http://www.economist.com/world/americas/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13145596
LATER this year Daniel Ortega will celebrate the 30th anniversary of the revolution that toppled the notorious American-backed dictatorship of the Somoza family and brought his left-wing Sandinista movement to power. Though Mr Ortega is once again president, as he was in the 1980s, in other ways Nicaraguan politics have changed radically. Most of his fellow revolutionary leaders have left the Sandinista Party and are now in opposition. And Mr Ortega is well on the way to establishing an autocracy, albeit a bankrupt one, in cahoots with former somocistas.
The latest step came last month when the Sandinista-controlled Supreme Court quashed a 20-year sentence for embezzlement against Arnoldo Alemán, a former president (and once an official in the Somoza dictatorship). Several years ago Mr Alemán forged an unacknowledged alliance of convenience with Mr Ortega, which Nicaraguans call “the pact”. This wavered when Mr Ortega ignored the opposition’s complaints that a pliant electoral authority allowed the Sandinistas to steal municipal elections in November, which independent observers were banned from scrutinising. But hours after Mr Alemán’s absolution his Liberal Constitutional Party ended a filibuster in the National Assembly and voted to let the Sandinistas run the legislature’s affairs.
The next step, opponents fear, will be to get the assembly to vote for a constitutional reform that would allow Mr Ortega, like his friend Hugo Chávez in Venezuela (see article), to stand for re-election. Or it might involve adopting a semi-parliamentary system in which Mr Alemán would run for president but Mr Ortega would cling to power as prime minister.
Already unpopular, Mr Ortega seems to have miscalculated in alienating aid donors. Since the municipal election he has deployed gangs of uniformed thugs to break up opposition protests. So far they are armed only with staves, stones and homemade mortars. His regime is starting to resemble the dictatorship he once helped to overthrow. One of the original Sandinista leaders now in opposition says he feels obliged to meet contacts in secret, “as we used to do under Somoza”.
Originally posted by generalissimoBring back Ronnie so he can squash the Sandies again!
http://www.economist.com/world/americas/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13145596
LATER this year Daniel Ortega will celebrate the 30th anniversary of the revolution that toppled the notorious American-backed dictatorship of the Somoza family and brought his left-wing Sandinista movement to power. Though Mr Ortega is once again president, as he was in the ...[text shortened]... in opposition says he feels obliged to meet contacts in secret, “as we used to do under Somoza”.