Commentaries

• Author: Courtney Desiree Morris
• DOI: 10.1177/0094582X211041129
• Date: 01 November 2021
• Published date: 01 November 2021

22 LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES

going to escalate. Nonetheless, the (almost certain) victory of the Ortega-

Murillo duo will mean the continuation of a dynastic and personalist regime—

a type of regime, by the way, that always has problems when a changing of the

guard is looming on the horizon.

DOI: 10.1177/0094582X211038541

Courtney Desiree Morris

University of California, Berkeley

In his cogent assessment of Nicaragua’s “new normal” following the 2018

protests, Cruz-Feliciano demonstrates how, despite the government’s efforts,

the seeds of discontent continue to germinate even as the possibility of a polit-

ical future beyond Daniel Ortega and his wife/vice president, Rosario Murillo,

seems more distant than ever before. While the FSLN is still—by far—the most

powerful party in the country, it seems that the rebellious spirit that the 2018

protests unleashed remains a source of anxiety for the Ortega administration.

This is apparent in the ways that it has attempted to bolster its position, includ-

ing (1) passing an antiterrorism law to neutralize public protest and arbitrarily

detaining activists, (2) stripping critical nongovernmental organizations of

their legal status in an attempt to weaken civil society, and (3) attacking the

free press and journalists critical of the regime.1 Additionally, the administra-

tion has further solidified its position by consolidating control over the coun-

try’s electoral institutions and by suspending the legal status of political

parties aligned with the opposition and disqualifying them from participating

in the upcoming presidential elections.2

It is clear that there is plenty to mobilize a citizenry exhausted by the

Ortega administration’s violent repression and its inept handling of the

COVID-19 pandemic, which has devastated Nicaragua.3 Yet, as Cruz-Feliciano

argues, the problem with the opposition is that it lacks “enough moral author-

ity to gather the masses.” This was a concern that supporters of the opposi-

tion identified early in its formation. A second concern was the ideological

diversity of the movement as the right, the left, the private sector (represented

by COSEP), the Catholic Church, student activists, and others have struggled

to assert hegemony over it. Politically and ideologically heterogeneous, these

groups are bound together only by a shared desire to see Ortega removed

from office and the rule of law restored. As has become apparent over the past

three years, these singular demands have proven largely inadequate to main-

tain this fragile political coalition.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in the movement’s consistent inability

to include the political concerns of black and indigenous peoples of the

Caribbean coast in its political agenda. Many of the costeño activists with whom

I have worked over the past 15 years quickly became involved in the 2018

opposition movement and viewed the protests as an opportunity to articulate

their communities’ specific grievances with both the Ortega administration

and the state of Nicaragua, which has historically undermined their rights to

territory, autonomy, and sovereignty.4 They argued that the coast has been a