Violence against the opposition in Nicaragua
By: Jeremy Glass
Jul 22, 2022
Nicaragua is among the bottom 10% of countries on the liberal democracy index, according to the 2022 Democracy Report. The 2021 general election was condemned by international observers as unfair, and lacking transparency and legitimacy. This week’s graph illustrates the government’s increased use of violence against the opposition in Nicaragua since the last election in 2016. There has been a significant worsening of multiparty elections, arrests for political content, CSO repression, and freedom from torture.
Opposition parties either had their status revoked or their leaders arrested before the election in 2021. Some of the opposition candidates were arrested because of their support for the protests against the government’s social reforms in 2018. During the protests, hundreds of demonstrators were killed at the hands of the state and subjected to torture.
