When most people think of dictatorships or autocracies, they usually point to countries like North Korea, Iran, Russia and China. Yet there is a nation just as repressive as those on this list, and it just so happens to reside in America’s own hemisphere.
Nicaragua, whose politics have been upended by former Sandinista fighter-turned-strongman Daniel Ortega and his wife, Rosario Murillo, is now arguably the Western Hemisphere’s most insular political system. Ortega’s declaration last week that the Central American nation will no longer be holding elections is the culmination of years in which the old anti-American leftist has barred political challengers to his rule, handcuffed anyone deemed disloyal to the state and confiscated the assets of political activists banished from ever entering Nicaragua ever again. A man who was an integral part of overthrowing the U.S.-backed dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza in the late 1970s has effectively transformed his country into an ever more strident, and far less wealthy, family kleptocracy.
Although U.S. officials and democracy proponents were aghast as Ortega canceled future elections, it shouldn’t have been a surprise. Ever since the 2018 anti-government protests that erupted after Managua sought to modify Nicaragua’s social security and pension policies, Ortega has gradually expanded the power of the state and taken proactive measures to ensure large-scale protests—or any protests at all—don’t happen again. He’s done this by trying to arrest his way out of the problem. Nicaraguan opposition figures have been thrown into prison, only to be released and excommunicated from the country altogether. Those who are deemed threats to the state have seen their citizenship revoked and their property seized. Thousands of activist organizations and nongovernmental organizations have been declared illegal and shut down—even the Catholic Church hasn’t been immune to the clampdown.
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