Mr. Ortega got “re-elected” as President of Nicaragua in the elections held on November 7 that were widely discredited as a “sham” exercise. Later in the 1980s, the Sandinistas had to wage another civil war against rebels, mostly drawn from the Somoza regime, called the “Contras”, who were supported by the U.S. The Sandinistas were returned to power in 1984 but Mr. Ortega lost in the 1990 elections to the National Opposition Union in a peaceful transition. Far from a collective leadership which included ex-revolutionaries and democratic-minded popular civil society figures (that the 1979-1990 arrangement entailed), Nicaragua, under Mr. Ortega, resembled caudillo-style personalised rule that reverted to patronage to sustain its popularity. Since then, Mr. Ortega’s regime has transitioned further into a new oligarchy that is not too dissimilar from the Somoza regime that terrorised and controlled Nicaragua for four decades from the 1930s.

Source: The Hindu November 13, 2021 16:43 UTC