Foreign Digest: Serbia, Nicaragua and Bolivia

Serbia: The parliamentary elections in Serbia in mid-December have sparked mass protests because of numerous serious allegations of fraud. The political opposition, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and the European Union have criticized the elections. A few dozen polling places are revoting this weekend, but the opposition maintains the entire elections, in which the nationalist and pro-Russian ruling party won a plurality of votes, should be discarded. Serbia, which is supported by the Russian Federation, is a candidate for membership in the European Union. As I have posted, in addition to concerns about its closeness with Russia, Serbia, which supports ethnic Serbs in the other independent States of the former Yugoslavia, has been the matrix of ethnic conflicts since Yugoslavia, which was dominated by Serbia, began to break up in 1991 when its last Communist dictator, the Serbian Slobodan Milosevic, began to foment nationalist tension against ethnic minorities to maintain power. He was later imprisoned and tried for crimes against humanity. Nicaragua: Nicaragua has been arresting more Priests since my last update on the increasing oppression in the Central American State by the Marxist regime of Daniel Ortega against the Roman Catholic Church, as part of his increasing authoritarianism. Some of the Priests had called for the release of a Bishop imprisoned by the Nicaraguan tyrant, who has violently cracked down on peaceful protests, imprisoned all his election opponents before the last election, and has banned most civil and religious organizations. The Marxist Sandinistas, led by Ortega, seized power in a coup in 1979 and ruled oppressively until pressured by United States support for rebels to allow free and fair elections in 1990, which they lost. But after being elected to the presidency in 2007 on the promise of keeping Nicaragua free, Ortega has held onto power ever since by breaking his promise by becoming a dictator. After being a darling of the Left during the Cold War, when liberals and Democrats mostly opposed American support for the rebels, even liberals have been appalled at Ortega’s current repression. Bolivia: The Constitutional Court of Bolivia has reversed its 2017 and has ruled that the far-left former Bolivian President is barred from seeking another term as president in 2025, after having served three terms previously between 2006 and 2019, despite a constitutional term limit of two terms. His attempt to amend the Constitution to eliminate term limits was rejected by the Bolivian voters in a referendum and he was later driven from power by a popular revolt. After the former President’s leftist party won the next presidential elections, the new President’s administration prosecuted and imprisoned the opposition leader who acceded to the presidency under the terms of the Bolivian Constitution in the interim. Like Marxist Nicaragua and Communist Cuba, Bolivia is an ally of Socialist Venezuela, which has encouraged leftist anti-American parties across Latin America and which have become authoritarian, often undermining elections and with Presidents usually holding onto power for life.