(QCostarica) Without any political opposition, the ruling Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional (FSLN) is the only party that controls the country, the critics accusing President Daniel Ortega of governing in the old style of the former East Germany, formerly the German Democratic Republic or GDR, says the La Prensa in Nicaragua.
On Friday, Nicaragua’s top electoral authority decimated the country’s political opposition by unseating practically all of its remaining legislators.
The Consejo Supremo Electoral (Supreme Electoral Council) ousted 16 opposition legislators from the Partido Liberal Independiente and the Movimiento de Renovación Sandinista Friday for not recognizing their officially sanctioned leader, Pedro Reyes, had recently been given that authority by the Supreme Court, which removed the opposition party’s previous leader following a long-running political dispute.
Reyes is seen by many within his own party as a tool of Ortega, who heads into reelection for a third consecutive term. Elections are scheduled for November 6.
According to the La Prensa report, former legislator Eliseo Nuñez Morales says that the version of “one party” that Ortega managed to impose is closer to the system that existed in East Germany, where there was a “dominant party” and several “satellite parties”, which justified the multiparty system, although in practice the Socialist Unity Party of Germany – in the former GDR had the monopoly on political parties and other organizations.
In Nicaragua there are 17 political parties, nine of these are allied with the FSLN and others are not critical of the system.
The GDR was a socialist state that existed in Central Europe during the Cold War. It was established in 1949 in the territory of Germany which was under Soviet occupation since the end of World War II, and continued to exist until 1990, when its territory was incorporated into the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) during the German reunification.
Ortega’s style is also being compared to that of the leaders of China, North Korea and Cuba. “The personality cult of Ortega is only comparable with the cult that he surrenders to North Korean leaders,” said Nuñez.
Former “guerrillera” (guerilla) Dora Maria Tellez, a FSLN dissident, says that Ortega has somehow managed to impose a “one-party defacto”, because the State of Nicaragua is legally established as a multiparty system.
“This model of one-party is a threat to each and every Nicaraguan…institutional spaces have been closed to the opposition and to the people. In the National Assembly, the victim of the coup, remains only be Ortega’s party members and his subordinates,” the said Sandinista Renovation Movement (MRS), which is leed by Tellez, said in a statement. The MRS lost their legal status in 2008 for opposing the FSLN.
Since Ortega returned to power in 2007, he has repeatedly expressed his idea of a one party system, arguing that a diversity of parties divides the people.
According to sociologist and political analyst Oscar Rene Vargas, Ortega fears that in free elections the public would remove him like they did in 1990. “There is a fear within commander Daniel Ortega, who appears to be the one behind moves like these. It seems like he does not trust the polls that supposedly show the people favoring him,” Vargas said.
