Black Agenda Report
Black Agenda Report
News, commentary and analysis from the black left.

  • Home
  • Africa
  • African America
  • Education
  • Environment
  • International
  • Media and Culture
  • Political Economy
  • Radio
  • US Politics
  • War and Empire
  • omnibus

Nicaragua Celebrates Democracy: an Election Day Report
Roger Harris
10 Nov 2021
Nicaragua Celebrates Democracy: an Election Day Report
Supporters of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) march in Managua, Nicaragua, Jan. 11, 2021. | Photo: EFE

The US government and its allied corporate press are using every means to discredit and undermine the Nicaraguan election. According to imperial logic, any election where someone not beholding to the US is elected, is illegitimate and the democratic winner is a dictator.

Originally published by Counterpunch.

Leon, Nicaragua.

On the fight down to Nicaragua a few days ago to be one of 225 international official election accompaniers from 27 countries, the expat Nicaraguan woman sitting next to me was hostile to the current Sandinista government. She said there will be an election but no vote, because only one person is on the ballot. At the polling station in the colonial city of Leon this election morning, November 7, candidates from six political parties standing for president were in fact on the ballot: PLC, FSLN, CCN, ALN, APRE, and PLI.

Some of these parties included elements that tried in 2018 to violently overthrow the Nicaraguan government in a US-instigated regime change endeavor. All the perpetrators had been granted amnesty, despite such heinous acts as rape, torture, and even burning people alive, not to mention destruction of billions of dollars worth of public property.

To prevent a reoccurrence of the violence around today’s election, the government had arrested certain individuals who had violated the amnesty by continuing to promote the violent overthrow of the government and/or to serve as unregistered agents of foreign states (namely the US) engaged in regime change activities; actions, it should be noted, which are illegal in the US.

Yet the US government and its allied corporate press are using these legal arrests to discredit and undermine the Nicaraguan election. According to imperial logic, any election (e.g., Venezuela), where someone not beholding to the US is elected, is illegitimate and the democratic winner is a dictator.

None of the arrested individuals in Nicaragua, who are mostly connected with non-governmental associations (NGOs), were associated with the established opposition political parties. Yet the US government incredulously calls seven of them “pre-candidates,” a made-up electoral category. Not one of them was remotely a “rival” political candidate. In any case, the ruling Sandinistas were polling 60-75% pre-election approval rates, while the opposition was in disarray.

When buying an election through lavish funding of NGOs fails, when even a coup attempt as in 2018 fails, and when it is no longer politically acceptable to send in the Marines as the US did in previous times, Uncle Sam is relegated to carping about the election process.

In contrast to the US political class’s gnashing of teeth over the arrests, there were no demonstrations in support of those arrested here in Nicaragua. The response of the head of a rural women’s cooperative was typical. She felt safer that they are locked up so that they won’t repeat the violence of 2018.

This morning an Indigenous election worker at a polling station, Alfredo Jose Rodriquez Sanchez, summed what we overwhelming heard: “These elections are a call to peace, harmony, and reconciliation.” A religious man, he said that he went to church to get divine guidance on how to vote to promote tranquility and calm. He added that despite the regime change violence of 2018, “we are all one people.”

Clarisa Cardenez, a voter, commented to us election accompaniers: “I am very happy because this is a civic festival for Nicaraguans.” Like so many other Nicaraguan citizens who spoke with us today, she expressed her appreciation for us accompanying their election to see “our peace and calm.”

Outside one of the polling stations, we met Yacer Hermiday and Clender Lopez. Their Facebook account, La Consigna, along with their accounts on Instagram and Twitter, were among the over 1000 such pro-Sandinista social media accounts that had gotten shut down in the run-up to the election. The two young men had been using social media to show the good things happening in Nicaragua, since the end of the 2018 violence, only to be censored by Silicon Valley for reporting positively about the Sandinista government, headed by President Daniel Ortega.

They laughed when I asked if they were being paid to post positive images of the Nicaraguan government’s programs or were associated with the government. Shaking their heads “no,” they explained that a small group of friends were just trying to show “what is going on in Nicaragua and how our government is doing so much for our people.” They concluded: “We were shut down for telling the truth.”

The last person to engage us, on leaving the polling station, was a 26-year-old man. Voting for the second time in his life, he said: “It is a great privilege to vote; elections are an expression of Nicaragua’s sovereignty.”

In contrast, just days before today’s election, the US passed the RENACER Act. Imposing additional new illegal sanctions on Nicaragua, the act explicitly interferes in the Nicaraguan election in order to punish the people of this small and poor Central American country for exercising their independence from the colossus to the north.

