When the People Stop Listening: On Daniel Ortega's Predicament

Every hero becomes a bore at last.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Bore, n.: A person who talks when you wish him to listen.
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary


After only a couple of days back in Nicaragua—following a four year absence—the quality of life seemed far better than friends and relatives had led me to believe. My first impression was that Nicaragua had prospered under Daniel Ortega’s presidency. Commerce, by all appearances, was vibrant. The dynamism on the streets made me think that Ortega’s year and a half of rule was benefiting Nicaragua’s economy, the contrary of everything I had been told.

But one just needs to talk to people, ask a few questions, watch the news for a couple of hours, and read the newspapers to realize that things are not as rosy as they seem.

On my first day back—in the company of my mother and my sister, Sandy—we drove by the roundabout (“rotonda”) near Metrocentro, in the heart of Managua. On an empty lot on the northwestern corner opposite the mall, protesters had erected temporary shelters. They were camped there to support Dora María Téllez’s hunger strike. A former Sandinista leader—Dora María was the second in command during the rebel’s daring and dramatic seizure of Nicaragua’s congress, in August, 1978—she had been at that spot, without food, for ten days to protest the Electoral Council’s decision to ban the political party she heads, the Movimiento de Renovación Sandinista, from participating in this year’s municipal elections. (The Electoral Council, not surprisingly, is controlled by subscribers to “El Pacto”—that is, the alliance between Daniel Ortega and Arnoldo Alemán and their followers that allows the former opponents to share and yield considerable political power. This partnership also helps them avoid prosecution and extended prison sentences for past crimes.)

“Daniel Ortega is closing the doors to democracy and trying to establish another dictatorship,” Dora María Téllez said to the news media.

Ambassadors from several countries agree with Téllez’s assessment, and the countries they represent are considering withholding aid to Nicaragua.

“In my view,” a former student who now works for a well known international organization said to me, “Ortega’s presidency has reached its most critical stage.”

* * * *

My first weekend in Nicaragua, the government television station broadcast the inauguration ceremony of an electrical plant that Hugo Chávez donated. The centerpiece of the event was a speech by Daniel Ortega. His talk, sated with anti-imperialist rhetoric, condemned the United States and the practices of neo-liberalism. These, he argued, are the culprits of all of the world’s evils.

His discourse harked back to the 80’s, the height of the Revolución Sandinista, which many Nicaraguans, of all social classes, call the nation’s darkest decade.

“Daniel is stuck in the past,” is a phrase I heard often during my visit, always uttered as a lament.

* * * *

Everywhere one travels in Nicaragua one encounters enormous billboards with Daniel Ortega in various poses, proclaiming: “Long live the poor of the world,” “The people’s presidency,” and other, similar slogans. What these have in common is that, once dissected, they’re hollow and devoid of substance.

“What ‘people’s presidency’?” said a former high school classmate of mine who now owns a small business. “You think Daniel cares what anyone other than Chayo has to say?” (“Chayo” is Rosario Murillo, Ortega’s wife who, everyone seems to agree, is the power behind the throne.)

A sign of the growing disillusionment among Nicaraguans is that the billboards are being vandalized. In several announcements, during my travels, Daniel’s face was splattered with paint.

While visiting friends in Granada, a neighbor excitedly came into the house to announce that the billboard of Daniel that greets people at the city entrance had been defaced the night before.

“That’s a good sign,” said the grandmother of the family. “It shows that no one is afraid of the Sandinistas anymore. They can no longer lock up opponents or spy on them around the clock like they did in the 80s in the name of national security. Daniel can’t control us this time around.”

The recent and massive protests in Managua demanding Ortega’s resignation support the elderly woman’s assertion that the citizenry is unafraid. Also, current polls show that close to 80% of Nicaraguans disapprove of his leadership. What’s more, many who voted for him are openly stating that they made a mistake.

But what most impressed me during my visit is that the political passions that historically have spilled over into violence remain at low ebb. I believe this is because the overwhelming majority of Nicaraguans are turning a deaf ear to Ortega’s confrontational words.

“We don’t listen to him anymore,” a raspados vendor told me in the city of Masaya. “He and Chayo are crazy. What we’re doing instead is working hard to keep the country afloat in a world economy that each day seems to be getting worse. Who has time to pay attention to the foolish things coming out of Ortega’s mouth? We’re concentrating on truly important things: like working and helping others who want to work.”

Back in 2001, I was present at a sparsely attended speech Ortega gave in the plaza of the town of San Marcos during the electoral campaign that he lost to Enrique Bolaños. After listening to Ortega’s long and uninspiring talk, I surmised that the former Comandante de la Revolución had run out of things to say. And this time around, in a clear sign that Daniel Ortega’s presidency is quickly losing respect among Nicaraguans, people have stopped listening to his threadbare and antiquated view of Nicaragua’s place in today’s world.