Nicaraguans are going to the polls on Sunday for what, in theory, is a presidential election.

I say in theory because the word election does a gross disservice. This election is more like a government-sponsored coronation. Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega has spent most of the year doing everything in his power to disenfranchise the political opposition, take key politicians off the ballot, and make the situation miserable for anyone who dares to say something negative about him. Seven presidential candidates have been arrested or confined to their homes, political parties have been branded as foreign agents, and civil society activists have been tried for treason. Even former Sandinista revolutionaries have been banished into exile.