders, who were captured without warrants, subjected to torture, and sentenced without due process.

The narrative of an alleged coup d’état is also similar, which only exists as a justification for the repression by Ortega and Maduro, who are the ones who staged a coup against the will of the people.

Venezuela and Nicaragua are part of the totalitarian international headed by Russia, China, and Cuba.  Among them, they exchange information on best practices and the most appropriate legislation for social control and the elimination of dissidence. Nicaragua is currently demonstrating that it is the most advanced, which is why it exports its successful repressive and anti-democratic methods.

The Nicaraguan Democratic Concertation (CDN) considers that the Ortega Murillo family bases its hegemony on force, coercion, the annulment of all critical thinking and the capacity to articulate a position different from the official one. Its ideology is to preserve power and inherit it. The sustainability of its model, based on the failure of the current international order to guarantee respect for human rights, democracy, universal justice, and the principles of international law, is the main incentive to reproduce it. Therefore, the international community must reinvent itself to face the new challenges to peace, democratic security, and the values of humanity.