With what and with whom does Ortega count to stay in power in Nicaragua?

President Daniel Ortega will seek his fourth consecutive term in Sunday’s elections in Nicaragua. His purpose is not in jeopardy, with his main opponents imprisoned. Here are the endorsements you have to start a new five-year period.

The force of arms

During the 14 successive years in power, Ortega, who also ruled in the 1980s, reversed laws on the separation of civil and military power, and incorporated active or retired military personnel into state institutions.

In recent years, says the expert on military issues Elvira Cuadra, in exile, the military apparatus “has politically folded” Ortega, and that alliance, “also economic”, will be crucial for his “governance model” from from 2022.

The military owns supermarkets, stores, a hospital, hardware stores.

Its financial arm, the Instituto de Previsión Social Militar (IPSM), is listed on the New York Stock Exchange and according to an investigation by the magazine Confidencial has at least 35% of its funds invested in bonds in the United States, which it estimated at about US $ 100 million.

The Army and the Police were pointed out by human rights organizations for the violent repression of the 2018 protests against the government.

The United States accused the military and the police of giving arms to groups of hooded men who acted against the protesters, and in 2020 sanctioned the head of the Army, Julio Avilés, and the director of the Police, Francisco Díaz, Ortega’s brother-in-law.

“The main instrument of repression is the police to intimidate, but also the judiciary to imprison anyone who disagrees,” said human rights defender Vilma Núñez, referring to the nearly 150 prisoners in opposition.

Russia’s support

A flotilla of 250 Russian buses have been circulating the streets of Managua for days, used to dilapidated urban transport. And a bust of cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin has just been unveiled in a city park.

Taxis, wheat, anti-COVID Sputnik vaccines, even a satellite station, a biotechnology institute and weaponry, account for the growing Russian presence in Nicaragua.

“Thanks to President Vladimir Putin, we are together in the fight for peace, sovereignty and justice,” Ortega said recently at the bus handover ceremony, along with his son Laureano, presidential adviser and main link with Russia.

Ortega, whose government recognized the independence of the separatist regions of Georgia, Abkhazia and South Ossetia and the annexation of Crimea, traveled to Moscow in 2008 and Putin to Managua in 2014.

“Abroad, the force it has as support is mainly from Russia, Cuba and Venezuela. To a lesser extent, Iran and Turkey. Basically from Russia ”, said the analyst Edgar Parrales, according to which there are Russians, Cubans and Venezuelans“ advising the government ”in the repression and in recently approved laws on“ cybercrimes ”and“ foreign agents ”.

According to the Secretary General of International IDEA, the Costa Rican political scientist Kevin Casas, Ortega “can knock on Russia’s door, which will give him some help in order to mortify the United States in its own geopolitical sphere of influence.”

Nicaragua intensified its rapprochement with Russia in the last three years due to the fact that Caracas’ cooperation, which between 2008 and 2016 was about US $ 4.8 billion, fell severely due to the Venezuelan crisis.

The oxygen of remittances and loans

Despite the lags of the 2018 crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic, the Nicaraguan economy, one of the smallest in Central America, will grow between 6% and 8% this year, according to the Central Bank.

The analyst Eliseo Núñez commented that family remittances, of almost US $ 1,400 million from January to August, and the contributions of organizations such as the World Bank, the IMF, the IDB and CABEI, of more than US $ 1,000 million, contribute to this. so far this year.

For the economist Oscar René Vargas, this economic growth is about an “economic rebound”, after the pandemic, which will not positively affect all economic sectors “.

With at least three business leaders in prison, analysts take it for granted that the business sector will negotiate with Ortega to protect its interests, as in the past.

“They would give Ortega support,” according to Vargas, who did not rule out that they are part of a dialogue in 2022.

“The pillar of international aid and loans is the most vulnerable because with international isolation, a product of the condemnation of the model that Ortega is implementing and elections without competition, this financing is going to stop,” said Núñez.

Opponents have asked international financial organizations not to approve loans to the government, considering that it oxygenates Ortega.