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.
The outcome of today’s election is assured: Ortega, who returned to power in 2006 after a 16-year hiatus, will win a fourth term. The Biden administration will issue a strongly worded statement denouncing the elections as a sham and will probably issue another round of sanctions. None of this, however, will do much of anything to rectify the situation. Ortega will then use his next five years in office to prepare a successor (the top contender being his wife and vice president, Rosario Murillo).
Nicaragua has been called “a big problem” for President Joe Biden personally. If only because a small, autocratic nation in the Western Hemisphere doesn’t exactly jive with his administration’s pro-democracy agenda. But if Nicaragua is indeed a problem, it’s a relatively minor one for Washington, which doesn’t necessarily have a glowing track record in the country (remember the contras?).
This isn’t to absolve Ortega and Murillo of their crimes and incompetence. Nicaraguans are fully justified in their anger and disappointment about the state of their political system. But feelings don’t amount to a policy. And let’s face it: as bad as the Ortega government’s behavior has been since it put down a student-led revolt in 2018, there isn’t much the Biden administration can do about it. At least not without making the situation worse. Nicaragua may be a small, relatively insignificant country in the grand scheme of things, but it’s also a country whose leadership couldn’t care less about what the U.S. thinks. Indeed, Ortega prides himself on being an irritant.
To date, the Biden administration has responded to Ortega’s political crackdown with visa bans and asset freezes. On July 12, the U.S. State Department revoked the visas of 100 pro-Ortega officials, including judges, parliamentarians, and prosecutors. The State Department took away the visas of 50 more Nicaraguans in August, this time against family members of certain Nicaraguan officials. The Treasury Department also slapped sanctions on four Ortega government officials, including the vice president’s daughter and a Brigadier General of the Nicaraguan Army, for human rights abuses. Sanctions on individuals, however, are hardly effective in instituting the policy change Washington seeks. For Ortega, free and fair elections are a nonstarter, for they would likely result in a humiliating end to the dynasty he is trying to build.
The U.S. could enact broader sanctions on the Nicaraguan economy. Half of Managua’s exports are destined for the U.S., which provides Washington significant economic leverage. But with 30% of families living below the poverty level and 44% of Nicaraguans reporting lower incomes due to the Covid-19 pandemic, curtailing trade would punish ordinary Nicaraguans for the sins of their leaders. It would also encourage even more Nicaraguans to make the dangerous journey to the U.S. That would create additional headaches for the Border Patrol at a time when agents have registered a 965% increase in the number of Nicaraguans apprehended this year compared to the 2015-2019 average.
As much as Washington may want to pressure the Ortega family into retirement, pressuring too hard is liable to plunge Nicaragua’s entire population into deeper destitution.
Daniel DePetris (@DanDePetris) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. His opinions are his own.
