Nicaragua: after the arrest of 37 opponents, the campaign began with a pass for Ortega to run for a fifth term

Nicaragua officially starts this saturday the campaign for the presidential elections of November 7, with the freedom for President Daniel Ortega to run for a fourth consecutive term after the arrest of his main rivals.

Ortega, 75 years old, He has been in power since 2007 after two successive re-elections and changes to the laws that prevented him from continuing.

He heads the “Nicaragua Triunfa” alliance, led by the former left-wing guerrilla Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN), and made up of around ten related movements.

As a running mate He is accompanied for the second time by his wife and vice-president Rosario Murillo, the visible and operational face of the government.

The campaign takes place in a tense climate by the arrests since June of 37 opponents accused to date of money laundering, conspiracy and promotion of measures against Nicaragua, and for international sanctions imposed in response to the Ortega government.

“People are clearly convinced that here there will be an electoral process that is not transparent and that to some extent it is claimed that the Sandinista Front will win, ”said former diplomat and analyst Edgar Parrales.

Using old symbols

All of the charges against the opponents are based on recent laws passed by the ruling Parliament. Ortega assures that the detainees sought to generate “a wave of terrorism” during the elections, and he also accuses Washington of funding them and of looking for an opposition candidate of his choice.

He also links these statements to demonstrations against his government in 2018, the repression of which left more than 300 dead and thousands in exiles, according to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. The government attributed the protests to a failed coup.

Recently, The Sandinistas restored gigantic festive acronyms on a hill in Managua that they used in 1980, when they ruled the country for the first time, after the triumph of their revolution in 1979 against the dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza. The label was removed in 1990, when Ortega lost the election to Violeta Barrios de Chamorro.

“They need to recreate the 90s scenario, which is war, and that’s why they talk about imperialism and the CIA paying the opposition“, He warned the agency in July AFP Zoilamérica Ortega Murillo, 53, adopted daughter of the president, whom he accuses of sexual abuse.

Without Cristiana Chamorro

The former guerrilla will develop his campaign against five candidates from unpopular right-wing parties authorized to participate by the Supreme Electoral Council (CSE).

As in the 2016 elections, the main opposition parties were left out.

The main opposition alliance, grouped into Citizens for freedom (CXL, right), was inhibited in July by the CSE, citing problems in the identity card of its president, Kitty Monterrey, of Nicaraguan and American nationality. She fled the country for fear of reprisals.

Shortly before, seven presidential candidates, most of whom sought to define a single candidacy with the CXL flag, were arrested. Between them, Christian Chamorro, daughter of former president Violeta Barrios de Chamorro (1990-1997), and favorite in the polls to face Ortega.

Ortega “did not allow a candidate other than himself in his party, and now, it seems, will not allow a president other than him“Said in July to AFP journalist Fabián Medina, author of a biography of the president.

Limit freedoms

To the 37 detainees this year are added the more than 120 Nicaraguans imprisoned after participating in the protests against Ortega in 2018. “He restricted our freedoms of mobilization, expression, with prisons and torture, but he will not be able to force us to participate in his electoral circus ”, denounced the organizations of political prisoners and released this week.

On Thursday, the foreign ministers of Canada, Colombia, Ecuador, France, the Dominican Republic, Chile, the United Kingdom and the United States issued a statement on the “Rupture” of the democratic order In Nicaragua.

“We unite to declare to Ortega-Murillo that democracies will reject political repression, human rights violations and the dismantling of democracysaid Brian Nichols, Under Secretary for Western Hemisphere Affairs at the State Department.

The campaign is also developed with restriction measures due to a rebound in covid-19 infections, without permits for caravans, or crowds of more than 200 people during a rally.

The measure This contrasts with the authorities’ refusal to decree quarantines during the pandemic, and to promote highly frequented recreational tourism activities.

“What is strange about this case is that the Sandinista Front has carried out massive pre-election acts throughout this year and is now starting to say that no one is focusing“Due to the pandemic,” Parrales observed.

(With information from AFP)

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