Roger Harris is on the board of the Task Force on the Americas, a 32-year-old anti-imperialist human rights organization.

Nicaragua

Do you need and appreciate Black Agenda Report articles. Please click on the DONATE icon, and help us out, if you can.


Related Stories

Summit of the Americas: US Policy of Exclusion Undermines its Own Hegemonic Aspirations
Frederick Mills and William Camacaro
Summit of the Americas: US Policy of Exclusion Undermines its Own Hegemonic Aspirations
24 May 2022
The U.S.
The Black Alliance for Peace Calls on Latin American and Caribbean Nations to Boycott the Summit of the Americas
Black Alliance For Peace
The Black Alliance for Peace Calls on Latin American and Caribbean Nations to Boycott the Summit of the Americas
18 May 2022
The failure of the U.S.
Summit of the Americas in ‘Danger’ as Caribbean States Threaten Boycott Over Cuba and Venezuela Exclusion
José Luis Granados Ceja
Summit of the Americas in ‘Danger’ as Caribbean States Threaten Boycott Over Cuba and Venezuela Exclusion
11 May 2022
The U.S. has not invited Cuba, Venezuela, or Nicaragua to attend the upcoming Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles, California.
US sanctions on Russia over Ukraine also target Venezuela, Nicaragua, Cuba
Benjamin Norton
US sanctions on Russia over Ukraine also target Venezuela, Nicaragua, Cuba
02 March 2022
The U.S.
Nicaragua in the Multipolar World
Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
Nicaragua in the Multipolar World
12 January 2022
The U.S. regime change effort in Nicaragua has failed. The people are determined to assert their rights of self-determination and the U.S.
Nicaragua Explains Why It’s Leaving OAS, Responds to US Attacks on Its Elections
Ben Norton
Nicaragua Explains Why It’s Leaving OAS, Responds to US Attacks on Its Elections
23 November 2021
The Nicaraguan people are fighting to preserve their rights to democracy and self-determination in the face of U.S. aggression.
Nicaraguans vote - Photo credit Roger D. Harris
Roger D. Harris
Nicaragua Has a Public Relations Problem, Not a Democracy Problem
17 November 2021
Nicaragua's recent elections were conducted with transparency and freedom of choice for voters. The only problem is with the United States and
Why Black Revolutionaries Must Stand with the People of Nicaragua
Netfa Freeman
Why Black Revolutionaries Must Stand with the People of Nicaragua
02 November 2021
While the US government haggles over the cost of providing basic human rights to its citizens, it is also targeting countries like Nicaragua th
Why Defending Nicaragua is Important
Stephen Sefton
Why Defending Nicaragua is Important
26 October 2021
The U.S. effort to destabilize Nicaragua is an ongoing crime against that nation's people.
Government of Nicaragua Rejects Interference by the OAS
Telesur
Government of Nicaragua Rejects Interference by the OAS
19 October 2021
The Organization of American States (OAS) is a U.S.

More Stories


  • African Liberation Day Special Issue
    BAR Editors
    African Liberation Day Special Issue
    25 May 2022
    The Black Agenda Report team gives special emphasis to African Liberation Day, which is celebrated on May 25.
  • Capitalism and Baby Formula
    Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    Capitalism and Baby Formula
    25 May 2022
    The baby formula shortage is not a glitch in the system. It actually exemplifies everything that goes wrong when the profit motive rules. Capitalism can't ensure a food supply or anything else that…
  • African Liberation Day: Imamu Amiri Baraka, 1972
    Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    African Liberation Day: Imamu Amiri Baraka, 1972
    25 May 2022
    On this African Liberation Day, we revisit Amiri Baraka’s 1972 communiqué calling for Black people to struggle for Pan-African unity while also registering our anger at the “pathology and traitor…
  • US Threatens Ethiopia and Eritrea with Illegal “Legal Designation of Genocide”
    Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
    US Threatens Ethiopia and Eritrea with Illegal “Legal Designation of Genocide”
    25 May 2022
    The US is falsely accusing Ethiopia and Eritrea of hindering food aid and committing genocides in the ongoing war in Tigray.
  • Malcolm X and Ho Chi Minh Remind Us of the Roots of White Supremacy in the Aftermath of Buffalo Shooting
    Danny Haiphong, BAR Contributing Editor
    Malcolm X and Ho Chi Minh Remind Us of the Roots of White Supremacy in the Aftermath of Buffalo Shooting
    25 May 2022
    Malcolm X and Ho Chi Minh shared a birthday. They also shared an internationalist ideology, a commitment to liberation for all people, and a deep understanding of how racist structures operated…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us