Why Nicaragua Won't Be the Next Honduras

With less than two years left in his administration, former Honduran president and Hugo Chavez acolyte Manuel Zelaya attempted to extend his presidency beyond the permissible four years. Zelaya and his supporters believed they could outmaneuver entrenched powers and cash in on his presumed appeal among the poor and disenfranchised with a popular referendum to amend the constitution.

That referendum, however, was blocked by a Honduran court. And when Zelaya attempted to push on regardless of the ruling, his own party teamed up with the Honduran military and arrested him, forced him onto an airplane and flew him out of the country.

Now with just two years left to his term, Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega is seeking to extend his incumbency by similar, extra-legal means. Many inside and outside Nicaragua are wary of his intentions and fear that, just as Zelaya in Honduras, he will only take Nicaragua further down an autocratic path.

But while a presidential power grab and tight relations with Chavez and his Bolivarian revolution inspired a coup in Honduras, Nicaragua is highly unlikely to follow such lead.
This is due, in part, to Ortega's incomparable savvy. Once overwhelmingly popular, Ortega won the presidency in 2006 after much shady maneuvering that allowed him to declare victory despite obtaining only 38 percent of the vote.

Knowing he can no longer rely merely on the people to continue his rule, last year Ortega sought and received an end to the ban on his reelection from the Nicaraguan Supreme Court, largely dominated by the Sandinistas. As way to thank the justices, Ortega issued a decree in January that extended their terms.

In the same decree, Ortega granted term extensions to members of the electoral tribunal that will oversee next year’s presidential election. (That tribunal failed to investigate allegations of fraud when the Sandinistas nearly swept municipal elections in 2008.)

Ortega too relies on thugs to squelch discontent. When opposition lawmakers sought to revert Ortega's decree last month, pro-government demonstrators threw rocks and fireworks at the building where the leaders were meeting. Not surprisingly, Ortega did nothing to stop his "supporters".
“Daniel is probably worse than Zelaya,” said Geoff Thale with the Washington Office on Latin America. But Thale, like all Nicaragua experts, believes there is little risk that Ortega will be overthrown.

The Nicaraguan leader is just too good at controlling or buying support from important sectors within Nicaragua. Unlike Zelaya, Ortega has not antagonized business leaders, for instance, and he respects their close ties with the United States.

Moreover, while the Honduran military quickly sided with those who wanted to expel Zelaya, the Nicaraguan military is content to remain an independent and apolitical institution. Previous efforts to coax the military out of its neutral posture have been unsuccessful.

Despite increased dissatisfaction with his rule, Ortega retains solid support from a third of the population. As the highly respected Nicaraguan journalist and analyst, Carlos Fernando Chamorro, warned in an interview, if Ortega were ousted, “this country would go up in flames.”

Ortega's control over Nicaragua is not complete, of course. This is most apparent with the National Police, an institution widely admired but recently questioned for not arresting any of the pro-government demonstrators after three days of violence. According to Thale, Ortega is waiting for its current and highly respected commissioner, Aminta Granera, to make a mistake and provide Ortega with an excuse to replace her with someone more sympathetic to his wishes -- and more tolerant of his thugs.

Even under these circumstances, the international community seems unlikely to get in Ortega's way. At a minimum, said Chamorro, the U.S., Europe and other Latin American countries should demand that the electoral tribunal be neutral and that international observers be allowed to monitor next year's election.

For now, only the International Monetary Fund has shown some grit. In reaction to Ortega's latest attempt to shore up support among rank and file public employees, including those in the military and police, with a $22 a month bonus, the IMF announced that it would suspend the evaluation of the country’s economic plan. Without the evaluation, the IMF cannot release $18 million in aid to Nicaragua and provide crucial guarantees to international investors.

It's worth noting the IMF's response was based solely on economic grounds -- countries that receive aid must adhere to strict austerity plans and inflationary goals. While very modest, the $22 bonus was a sufficient trigger for an international financial response.

Meanwhile, no amount of meddling with democracy has triggered – or is expected to trigger -- a response. It seems when it comes to politics in Nicaragua, everyone but Ortega is impotent.