The presence of a large part of the Nicaraguan opposition in exile, which now has loudspeakers to generate complaints and point out what is happening in their country, should not neglect the connection with the national situation in order to remain articulate.
That is the premise with which the young Nicaraguan opposition member Lesther Alemán starts, who on Tuesday night shared with Latin American students from George Washington University, to whom he explained that the chapters of creating diaspora governments, as the Cubans have tried and Venezuelans with their oppositions established abroad, “are pink elephants” and repeating that story would lead the Nicaraguan opposition to failure.
Therefore, he said that the consensus of the opposition in his country – which was forged in almost two years of imprisonment and which served to speak and get to know each other among the different referents of the opposition movement – has agreed that there must be “minimum agreements”. to articulate the internal forces of the country.
“It must be recognized that a part of the opposition is here, but I am critical: if a part of the opposition is here and we do not manage to have a connection with the interior of the country, our work will be insufficient. Because the chapter on Cuba with its diaspora must not be repeated, the chapter on Venezuela with its diaspora must not be repeated either, I do not believe in a foreign government (…) the efforts have to come from within as well,” said Alemán, released two months ago and an expatriate to the United States with 222 opponents sent to Washington who were purging in the different Sandinista jails sentences imposed in summary trials.
The young activist said that when thinking about this stage of the democratic transition in Nicaragua, it is clear that it will be “complicated” by multiple factors, but especially by the extreme polarization that the country is experiencing, which would make it difficult to direct efforts to whoever has to assume the leadership.
Added to this is the total control of the State apparatus that the pairing of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo will inherit in all levels of public administration and justice after decades in power and where patronage has been created.
If we add to this that the times will be shortened to the ceiling set by the opposition to remove Ortega from power, set in the year 2026, since at the present time the opposition itself could not be considered solidified since it does not have guarantees of participating from the start. country, “the only thing that is clear is that the population does not want more Sandinismo.”
Given this, he says that it will depend on how much the opposition from abroad can articulate these efforts focused on reaching the national territory to achieve that goal set in the next general elections.
“It will depend on us so that this agony is reduced from 2026, but we already have a date, that deadline will arrive, but truly and honestly I say that the correlation of forces is not the most appropriate to say that from now to 2026, envisioning Today’s scenario, we are going to be with the guarantees from Nicaragua”, he opined.
In the opinion of the opposition movement, it is clear that “Daniel Ortega is betting on his greatest radicalization ever seen before,” he said.
What is evidenced by even closing the spaces for religious participation and persecution of the Catholic Church and the break with the Vatican as a sign of the extremism to which it has pushed the country.
In conversations in 2021 with US government officials before his imprisonment, Alemán said he explained to them that the Nicaraguan leader “does not know red lines.”
Closing the discussion on Alemán with the students, Onero Institute’s Director of External Operations, Nick Lochrie, said that it is clear that there are challenges ahead to return Nicaragua to the democratic path, but the determination of figures like Lesther Alemán, whom has known in these months, and the other opponents committed to the country show signs of hope.
“It is an important moment right now to have people who fight for democracy in Nicaragua and yearn for respect for the law and the institutions of that country whose democracy has been betrayed by Daniel Ortega, the authoritarians, and authoritarianism is an evil system,” he said. Lochirie.
The Nicaraguan government considers the opponents as part of a “plot” by foreign forces to destabilize the Sandinista government.
When the 222 political prisoners were released and put on a plane bound for the United States, Vice President Rosario Murillo said that the expulsion arranged by all the powers of the State responded to a “supreme interest.”
“Our State, our government, our Judiciary, our Parliament, the name of the Nicaraguan families and the supreme interest of this blessed and free homeland of ours, have decided to expatriate and transfer the people who were tried and sentenced for attacks. against national sovereignty,” Murillo said in reaction to the expulsion of opponents, including Lesther Alemán.
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