Elliott Abrams writes for National Review Online about a disturbing Latin American development.
Even the most repressive dictatorships hold some kind of elections — the tribute vice pays to virtue, as the old definition of hypocrisy goes. That’s why communist regimes always called themselves the “People’s Republic.” In March of this year, North Korea held parliamentary elections, and Kim Jong-un’s Workers’ Party announced that it had won 99.93 percent of the vote. There’s a long tradition here; in 1937, Stalin awarded himself and the Bolshevik Party 99.3 percent of the vote for the Supreme Soviet.
But Nicaragua’s dictator Daniel Ortega is now dispensing even with these electoral frauds. On July 19, the anniversary of the Sandinista takeover in 1979, Ortega announced that elections in Nicaragua are coming to an end. “There won’t be any more elections here for them to try to seize the government and seize power,” Ortega said. “The days when parties backed by the Yankees (United States) and the Somocistas would return to power are over — never again!” The next formal step will be taken when his puppet parliament cancels the scheduled November 2027 elections entirely.
Nicaragua is now a family dictatorship just like that of the Kims in North Korea — or the Somoza family that the Sandinistas displaced in 1979. Nicaragua today has two “co-presidents,” Ortega and his wife, Rosario Murillo. Ortega is 80 and in poor health, so he and his wife changed the constitution last year to assure that Murillo takes sole power when he dies. And in the wings are their sons: Laureano, a “presidential adviser,” Rafael, who heads the national oil company, Maurice, and Daniel, all under U.S. sanctions for money laundering, each waiting for his turn. The only difference between the Ortega family tyranny and that of the Kims in North Korea or the Somozas is that they had phony elections and Ortega is dispensing with that formality.
