Democracy the Ortega Way

Talk about sore losers. Having been defeated in the last two presidential elections, Nicaraguan revolutionary leader Daniel Ortega has now sent notice to his nation’s Congress that he and his followers will take up arms if the deputies pass an anti-protest law. Obviously the comandante has yet to get the hang of what we call democracy, which is what his Sandinista movement said it was fighting for 20 years ago.

As leader of Nicaragua’s second-largest party and a congressional deputy, Ortega should bring his complaints about the proposed protest ban to Congress. That is where it should be decided, not on some battlefield. Shame on Ortega for running off the democratic rails again.

Under the Nicaraguan constitution, the people have the right to express their opinions and demonstrate. If Congress proposes to deny that right, Ortega should stand in opposition; that’s how laws are made for the good of all. But it seems the old revolutionary would prefer to make his argument in the streets, though surely he knows that destroying property and threatening people are not constitutional rights.

What was the Sandinistas’ goal in defeating the Anastasio Somoza dictatorship? At the time there was talk of democracy. Now the Sandinistas are busying themselves erecting roadway barricades, making some political points but doing damage to the precarious economy upon which Ortega’s followers and their families depend.

Listening to Ortega’s harangues, one might think his revolutionary fervor is back in full force. Does all this mean he will forsake the comfort of the grand home he expropriated for himself, wine cellar included, when the revolution succeeded? Is he seriously considering soiling his designer white shirts in the Nicaraguan jungles? We don’t think so. We believe he’s bluffing. But he is certainly sending a troubling message.