Governments, democratic leaders, the international system and some press, continue to treat Nicaragua and Bolivia as democracies in crisis, highlighting the “electoral crisis” in Nicaragua and the “crisis of justice” in Bolivia to disguise as symptoms what the validity really is. of the dictatorship system of Cuba and Venezuela. None of the “essential elements of democracy” remain in Bolivia and Nicaragua, they are countries with dozens of political prisoners, thousands of exiles and totalitarian power holders. They are not democracies in crisis, they are dictatorships and it is time that they were named and treated that way.
Since January 2006, the Bolivian people with the accession of Evo Morales to the presidency were forced to walk the path of establishing a dictatorship that with falsifications, massacres and political persecution supplanted the Republic of Bolivia and the Political Constitution to impose what today is know how the “plurinational state”, which is a copy of the Cuban and Venezuelan dictatorial statutes that Castro-Chavism calls constitutions.
ANDhe Nicaraguan people since January 2007 with the return of Daniel Ortega to the presidency was forced to reestablish the Sandinista dictatorship in the parameters of 21st century socialism to convert it – like Cuba, Venezuela and Bolivia – into an “electoralist dictatorship”, in the that “the people vote but do not choose”, through successive constitutional modifications and laws added to the power structure and impunity that Sandinismo has always retained since 1990.
In both cases the “Iter criminis” or path of crime for the imposition of dictatorships had as main actors opponents who, negotiating their fears, crimes and spaces of power, gave up the institutionality of their countries in exchange for pardons, amnesties, perks and participations . Great traitors to the Homeland who remain as “Functional opponents”, giving the appearance of democracy to dictatorships, while democratic leaders were tried, imprisoned and exiled, victims of “reputational murder”.
Neither in Bolivia nor in Nicaragua is there “respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms”. Nicaragua has more than 130 and Bolivia more than 45 political prisoners. The recent political prisoners in Nicaragua are all the presidential candidates such as Mrs. Cristiana Chamorro and others who should participate in the elections of next November 7 and in Bolivia the former president Jeanine Añez, former ministers, military, police, young people are political prisoners. and citizens who were part of or victims of the failure to end the dictatorship between October 2019 and October 2020.
Neither in Nicaragua nor in Bolivia is the “rule of law” in force because through constitutional texts and infamous laws that violate human rights, the right is the will of the dictator and the regime, as in Cuba and Venezuela, with laws such as the “gag”, the “retroactive”, the “fight against corruption ”, or“ protection of sovereignty ”, or simply“ anti-imperialist ”.
Both in Bolivia and Nicaragua have turned the justice system into an instrument of political persecution.woe to the imposition of terror on the population. The “prosecutors and judges are executioners and the processes are lynchings.” The “judicialization of persecution and political repression” has been institutionalized as a Castro-Chavez method and is the clearest proof of the inexistence of “separation and independence of the organs of public power.”
Without respect for human rights or fundamental freedoms, without the rule of law and without separation and independence of public powers, but quite the opposite, Bolivia and Nicaragua cannot have, they have not had in the last 15 years and they will not have “free and fair elections based on universal and secret suffrage as an expression of popular sovereignty” and neither will they have “free political organization.” What happened in Bolivia in the October 2019 elections was a criminal fraud certified by the OAS and the European Union, among others, a fraud that was repeated with the complicity of those who are now prisoners of the regime in October 2020. What happened in Nicaragua It is the same and they will repeat it – with the opposition candidates imprisoned – on November 7.
The difference between democracy and dictatorship is not semantic, it is about abysmal contrapositions that structure two totally antagonistic forms of life and government.. Dictatorial regimes as human rights violators should be banned from the multilateral economic system, but in order not to suffer these and other consequences, they continue to pretend that Nicaragua and Bolivia are democracies in crisis, when in truth they have been consolidated, pure and harsh dictatorships for years.
* Lawyer and Political Scientist. Director of the Interamerican Institute for Democracy
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