The United States has compared the regime of Daniel Ortega to the government of Vladimir Putin: “Its laws try to erase opponents from the scene”

The United States on Friday expressed concern over the presence of “negative actors“External in Central America and mentioned the influence of Russia in the package of laws that Nicaragua is implementing arrest opposition leaders and “restrict legitimate democratic action”.

“We are very concerned about the existence and work of negative actors in Central America from abroad“said the State Department’s special envoy for the Northern Triangle, Ricardo Zuniga, during a conference call.

“We can see why these laws in Nicaragua implemented by the government of President (Daniel) Ortega and Vice President (Rosario) Murillo” against opponents, he exemplified.

The American diplomat declared that the package of laws approved by the Nicaraguan National Assembly (Parliament), controlled by an absolute majority by the Sandinistas in the November elections, and considered “repressive” by the opposition, they are “compared” with those which have been approved in Russia. In addition, he indicated that “The United States will continue to use all economic and diplomatic tools“To put pressure on the regime.

From Russia to Nicaragua

“They are compared to the laws that President (Vladimir) Putin approved in Russia to restrict legitimate democratic action and try to wipe out opponents who have, in many cases, more support than the president himself from the scene. even.Zúñiga noted.

These kinds of laws, he said, “it has no place in any democratic formulation envisaged according to the requirements and commitments of the States of the region”.

When asked if Russia, Cuba and Venezuela are supporting Ortega in Nicaragua, the diplomat said that “everything seems to be, and in our opinion, (that) the President of Nicaragua is following the lead of what he is doing. saw in Russia as an effort to suppress and distort the laws and suppress the democratic actors of the country ”.

“It is obviously encouraged and supported by this (Russian) model and that is something that concerns us, because this form of deformation of the laws or the rules of the democratic game does not take place in the Americas, ”he stressed.

He recalled that the countries of the Americas have made a commitment under the Inter-American Democratic Charter of the Organization of American States (OAS) “and not models designed in other parts of the world”, where there has been “ greater repression in recent times. “

The situation in Nicaragua is “serious”

In Zúñiga’s opinion, the situation in Nicaragua, with the arrests of opponents and the harassment of the media, which he described as a “wave of repression”, It is “serious” for “all the peoples of the Americas attached to democracy”.

“What we are seeing in Nicaragua represents a threat to the commitment of the countries of the Americas to democracy, freedom of expression and political freedoms that we should all enjoy as part of normal life in any country in the region, ”he said declared.

Explained that United States deploys multilateral effort to get Ortega regime to release four opposition presidential candidates, Cristiana Chamorro, Arturo Cruz, Félix Maradiaga and Juan Sebastián Chamorro García, and other opposition leaders, whom he has arrested in recent days.

Also for Nicaragua guarantee free elections in November, during which Ortega, in power since 2007, will seek another re-election.

He assured that they are concentrating their multilateral efforts through the OAS, where they hope “promote a resolution showing strong support for the release of candidates and the holding of free elections in November”.

Ortega, 75, returned to power in 2007 and to power alongside Murillo since 2017, is running for the eighth time in the presidential elections on November 7.

The Sandinista leader, who has been called a “dictator” by the United States, which has urged the rest of the world to treat him as such, is in his second stage as president of Nicaragua, after coordinating a board of directors from 1979 to 1985 and first chaired the country from 1985 to 1990.

(With information from EFE)

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