Have you ever wondered how a country can be hijacked?
How institutions can be subjected, perverted and corrupted?
And perhaps most importantly, how to identify the moment in which a democracy, after being
taken over, stops working?
Dear viewers, for years these questions have pervaded international politics... but especially
Latin American politics.
In the last decades, numerous Latin American leaders have taken control of their countries.
Sometimes they did it through coups d'état... but in many other occasions these dictators
came to power through democratic means.
That is precisely the case of the Nicaraguan President, Daniel Ortega.
My friends, here at VisualPolitik, we’ve already told you about this political figure,
how he came to power, how he behaved and how he was responsible for the huge strikes that
Nicaragua has gone through in 2018.
Strikes that have been answered with a heavy hand and which have led to terrible consequences:
more than 200 people have lost their lives, hundreds have been detained and thousands
injured.
Well, in this video, we’ll take a look at another aspect of the events.
This is the story of how a government managed to take control of the state and make the
institutions work not for the country, but for itself.
This is the story of how a kind of political mafia took control of Nicaragua.
Listen up.
The year is 2006, Daniel Ortega wins the Nicaraguan presidential elections.
After 16 years as the opposition, the Sandinista leader returned to the country’s presidency.
The precedents weren’t precisely good: his first term as president between 1985 and 1990
was... terrible.
Ortega left an economically and socially shattered country.
A country that went through a war, ended up with a foreign debt 6 times bigger than its
GDP, and suffered from hyperinflation that reached the astronomical figure of 33.547%
by 1987.
To give you an idea of the magnitude of the disaster, in 1990 the per capita income of
Nicaragua was 55% smaller than the country had registered in 1978.
In other words, compared to Daniel Ortega, even the Kirchners would get good grades.
Folks, Ortega's economic model was a huge failure: the expropriations, the gigantic
foreign debt, the unstoppable money printing and his obsession with controlling the economy...
led Nicaragua into an unsustainable situation - And how wouldn’t it have, with that recipe!
And if we add the Contras conflict to all of this, financed by the United States, the
country was submerged in a complete disaster.
By the way, for those of you who don’t know, the Contras were paramilitary groups financed
by Washington through selling weapons to Iran when this country was in the middle of a war
with Iraq, a country that was supposedly close to Washington.
In short, complete nonsense.
So throughout the following decade the country only had one mission: to recover from this
mess.
To do this, the following governments, starting with that of Violeta Chamorro – by the way,
the first elected female Latin American president – decided to turn the country’s political
and economic approach around.
That is, to move from a centralized economy, which was organized and directed by the state,
to a market economy.
That’s how the Nicaraguan free trade zones were born, as well as the policies to attract
foreign investment, which along with international cooperation and especially the growing remittances
from abroad, allowed Nicaragua to get back on track.
But just a moment... because what these new governments didn’t achieve was putting an
end to corruption...
Thus, scandal after scandal, the feeling of frustration, disappointment and deceit all
Nicaraguans felt – along with an opposition who was willing to do almost anything to return
to power – fueled Ortega’s victory in 2006.
And here, dear viewers, is where the new story begins... especially because Ortega wasn’t
going to waste his return to power.
This was his chance, his opportunity to dominate Nicaraguan politics, finances and society.
But to achieve this, and above all, to prevent an electoral process from re-evicting him
from the presidency, he needed to seize political power, with an armed force and economic power
monopoly.
This is the strategy he set in motion and the steps he took to achieve his purpose.
Listen up.
(POLITICAL POWER)
Obviously his strategy’s first goal was to achieve political hegemony and social control...
by any means.
This was very clear to Ortega from the beginning and he launched a double tactic to achieve
it:
First, by "invading" the institutions and centralizing power, and then by limiting and
intimidating the opposition....
something for which fear is usually a very, very effective ingredient.
Therefore, shortly after arriving, Ortega launched a paramilitary force composed of
gang members.
We’re talking about the shock groups, better known in Nicaragua as the “Turbas”.
("They are feared, and the people call them mobs.
They usually wear T-shirts that speak of love and peace, wear helmets to hide their faces
and move on motorcycles, they’re mostly very violent young people."- Matilde Córdoba,
journalist in Managua.)
Its objective?
To intimidate the political opposition, to frighten those who disagree with the government
and to try to dismantle the opposition’s demonstrations or concentrations with violence.
Obviously, it isn’t an official force... but they have the government’s protection.
We’ll see how in a moment.
( "We can say that a paramilitary force has been set up in Nicaragua that is composed
of gang members.
Sometimes we get on a bus and a paramilitary is watching us".
- Haydeé Castillo, Nicaraguan activist.)
