On Nov. 7, Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega secured a fourth consecutive term in the country’s latest round of national elections with Rosario Murillo, Ortega’s wife, serving as Vice President. Prior to his current run as President, which began in 2007, Ortega had headed the government throughout the 1980s, first through the Junta of National Reconstruction after the Sandinista National Liberation Front ousted the right-wing Somoza dictatorship in 1979, and then as President from 1985 to 1990. Nicaragua’s electoral authority has said that voter turnout in this week’s elections reached 65% and that Ortega’s Sandinista alliance secured about 75% of votes cast. The United States is currently leading an international chorus rejecting the legitimacy of the elections and condemning the Ortega-Murillo government, with President Joe Biden threatening action against Nicaragua. “What Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo, orchestrated today was a pantomime election that was neither free nor fair, and most certainly not democratic,†Biden’s official statement says. The “United States, in close coordination with other members of the international community, will use all diplomatic and economic tools at our disposal to support the people of Nicaragua and hold accountable the Ortega-Murillo government and those that facilitate its abuses.â€
The aggressive posture and threats of sanctions (or worse) from President Biden follow a well-worn path of flexed imperialist might, political and even military intervention, and self-serving definitions of democracy that the US has often deployed against left-wing governments throughout Latin America. In response, leftists of different stripes in North America and beyond have denounced President Biden’s threat while also claiming that accusations of rigged elections in Nicaragua or doubts about the leftist bonafides of Ortega’s government are entirely unfounded. But there is a lot more context that needs to be unpacked here, and doing so from a historically honest and anti-imperialist perspective is vital to understanding the very real political crisis in Nicaragua. In this interview, TRNN Editor-in-Chief Maximillian Alvarez speaks with professor and Latin American specialist William I. Robinson about the deeper historical context surrounding Nicaragua’s elections, the very real political crisis that many are not seeing, and the need for the internationalist left to oppose US imperialism while soberly assessing the abuses of the Ortega-Murillo government.
William I. Robinson is Distinguished Professor of Sociology, Global, and Latin American Studies at the University of California at Santa Barbara. He worked in Managua with the Nicaragua News Agency and the Nicaragua Foreign Ministry in the 1980s and was affiliated faculty with the Central American University in Managua until 2001. Along with authoring a series of analyses of the 2021 Nicaraguan elections for the North American Congress on Latin America, Robinson has authored, co-authored, and edited numerous books, including Global Capitalism and the Crisis of Humanity; David and Goliath: The U.S. War Against Nicaragua; The Global Police State; and A Faustian Bargain: U.S. Intervention in the Nicaraguan Elections and American Foreign Policy in the post-Cold War Era.
Pre-Production/Studio/Post Production: Cameron Granadino
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** (Disclaimer: This video content is intended for educational and informational purposes only) **
Those laws against hate crimes and cyber terrorism Robinson described were described exactly the same way one could describe those same laws in the US. I witnessed the Nicaraguan elections and did exit interviews of hundreds of people and quantified number of voter in several locations. I also oversaw the voting and reviewed the vote counting and talked to several people supporting both Sandinista Party and opposition parties. There is no doubt about the election results the government published. I would be far more confident in the highly verified and highly transparent process in Nicaragua than the election process in the US.
Yikes what happened to the real news!
Is Paul Jay still at the Real News? You guys never made an announcement and just changed the channel. It's the same in name only now.
This is the first time I have seen TRNN on the wrong side of the story. It would appear that Maximillian Alvarez–the new editor in chief replacing Paul Jay–has been co-opted regarding US foreign affairs. I will be watching TRNN more closely in future to see if this is a new direction for them.
RNN has lost a lot of respect with this. You might address this.
Professor Robinson is telling the flat truth.
There you have it. The TRNN regime change operation installed a DNC security state cat's paw.
I invite you guys to visit Nicaragua. There is no such thing as Left in here. They are capitalists. Millionaires.
There's none so deaf as those who will not hear.
Daniel Ortega is Alike Fidel Castro. A revolucionary with million of dollars in the Bank. Nothing but a Dictator.
Over 80% of the Nicaraguan people said !NO! to Daniel Ortega.
Both talking heads here are an insult to intelligence. Even their pronunciation of Spanish is affected to the point of foolishness.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rS9fX_IjDQ4
These are interesting points but sources I've grown to trust seem to completely disagree. I do think that leftists tend to overlook authoritarian tendencies when they feel the despot is anti capitalist or anti imperialist. The nepotism is disturbing and undeniable. But in the end, it doesn't really matter, it's not our business, let these people sort themselves out. Our constant interruptions have done nothing but inhibit growth. Short of genocide, the US needs to leave South America alone.
"The Global Police State" is a very important piece of work; it presents a big picture of transnational corporate conglomeration at the level of scientific inquiry; its framework captures imperialistic history and in its essence delivers an (intentional or unintentional) powerful refutation of postcolonial theory.
Have Ben Norton (who lives in Nicaragua) on to counter many of these claims
I need to hear a rebuttal to this interview
Here’s an excellent examination of the election in Nicaragua and regional issues. https://youtu.be/PiFA5KyM66E
Hi, back again. I spent the day talking to my new friends in Nicaragua, and doing research and unfortunately the individual you are interviewing seems to be spewing propaganda interspersed with specs of truth. You need to vet your sources better, I need reliable news, not just talking points…Unsubscribed.
We should not be questioning whether the Nicaraguan government is "left," given that it is helping ordinary Nicaraguans in so many ways – free universal healthcare and education through graduate school, many new hospitals and highways, gender equality, just to name a few. Rather, we should be questioning whether this guy is "left," given that he is spouting falsehoods and talking points of the US Executive Branch.