US Calls on Countries to Isolate Nicaragua Over Constitutional Reform

Washington is urging the world to distance itself from Nicaragua after the country’s National Assembly advanced a constitutional reform that opponents say could shut the door on free elections.

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undermined the fiction of democracy in Nicaragua

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the legislature, controlled by Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo, had “undermined the fiction of democracy in Nicaragua” to “consolidate their illegitimate dynasty and indefinitely deprive Nicaraguans of free and fair elections.” He called on US partners to end normal commercial operations with what he described as “this brutal dictatorship,” and said measures would be announced at the next ministerial meeting of the Organization of American States.

Rubio argued that governments that deny their citizens’ rights should not receive the same economic or political benefits as governments committed to peace and security in the hemisphere. The constitutional changes, approved late Tuesday in a first legislative stage, would bar people described as “coup plotters” and “traitors to the homeland” from running for elected office or holding public posts. They would also extend presidential and other elected terms from six to seven years and state that foreign laws would have no legal effect in Nicaragua.

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consolidate their illegitimate dynasty and indefinitely deprive Nicaraguans of free and fair elections

Opposition leader Juan Sebastián Chamorro, who was stripped of his Nicaraguan nationality, warned from exile that thousands of jobs could be at risk. He said Nicaragua’s preferential trade treatment with the United States was already threatened by the move to eliminate elections. Chamorro noted that nearly half of Nicaragua’s exports go to the United States and said Washington could impose special tariffs without suspending Nicaragua from the Dominican Republic-Central America-United States Free Trade Agreement.

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The preferential trade treatment Nicaragua enjoys with the United States is already at risk because of this action to eliminate elections

The changes follow an August OAS decision to hold an extraordinary meeting of foreign ministers after Ortega said he wanted to eliminate elections. Nicaragua’s government has rewritten the Constitution repeatedly since its violent suppression of 2018 protests, further restricting freedoms, the report said.

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The war on democracy launched by Ortega, as the State Department puts it, threatens our stability and prosperity