But, of course, it doesn’t end here.
The next step to achieve total political control is to take control of the state institutions.
Now, how do you think he did it?
Well... first political decentralization had to be ended, in this case municipal autonomy.
Thus, in Nicaragua Ortega's political henchmen have managed to dismiss mayors at will.
Something like... hey, if you have a political rival, kick him out of the race, that way
you don’t only get rid of your opponents, you also win loyal fans who, of course, don’t
want to risk making you mad.
The second step to institutional takeover was to create and legitimize his own political
organizations, in this case the "Citizen Power Councils".
These bodies, which supposedly involve community participation, in practice have the objective
of creating a parallel political structure that is recognized and controlled by the government.
And the third, appoint and achieve the indefinite permanence of his party associates in every
key state position: the Electoral Power, the Judicial Power and the General Comptroller.
And if an official protests... that's what the mobs are for, right?
Do you want two examples proving what Ortega achieved with this strategy?
Check it out.
On the one hand, the Nicaraguan Constitution prohibited
the consecutive re-election of a president.
So Ortega would have completed his term in 2011.
However, as Hernández did in Honduras, Ortega managed to get the Constitutional Chamber
of the Supreme Court, composed mostly of Sandinista magistrates, to declare article 147 as inapplicable,
which is the one that prevented the presidential consecutive re-election.
In exchange, yes, the magistrates’ positions were ensured, for life.
Doesn't sound like a bad reward, right?
On the other hand, in 2011… fraud suspicions were so intense that both the European Union
and the Organization of American States concluded that they weren’t sure of the results.
Do you know who controlled the Electoral Power?
Exactly, Ortega had made sure that his followers could do and undo whatever they wanted.
In fact, in the following elections, the 2016 ones… they didn’t even split and the ruling
party took full control of the process.
But... wait a moment...
you may be thinking, Simon, wasn’t there a scandal because of it?
Well, let's say that the president had made sure that practically every major media station
in the country was controlled by his family or associates.
("The Ortega Family monopolizes the media in Nicaragua" Diario las Américas)
Mobs, the occupation of institutions and the media, this is the political side, but there’s
more.
(THE FORCE MONOPOLY)
Of course, for as much as he holds political power, if a dictator doesn’t hold the force,
he’s taking a huge risk.
This was very clear to our protagonist, so the second pillar of this strategy was to
take over the police and the army.
To do so, he took advantage of his majority in the National Assembly.
As soon as he got to power Ortega pushed a reform that placed the ability to appoint
new faculties of the National Police and the Army of the Republic in his hands.
Then, taking advantage of these new possibilities, he placed relatives and loyal people directly
in charge of these institutions.
For example, the police are directed by his own Father in Law, Francisco Díaz...
so he can get the police to look the other way when the mobs act... and when the opposition
strikes, repression, repression and more repression.
Because when the mafia holds the power, it won’t be easy to get them to let go.
But... politics, public force...
there’s a third element missing.
(THE ECONOMIC POWER)
The third pillar in this strategy was to achieve economic power, for 3 reasons:
first, to prevent Nicaraguan capital from supporting an alternative; second, to get
resources with which to carry out Ortega’s plans, and third, perhaps the most important
point, to fill his pockets.
Throughout this time, corruption has been brutal... to such an extent that today the
Ortega-Murillo family are millionaires, true millionaires.
See, they’ve taken over the media, they hold high positions in the state; they’ve
even taken over oil import and distributions in Nicaragua!
They’ve put themselves in charge of the investment promotion agencies...
with a plan that we could describe in this line
Want to invest in Nicaragua?
Great we’ll make it happen but you have to give me a commission.
You know, for the country.
They’ve also reached agreements with businessmen: apparently by getting loyalty and envelopes
in exchange for privileges.
A clear example of this way of doing things was the agreement made to build the Interoceanic
Canal, a seemingly unsuccessful project... but in which the government reached an under-the-table
agreement with Wanj Jinm, the Chinese developer working on it.
At first the state kept half of the profits... and then with a last minute change, it became
1%.
(Ironic) Obviously, the businessman haggled at the last minute…
such skill, not even Messi can haggle like that.
In short, my friends, the fact is that with political power, with brute force, and with
economic power, Daniel Ortega became the owner and lord of Nicaragua.
And, well, also a billionaire.
And just in case, in the last election, in 2016, he presented Rosario Murillo, his wife,
as Vice President.
So, everything stays in the family.
My friends, this process is very similar to what happened in Venezuela, it is, so to speak,
the dictator’s manual.
And the question we can ask ourselves is, can we really pretend that Nicaragua is still
a democracy?
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