Commentary Liberty of expression is the oxygen of democratic arrangements. As journalists exercise their craft independently and unencumbered, they are canaries in the political coal mine. By this gauge, if left untreated Nicaragua’s polity is being asphyxiated into totalitarianism. The Sandinista couple-dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo, respectively president and vice president of Nicaragua, have unleashed a new repressive wave crushing democratic rights and freedom of the press like never before. Those perceived as threats in the Nov. 7 national elections—community leaders, would-be political candidates, peasant and student leaders, entrepreneurs and journalists—are being systematically abducted or imprisoned on fabricated charges of treason or corruption. Nicaraguans’ fragile political liberties began shrinking after Ortega returned to power in 2007. Illegitimate constitutional changes slowly snuffed liberties as the couple devoured all state power. Liberty of expression has been suppressed since. A layer of visible economic prosperity veiled the machinery of fraud and …