Nicaragua: From Dictatorship to Democracy, and Back to Dictatorship

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Issue Sep 16-22 2026: When Nicaragua transitioned to democracy in 1990 with the election of Violeta Chamorro, it marked the end of the dictatorships that had characterized the region for much of its history, putting democracy, justice, and human rights front and center for the decade that was to follow. Just as the 1970s and early 1980s were a time of violence and repression, the next phase in Central American history witnesses a true democratizing revolution. Nicaragua, however, never truly democratized, since many of its institutions were never reformed to accommodate such a process, including the army, which remained under the control of the ruling political party, not the state.

As Luis Almagro wrote in Confidencial Magazine of Nicaragua, the democratic revolutionaries of the era demonstrated to the world that defending ideas within a plural framework was possible, and indeed that an all-or-nothing approach to governance was simply not required. The generation that emerged in the 1980s and fought against dictatorships did not need a designated leader, given that it had directly suffered the persecution, injustice, and dire living conditions imposed by dictatorships throughout the region. It also showed that, if even democracy was temporarily defeated by military repression, it had the power to prevail in the end against all odds and in virtually any context, with one single exception: when the repression itself and depth of the crisis were such that they crushed all hope of escape, as was the case in Cuba, and then again in Maduro’s Venezuela and ultimately Ortega’s Nicaragua.

When Nicaraguans took to the streets in April, 2018, to protest a tax reform but ultimately to protest their government more broadly, it was clear that the nation’s people wanted a change. Back then, the country seemed to be in democratic free-fall, and the regime responded with authoritarian measures to ensure that the de-democratization process forged ahead unimpeded. Despite talks held in the intervening years, the Ortega regime has regressed back to the all-or-nothing model, leading to a situation that has ended all institutional possibility of there ever being free, fair, and transparent elections so long as it remains in power.

Just as in the 1980s there was an expansive, democratizing force animating the region, now the democratic system has been eroded almost completely, leading countries and governments there to lurch in the opposite direction, toward oppression and tyranny. What this means for Nicaragua is dire: while in the 1980s there was enormous regional and sub-regional pressure to force the nation to democratize, now there remains very little pressure of this sort to be found. We should not, however, accept that democracy in Nicaragua is now impossible, keeping in mind that a situation can change. We have always argued that justice was the solution for Maduro’s Venezuela, and indeed justice will play a role in the solution to Ortega’s Nicaragua.