Nicaragua: How Ortega Hollowed Out Democracy From Within

From the 1990 electoral defeat to the co-presidency with Rosario Murillo, Sandinismo turned pacts, reforms, and institutional control into permanent power.

In the previous article, we asked ourselves how Sandinismo went from being a revolution against a dictatorship to becoming a regime that eliminates elections.
It was a gradual process, and that is precisely what makes it interesting. Ortega did not arrive at the current regime in a single stroke: he used democratic institutions to gradually hollow them out from within.
Let us look at the chronology.
In 1979, the Sandinista revolution overthrew Anastasio Somoza. Ortega became a member of the Governing Junta.
Ortega won the 1984 presidential election. Nicaragua still had electoral institutions, but the country entered into war with the Contras, backed by the United States. The context was extraordinarily polarized.
Then came the setback in 1990: Ortega lost the election to Violeta Chamorro and handed over the government. In other words, Sandinismo demonstrated that it could lose an election and formally relinquish power.
Trust and take your time
But Ortega was not satisfied, and during the 1990–2006 period he would change strategy.
After several electoral defeats, Ortega began to build a much more pragmatic political machine. He even struck agreements with former adversaries. José Mujica would express a similar political approach in 2003:
“To win in the first round, I’ll embrace even a snake.”
The tactic began to produce results. Thus, in 2000, the pact with other political groups that became fellow travelers altered the electoral rules.
The percentage required to win the presidency in the first round was reduced.
That clearly benefited Ortega, who in 2006 won the presidency with approximately 38% of the vote.
He returned to government in 2007. And from the presidency, he began the decisive transformation that would allow him to remain in power.
Although the Constitution prohibited consecutive reelection, the Supreme Court, controlled by Sandinismo, declared that prohibition inapplicable to Ortega, who was reelected in 2011.
Consider the concept: according to the highest body of the Judiciary, the prohibition on presidential reelection applied to everyone… except Ortega!
Three years later, another constitutional reform—and counting—eliminated the prohibition on presidential reelection.
Thus, Ortega became eligible to run indefinitely.
It all stays in the family
In 2016, Ortega was reelected once again, but with a fundamental detail:
his wife, Rosario Murillo, became vice president.
A couple of years later, a social security reform triggered protests. The demonstrations quickly turned into a national movement against Ortega. The government’s response was brutal repression.
And from 2018 onward, the regime stopped worrying about preserving a democratic façade.
Before the 2021 election, the government detained numerous opposition leaders, including presidential candidates. Ortega won again in an election without real competition.
But the escalation would not end there.
In 2026, another reform of the much-manhandled Constitution turned Ortega and Murillo into co-presidents and concentrated even more power in the Executive.
Gramsci’s intellectual legacy bearing fruit in Central America.
Without question, the matrix is clearly Gramscian.
Following the framework of the Italian communist, first comes cultural hegemony, then political hegemony, followed by institutional control and, finally, permanence in power.
Gramsci introduces a decisive point with respect to classical Marxism: in Western societies, conquering the State is not enough.
The new Latin American left has carefully followed those steps.
And that process is considerably more sophisticated than the old-fashioned coup d’état. First conquering the cultural conditions makes that power appear legitimate, necessary, and even inevitable.
However, the Americas are awakening after a long anesthesia, and the times ahead appear clear.

Gradual institutional erosion
Electoral control and reelection
Hegemony and political permanence

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