The Nicaraguan president, Daniel Ortega, is on the list of the 12 “most despotic tyrants in the world” for the year 2022, according to the British organization Index on Censorship (Index of Censorship) that watches over freedom of expression, denounces censorship and promotes discussion.
In the list of 12 candidates to become the greatest “tyrant” this year, Ortega is in fifth place in voting which will close on January 9, 2023. The organization, which also publishes a quarterly magazine, highlights that the president of the Central American country became “a disappointing image. A revolutionary hero turned tyrant.”
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“For his critics, the Nicaraguan president has recreated a family dictatorship along the lines of the hated Somozas. His vice president Rosario Murillo would not disagree. She described the recent elections as ‘a formidable, marvelous, exemplary day, in which we confirm our call to the people’. But of course, she is Ortega’s wife,” Index editor-general Martin Bright said.
The NGO also highlights that “Ortega has dismantled almost all institutional controls on his presidential power. Opposition parties were banned ahead of the 2021 presidential election, and opponents were jailed. Civil society has been neutralized and an estimated 2,000 NGOs closed with organizations that receive funding from international sources labeled as foreign agents. More than 100 journalists have been forced into exile in Costa Rica along with some 80,000 asylum seekers.”
The president of Nicaragua is with his ally, President Xi Jinping of China, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, of Mexico, Tamim bin Hamad, of Qatar, Ebrahim Raisi, president of Iran; Vladimir Putin, from Russia; and Kim Jong-un from North Korea.
Index launches an annual campaign to expose to the world and spotlight human rights defenders, activists, artists and journalists who have been making headlines because their freedom of expression has been suppressed all year by the authoritarian leaders of different countries.
The 2021 winner by international voting was Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, followed by Chinese President Xi Jinping and Syrian Bashar al-Assad.
Through the brief biography published by the organization, they took the opportunity to highlight that during the recent municipal elections held last November, the situation in Nicaragua worsened when “the Sandinista Liberation Front announced that it had obtained control of the 153 municipalities of the country. The result was inevitable after the banning of all opposition parties.
