The Organization of American States (OAS) has voted to call an emergency meeting on Nicaragua's drive to ban the opposition from running in elections.
The impoverished Central American country is ruled by President Daniel Ortega, who led the toppling of a US-backed dictator in 1979 and is now criticised as a harsh autocrat who tolerates zero dissent.
Ortega, 80, has been in power since 2006 and rules with an iron fist along with his equally powerful wife, Rosario Murillo.
Their latest thrust for tighter control of Nicaragua is a planned constitutional reform barring the opposition from elections. Nicaragua's loyalist legislature plans to vote on this suppression next month.
The OAS, a Washington-based body that works to promote development and cooperation in the Americas, voted Wednesday overwhelmingly to hold an emergency foreign ministers meeting to discuss Nicaragua.
A date for the extraordinary meeting has not been set.
The OAS as a bloc cannot impose economic or trade sanctions on a country, limiting itself to diplomatic condemnation or suspension of a member state or recommending that its members punish a nation that violates democratic norms.
Nicaragua withdrew from the OAS in 2023.
Argentina’s Ambassador to the OAS Carlos Cherniak said the need for debate on Nicaragua was urgent.
"All of our countries are worried about criminal organisations. Isn't a regime that cancels democracy perhaps a platform for criminal organisations?"
His comments followed a call by the United States government for OAS members to “take real action” against the Ortega regime.
“The repetition of condemnations without meaningful institutional action teaches Murillo and Ortega that they can simply wait for us to grow tired,” said Michael Kozak, head of the Latin America bureau at the US State Department.
The OAS decision was welcomed by the opposition in exile. Former presidential candidate and political prisoner Juan Sebastián Chamorro described it as an “overwhelming victory for democracy in Nicaragua.”
– TIMES/AFP
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