The opposition’s dilemma faced with the hardening of the Ortega regime: whether or not to participate in the elections and with which candidate

From Managua, special for Infobae.- To go or not to go, that is the dilemma. There is no consensus within the Nicaraguan opposition on whether or not to participate in the legislative elections of November 7, which will include the president and vice-president and the 92 deputies of the National Assembly with their respective deputies.

Alianza Ciudadana, the main opposition group with legal representation, has expressed its intention to maintain its participation in the ongoing electoral process despite the fact that the Daniel Ortega has tightened his control over the electoral tribunal, enacted laws that further restrict political participation and keeps five opponents in prison who had expressed their decision to run as presidential candidates.

“We must make the effort to move towards an electoral process, if not, what is the other alternative? I don’t see any other. If there was another, I would be ready to listen to it, to collaborate with anyone so that there is another peaceful alternative ”, declared Kitty Monterrey, president of Ciudadanos por la Libertad (CxL) , a party she would organize in her dressing room. to the new Citizen Alliance.

The Citizens’ Alliance sought to choose the only opposition candidate through a process that included polls and debates. Four candidates have registered to compete in the candidacy of the alliance. Two – Arturo Cruz and Juan Sebastián Chamorro – were arrested for “treason against the motherland” and since then nothing is known about them. Two other personalities who have expressed their intention to participate in the competition – Cristiana Chamorro and Félix Maradiaga – were also arrested.

Another opposition bloc, called National Coalition, was practically blown up when the electoral tribunal stripped it of its legal status the Democratic Restoration Party (PRD), the only member of this alliance which could represent them in the electoral ballot. Journalist Miguel Mora, the PRD candidate for opposition, was also arrested.

In these circumstances, the Alliance Citoyenne renounced the planned selection method and clarified that it was not a question of replacing candidates before finding “the one Ortega wants”.

“We are clear that the candidate we are taking, if he has not finished throwing the prisoner who is leaving; the one that remains will be the true consensus of the majority of sectors in this country, ”Monterrey said.

The PRD, for its part, hopes that the electoral tribunal will give them back their legal status and that they will be able to participate in the elections alone, apart from the National Coalition. To replace their imprisoned candidate, two names were announced: Saturnino Cerrato, party president, and Professor Fanor Avendaño.

On the part of the non-partisan opposition, which according to some polls reaches just over 60% of the electorate, there is a rejection of the current electoral process and the opposition parties that insist on participating are accused of “giving in to the vote. give legitimacy to Ortega’s fraud ”.

From abroad, the electoral process underway in Nicaragua has also been disqualified for lack of guarantees. For next Tuesday, a session of the European Parliament has been announced where a resolution on the issue of Nicaragua will be discussed.

“We have been insisting on this resolution for months after witnessing the drifting, increasingly lonely, more dangerous and more aggressive of the Ortegas. There will be no elections recognized by the international community without minimum guarantees. This will be the subject of our discussion, ”said MEP Soraya Rodríguez.

United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken also said in a statement that in Nicaragua there are no conditions for free and fair elections. “Given the regime’s recent crackdown and its lack of in-depth electoral reform, the conditions for free and fair elections in November do not exist,” he said.

Daniel Ortega, for his part, sees the lessons as a mere formal procedure for his continuity in power. “We will have elections in November. These are election times and you must always accompany them with work, always with health, always with education. Do not allow any productive, economic-social activity, the protection of security. We must accompany and in due time the vote will take place on November 7 of this year, but we must take all this with great responsibility in terms of not being diverted from the electoral question by the challenges that go into the elections everywhere “, noted in May, on the 126th anniversary of the birth of Augusto C. Sandino.

“Here, the Yankees ambassador comes and goes selling his candidate as if he were Nicaraguan. He is not Nicaraguan, if he wants to sell candidates, he will sell him to the United States, American candidates yes “, he declared in what was the prelude to the repressive offensive which was set to begin on May 28 and has 21 oppositions, jail leaders and journalists.

“Here, the Yankees ambassador is not getting involved in what he is doing, nominating candidates, lobbying political parties to get political parties to accept the candidate the Yankees want. He thinks that we are still at the time of the Yaqui occupation. Let the Yankees ambassador forget. Nicaragua is sovereign, Nicaragua belongs to Sandino, Nicaragua belongs to Darío, Nicaragua is a people who deserve respect and that goes to Ambassador Yankee and the other ambassadors who live there, organizing meetings in their embassies with political groups looking for how they can be the leaders of these political parties, ”he said.

For political scientist Eliseo Núñez, there is no way that this electoral process will have legitimacy. “Ortega has already collapsed the electoral process and at this stage, to go or not to go depends only on whether or not a legal status is maintained. This does not affect the legitimacy of the process. This substantive discussion about whether you are going to give it legitimacy and if you don’t go, you don’t give it, it no longer exists. The process is already illegitimate, regardless of who is involved ”.

For Núñez Ortega, he sees the elections as “an act of war. He sees himself entering the square, victorious, and he will determine that he deserves 90% of the votes ”.

He says last month’s attack happened because “Ortega saw the opportunity to crush the opposition at its most discredited moment, when people thought there was nothing they could do.” With that, he assures us, three things were guaranteed: “The one, the obvious one, crush the opposition; the second, to give candy to their bases; and the third, to prevent any type of popular mobilization based on the electoral campaign ”.

He considers that the Nicaraguan president will not negotiate anything before the November elections and if he sees him “granting something magnanimously after having allocated the votes in November and with his high-sounding speech he will pretend that the international community coexists with him. “

Núñez believes it is unlikely that in the remaining time a candidate could emerge who would rekindle the opposition. “If a name starts ringing, Ortega is going to put it in jail,” he said. Watch how the conversation has changed. At the end of April, beginning of May, there was talk of the emerging candidate, Ortega, going to inhibit him, now he would imprison him. We have moved forward, obviously in the wrong direction ”.

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