Daniel Ortega was just reelected for his third term, guaranteeing more repressive actions to come from an increasingly authoritarian regime.

When in Managua last July, the streets had shut down making it impossible to get to the UCA bus station. I was annoyed at the inconvenience that, in all fairness, could have been anticipated by me with a little basic research.

I had come across El Repliegue, an annual event held by the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) to commemorate an event during the 1979 revolution where the group had made a strategic withdrawal from the capital. From what I could understand of the speeches, the narrative is to reiterate the success of the current government and triumph over opponents. Under the leadership of Daniel Ortega and wife Rosario Murillo, the party had consolidated political power; events like El Repliegue remind dissidents of this power – and to stand down.

Ortega had started as a Sandinista leader and after taking power, eroded freedom in the most authoritarian ways: jailing journalists, taking control of institutions, obstructing free elections. When you know this, it is comforting to witness residents throughout the country living their normal daily life yet discomfiting when you think about what’s next. It’s the normalization of strife.

An uncomfortable truth here for me as an American is that Nicaragua was one of the places that Cold War policy took a very ugly, very neoliberal shape. And it’s clear that the effects of those events – the support of Somozas against the Soviet Union, then the Contras against the FSLN, and everything between – are a direct reason why the country is under a metaphorical cloud of gloom.

For one, it’s the reason why I couldn’t get a bus that day.