The dictatorship must be weakened today, while in crisis over the dynastic succession, and a strategy must be designed to confront the devastation “the day after.”
By Manuel Orozco (Confidencial)
HAVANA TIMES – The urgency of effecting political change in Nicaragua through external pressure, and of recuperating a national civic space goes beyond merely removing the Ortega-Murillo dictatorship from power.
The destruction caused to the country, and the costs a democratic reconstruction will demand in both time and resources, make such mobilization something that can no longer be put off.
First, the total control over society that the regime has consolidated has been destructive to the country. Second, the level of destruction they’re causing to the country is such that, should a change occur in three years time, it would take another five years to begin to recover democratic and economic stability in the country. However, by then the world will also have advanced much more.
The international community, like the civic groups committed to a democratic transition and those who oppose the regime and want to be part of a national solution, must assume the challenge of beginning to transform Nicaragua now, because otherwise today’s disaster will be tomorrow’s irreversible backwardness. Postponing the transition in Nicaragua will condemn the country to remaining a failed and frustrated nation.
The family clan and inner circle of power currently exercises total control over society. This is a country where pluralism no longer exists; there’s no legal civil society; they’ve eliminated and confiscated private schools and universities; there’s no freedom of association; religious freedom or any other form of expression is prohibited. Politically there’s no plurality of parties, institutional checks and balances, nor guarantees of civil and political rights. A policeman can stop you in the street and check the information on your cellphone. Freedom to do business is a myth, because added to the threat of confiscation or jail is that of extorting or eliminating the business. The police and the army work for the family clan, and the family clan repays them with impunity and economic perks.
The regime is having an asphyxiating effect on several social and economic sectors, whose existence depends on the family clan’s approval or veto. Freeing oneself from that strangulation is an imperative for the transition.
The totalitarianism has caused an increased weakening of the FSLN’s political bases and reveals that the regime won’t succeed in sustaining itself in power permanently. It could enter into crisis and collapse in three years. The combination of continual international pressure, both political and material, the economic inertia that doesn’t generate wealth, the political actions of the opposition, and a critical mass of dissidents within the regime (willing to risk themselves amid the pur