Daniel Ortega's Nicaragua

The show goes on

Apr 29th 2010 | MANAGUA
From The Economist print edition

More blows against democracy

THE smashed windows and broken doors have been replaced, but daylight still shines through holes punched into the porch of the Holiday Inn in Managua by home-made mortars. On April 20th the hotel became the latest battleground in Daniel Ortega’s struggle to remain president of Nicaragua after his term ends early in 2012. Faced with dismal poll ratings and constitutional obstacles, Mr Ortega has taken to unleashing mobs.

The constitution allows a maximum of two, non-consecutive terms. So Mr Ortega, who was president from 1985 to 1990, is doubly barred. But last year his political allies in the Supreme Court ruled the relevant articles “inadmissible”. Faced with losing his majority on the court, Mr Ortega decreed an extension of the terms of the obliging judges. He also extended the tenure of senior officials at the national election council, which had allowed his party, the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN), to claim victory in municipal elections in 2008—elections that the opposition and observers denounced as rigged.

Opposition parties, which together hold a majority in congress but seldom agree on much, have united against all this. That prompted Mr Ortega’s ruffians to block access to the National Assembly. When the opposition assembled at the Holiday Inn, that became a target. The following day, a group of legislators was trapped in a meeting room by another violent crowd.

Some in the outside world are losing patience with Mr Ortega’s thuggery. The Organisation of American States piped up to express its “deep concern” about the latest skirmishes. Britain, Sweden and Denmark have cut off aid to Nicaragua, while the United States, the European Union, Germany and Japan have either scaled back theirs or imposed more conditions. This matters in a country with an income per head of $2,600 a year, the lowest in Central America, and where horses and carts still plod the streets of what passes for the business district of the capital.

But it matters less than in the past. Mr Ortega has a firm ally in Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez, who provides loans and cheap oil worth up to $400m a year—about a third of the government’s total income—according to opposition leaders. Mr Chávez is even more anxious to prop up Mr Ortega since his other Central American ally, Manuel Zelaya in Honduras, was overthrown in a coup last year.

Nobody expects Nicaragua’s army to intervene as its counterpart in Honduras did. And though a poll last month put Mr Ortega’s popularity rating at just 27%, his supporters are well-organised. Even if next year’s election is fair—a big if, requiring international observers and a new electoral council—Mr Ortega might still be hard to beat. He won in 2006 with just 38% of the vote, because the opposition was split. “If we don’t have a sole candidate, the Sandinistas could win again,” admits Eduardo Montealegre, who leads the Independent Liberal Party and came second last time. “But if we do, they don’t stand a chance.” The mobs have other ideas.