Nicaragua at a Crossroads

Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega already has learned his lesson.

When he played by the rules in 1990, he was booted out of office. And he is not about to do that again!

Nowadays, Ortega will break any rule and violate any constitutional boundary, as long as he can prolong his stay in power and turn Nicaragua's democracy back into his communist dictatorship of the 1980s.

When they elected Ortega again in 2006 — after he had been out of power for about 17 years — the Nicaraguan people should have known better. After all, in the years since Ortega's previous presidency, a playbook on staying in power — by rewriting the constitution and extending term limits — had been written by other Latin American leftist demagogues. Nicaraguans should have known that Ortega would try to follow the model established by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

And that's precisely what he is doing! By placing members of his Sandinista party in key decision-making positions, he has been getting the courts and electoral commission to rubber-stamp his power-grabbing violations of the Nicaraguan Constitution.

Because it worked for Chavez — as well as for Bolivian President Evo Morales and Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa — Ortega obviously figures that it should work for him, too. After all, he already has experience as a leftist dictator, and he has been earning credentials as a U.S. hater ever since he fought in the Nicaraguan civil war of the 1970s against U.S.-backed government forces. The Chavez playbook for bending the rules to stay in power is the only thing Ortega was lacking when he lost the presidency in 1990. And he doesn't want to make that mistake again!

Only the Honduran people have been able to stop a democratically elected president who was following the Chavez model on becoming an elected dictator. And because the legal and necessary ouster of former Honduran President Manuel Zelaya was botched by the Honduran military, Ortega apparently feels that in neighboring Nicaragua, he can get away with anything.

In Honduras, Zelaya got into trouble for defying Supreme Court rulings on term limits. But in Nicaragua in October, Ortega got the Supreme Court's Sandinista-dominated "constitutional commission" to overturn a ban on consecutive re-election, allowing Ortega to run again in 2011.

It was clearly a dirty backroom maneuver. Other judges, who were not present for that vote, said that they felt the decision was politically manipulated, that it needed to be approved by the full Supreme Court, but that, at this point, it could not be overturned.

Being the shameless cynic that he is, Ortega actually claimed that by doing away with term limits, the manipulated Supreme Court vote "re-established the fundamental principle of democracy and struck a blow against the dictatorship of those who have wanted to destroy democracy."

It's straight out of the Chavez playbook.

These populist leftist demagogues have the gall to claim they are fighting for democracy while violating its most basic constitutional principles. They have the audacity to condemn dictatorships, while everyone can see that it is they who are becoming dictators.

Although the Nicaraguan National Assembly last month approved a resolution rejecting the manipulated Supreme Court decision, the lawmakers left it up to Nicaragua's Supreme Electoral Council to decide. Unfortunately, this electoral commission also is dominated by Sandinistas, and they have said they support the Supreme Court's decision.

Opposition leaders were left only with the hope of replacing pro-Ortega electoral commissioners, whose terms expire this year, with people who support Nicaragua's ban on consecutive re-election and reject Ortega's power grab.

However, on Saturday, Ortega shamelessly issued a decree that could extend the terms of the very same commission members who support his controversial bid for re-election. Because the legislature — split between his supporters and opponents — has been unable to agree on whether the commission members should be replaced, Ortega vowed to decide for them.

"To avoid a power vacuum, the terms will be extended ... if Congress does not name new authorities or ratify the existing (authorities)," Ortega said at a Saturday event, where he gave lawmakers only until February to make up their minds.

Of course, by usurping legislative powers, Ortega is overstepping his constitutional boundaries and putting Nicaraguan legislators in the same position in which Honduran lawmakers found themselves last year, when they were left no choice but to support Zelaya's ouster.

It's happening now in Nicaragua, where a group of lawmakers reacted to Ortega's weekend presidential decree by calling for his impeachment to stop him from becoming a dictator.

"According to the Constitution, President Ortega can be declared incapacitated to continue governing the country (now that he's shown) he can't even follow the most basic attribution of a chief of state, which is to comply with the Constitution and the laws," declared a statement issued Sunday by the opposition Nicaraguan Democratic Bloc.

Nicaraguans are at a crossroads, and those who trample over constitutions are trying to force them to turn left.

Huge questions need answers. Will Nicaraguans follow Honduras' courageous example by sanctioning their president for his violations of their constitution? Will they stop Ortega's illegal power grab and deal another blow to the so-called Bolivarian Revolution, which is turning democracies into socialist dictatorships? Or will they cave in to the Chavez model and allow Ortega to make a mockery of their courts, their constitution and their democracy?

At the crossroads between constitutional democracy and socialist dictatorship — even when the traffic signs are misleading, even when dictators claim to be democrats — let's hope the Nicaraguan people find a way to steer to the right.

To find out more about Miguel Perez and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

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