Nicaragua - Politics Overview
Nicaragua is a multiparty constitutional republic, but actions by the ruling Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) party resulted in the de facto concentration of power in a single party, with an authoritarian executive branch exercising significant control over the legislative, judicial, and electoral functions. President Daniel Ortega Saavedra of the FSLN was inaugurated to a third term in office in January following an electoral process regarded as deeply flawed by domestic organizations and the international community. The 2016 elections also expanded the ruling party’s supermajority in the National Assembly, which previously allowed for changes in the constitution that extended the reach of executive branch power and the elimination of restrictions on re-election for executive branch officials and mayors. Observers have noted serious flaws in municipal, regional, and national elections since 2008. Civil society groups, international electoral experts, business leaders, and religious leaders identified persistent flaws in the 2017 municipal elections and noted the need for comprehensive electoral reform.
The most significant human rights issues included reports of arbitrary or unlawful killings; torture during detention; harsh and life-threatening prison conditions; arbitrary arrest and detention of suspects; almost complete lack of judicial independence; reports of holding at least one political prisoner; unlawful interference with privacy; multiple obstacles to freedom of speech and the press, including government intimidation, and harassment of and threats against journalists and independent media; and partisan restrictions on freedom of peaceful assembly. The government restricted citizens’ right to vote and employed biased policies to realize single-party dominance.
There was widespread corruption, including in the police, Supreme Electoral Council (CSE), Supreme Court of Justice (CSJ), and other government organs. The government restricted the ability of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and civil society organizations to receive funding. There was lethal and increasing societal violence against women; violent attacks against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) persons, to which police failed to respond; trafficking in persons; discrimination against ethnic minorities and indigenous persons and communities; societal discrimination against persons with disabilities; and discrimination against persons with HIV/AIDS.
Soon after taking power in 1979, the the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) pushed out rival factions and established an authoritarian dictatorship under leadership of Daniel Ortega. US-Nicaraguan relations deteriorated rapidly as the regime nationalized many private industries, confiscated private property, supported Central American guerrilla movements, and maintained links to international terrorists, including the Colombian guerrilla group Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the Basque Homeland and Freedom (ETA) separatist group, and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). The United States suspended aid to Nicaragua in 1981. Later the Ronald Reagan administration provided assistance to the Nicaraguan resistance (Contras) and in 1985 imposed an embargo on US-Nicaraguan trade.
Following the Sandinista revolutionary process (1979-89), which ended a half century of dynastic dictatorship by the Somozas and established a new representative and participatory democratic political system as laid out in the 1987 Political Constitution, the country entered the nineties with electoral processes enjoying broad civic participation and international supervision that permitted the peaceful selection of successful governments to date. Among the advances made in strengthening the rule of law can be mentioned freedom of expression, civic organization, subordination of the armed forces to civil power and the resolution of political conflicts in the framework of institutionality.
In response to both domestic and international pressure, Ortega’s Sandinista regime entered into negotiations with the Nicaraguan resistance leaders and ultimately agreed to nationwide elections in February 1990. In these elections, Nicaraguans elected as their President the National Opposition Union (UNO) candidate, Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, widow of the slain journalist and editor of the daily newspaper La Prensa, Pedro Joaquin Chamorro. She defeated Ortega, the Sandinista Party candidate. Despite being forced from government after losing the 1990 elections, the FSLN was still the largest and best organized political party in the country,
During President Chamorro's nearly 7 years in office, her government achieved major progress toward consolidating democratic institutions, advancing national reconciliation, stabilizing the economy, privatizing state-owned enterprises, and reducing human rights violations. Despite a number of irregularities--which were due largely to logistical difficulties and a complicated electoral law--the October 20, 1996 presidential, legislative, and mayoral elections were judged free and fair by international observers and by the national electoral observer group Etica y Transparencia (Ethics and Transparency). This time Nicaraguans elected former Managua Mayor Arnoldo Aleman, leader of the center-right Liberal Alliance. Aleman defeated Sandinista Party candidate Daniel Ortega. The first transfer of power in modern Nicaraguan history from one democratically-elected president to another took place on January 10, 1997, when the Aleman government was inaugurated.
Aleman’s administration was marred by graft and corruption. At the end of his term, Aleman entered into a political pact (el Pacto) with Daniel Ortega to divide control of state institutions between them and perpetuate themselves in power. President Alemán made a much-criticized political deal (pacto) with Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega. Though neither the PLC nor FSLN held a majority of deputies in the National Assembly, their combined votes were enough to pass constitutional amendments. On 20 January 2001, they did just that, in an arrangement that consolidated the power of the two principal parties and their leaders. The percentage of the national vote required for political party to keep its electoral registration and be able to field candidates was increased to 4 percent. That in effect limited the 2001 campaign to three parties (Liberals, Conservatives, and Sandinistas).
Another amendment reduced the percentage of the vote required to win the presidential election in the first round of balloting from 45% to 35%, unless the second-place finisher was within 5 percentage points of the first-place finisher. That made it easier for the PLC and FSLN to fend off coalition challenges. The number of Supreme Court justices was increased from 12 to 16, and the PLC and FSLN stacked the court with equal numbers of their partisans. Finally, a provision was added that would provide the outgoing president and vice president with seats in the National Assembly, where parliamentary immunity would shield them from prosecution for wrongdoing while in office. That meant that President Alemán would be exempt from prosecution once he left office. Moreover, the sitting president could not have his immunity from prosecution waived without an affirmative vote of two-thirds of the National Assembly, a virtual impossibility.
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