3 de diciembre 2024
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The governments of Guatemala, Costa Rica, Panama and the Dominican Republic rejected the candidacy of former Nicaraguan foreign minister Denis Moncada for the post of secretary general of the Central American Integration System (SICA), according to sources close to the regional institution.
“The four countries have already sent a joint communication, informing the Nicaraguan government of their rejection of the proposed slate because they consider that the candidates are not suitable for the General Secretariat,” explained one of the sources.
Moncada was part of a three-person slate, along with the Sandinista Front legislator Arling Alonso, and the head of the Family, Adolescence and Childhood Ministry, Johanna Flores.
“We have received your disrespectful and abusive joint note dated today, November 28, 2024, which confirms your continuous, illegal and improper blocking of Nicaragua according to all the treaties and regulations governing the Central American Integration System,” wrote Nicaraguan Foreign Minister Valdrack Jaentschke, in a note addressed to his colleagues from Costa Rica, Guatemala, Panama and the Dominican Republic, and to all governments that participate in SICA.
“Faced with this highly unusual level insubordination of governments and foreign ministries that do not respond to the law that governs this body according to the jurisprudence of our system, Nicaragua is considering several measures that we will communicate in due course to deal with the contempt in which the countries who signed the note have shamefully fallen, and which also denies, absolutely and insanely, the power of our country to nominate our own candidates,” he continued.
At the beginning of 2024, the dictatorship threatened the rest of the countries with withdrawing from SICA and not exercising the pro tempore presidency of the regional organization. However, a week later it retracted its warnings.
According to Jaentschke, former foreign minister and retired general Denis Moncada “has had and has the recognition of governments, peoples and countries of the world. Such recognition and respect cannot be ignored and/or denied by those who subscribe to this absurd communication.”
Countries invite Nicaragua to propose another slate
The slate headed by Moncada was scheduled to be officially presented on Friday, November 15, but some countries requested to reschedule the session because it coincided with the XXIX Ibero-American Summit in Cuenca, Ecuador.
In the joint letter, the four governments urged the Ortega administration to present a new list of candidates, according to the sources.
On November 16, 2024, the Secretary General position had been vacant for one year. This is the second twelve-month period in three years that the General Secretariat has been vacant due to the Nicaraguan dictatorship's insistence on placing political operators to promote the withdrawal of Taiwan as an observer partner and, in its place, admit China and Russia into SICA.
SICA currently functions solely for internal administrative purposes, and the General Secretariat is being operationally led by the Executive Director, Ingrid Figueroa, a Salvadoran national.
Denis Moncada's candidacy
The new slate was the third attempt by the dictatorship to fill the SICA General Secretary position, after the anomalous resignation of Werner Vargas, who has not been seen publicly since November 2023.
The Moncada-led slate replaced one proposed in early October 2024, after the regime failed in its attempt to impose its political operator Valdrack Jaentschke in the position. The dictatorship then appointed Jaentschke to the position of foreign minister following Moncada's resignation for alleged “illness.”
The main argument for rejecting Ortega's candidates is that they are “loyal” to the dictatorship and “without much knowledge” of the foreign service, according to the other SICA countries.
When the regime nominated Denis Moncada, CONFIDENCIAL consulted experts in international relations, who considered that the candidacy of the former foreign minister “could prosper.”
“The slate led by the former foreign minister has a better chance of being accepted,” said Carlos Manuel Echeverría, former Costa Rican ambassador and former advisor to the SICA General Secretariat. He continued, “A person who has been foreign minister for so many years, and has been ambassador to the OAS, seems to me to have the skills and qualifications to be a candidate and secretary general.”
Costa Rican academic Carlos Murillo stressed that the problem with Nicaragua's nominations “has not been the names,” but the attitude of Ortega's government, which “seeks to impose its decisions” and “control [SICA's] General Secretariat.”
“Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo are not looking to negotiate because they claim it's now Nicaragua's turn. So in their minds the two of them are the ones who decide who they put in. This [situation] is unprecedented because there have been very different general secretaries, from former presidents, as in the case of Vinicio Cerezo, to others with little experience,” explained the expert in international relations and researcher at the School of Public Administration at the University of Costa Rica.
For Juan Sebastián Chamorro, former presidential candidate and former political prisoner, the constant rejections of Ortega's nominations have “forced” the dictatorship “to present a more potable candidate, more in line with the position [of secretary general], which has been occupied by former presidents or high-level officials.”
The nomination of Denis Moncada “continues to be complicated” because, according to Chamorro, being a former foreign minister, “does not free him from the responsibility of being an accomplice of the dictatorship in Nicaragua,” said the director of the Nicaraguan Democratic Concertation (CDN-Monteverde), which on two occasions has warned Central American foreign ministers about Ortega's candidates.
“Moncada is not under sanctions, and he does in fact have experience in diplomacy,” Chamorro stressed, indicating that it seems that ‘in this sense, the dictatorship wants to finally solve this problem.”
This article was published in Spanish in Confidencial and translated by our staff. To get the most relevant news from our English coverage delivered straight to your inbox, subscribe to The Dispatch.
