One by one, Daniel Ortega’s regime therefore arrested 8 opposition candidates to ensure a new re-election

Since the beginning of June, Nicaraguan justice has started a hunt for opposition leaders. 32 have already been arrested, many of them at night, and their homes searched without warrants. Eight of them had the ambition to stand for the November 7 elections. The charges against him by the regime emphasize vague concepts such as “Attempt against Nicaraguan society and the rights of the people.”

The truth is that after 14 consecutive years in power, a weakened Daniel Ortega will run for a fourth consecutive term with his wife, Rosario Murillo, and as the polls show his popularity is on the ground, He decided to rig the electoral process with all kinds of tricks, to exclude international observers and finally to arrest and directly exclude from the elections anyone who might get in his way.

The rage began on June 2, when justice ordered a search of the house of Christian Chamorro then his house arrest. Cristiana is the daughter of former President Violeta Barros de Chamorro, she led the foundation that bears her mother’s name and polls have shown her as the leader with the best image to defeat Sandinism.

Police officers They violently broke into Chamorro’s residence, located about 11 kilometers south of the capital, and took away some of his property and working papers.

Chamorro was accused by the prosecution of “abusive management, an ideological lie in real competition with the crime of laundering money, property and assets, to the detriment of the State of Nicaragua and Nicaraguan society” through his Foundation and that is why his arrest and detention to hold public office.

Three days later, on returning from a tour of the United States, the former ambassador was arrested at Augusto César Sandino airport. Arturo cruz, another leader who is preparing to run in this year’s presidential election.

Justice informed that Cruz had been arrested for having violated the Law number 1055 “for the defense of the rights of the people to independence, sovereignty and self-determination”.

During his visit to the United States, Cruz, the former ambassador of the Ortega government between 2007 and 2009 and one of the candidates who met almost all the conditions required by the electoral authority, had questioned his candidacy: “If the continuous dance of inhibitions and we find ourselves without other candidates, the logical thing is that this servant does not participate in this electoral process ”.

Another 3 days passed and it was the turn of Felix Maradiaga, scholar and activist, who was arrested after appearing before the prosecution, where they confirmed that they had opened an investigation for “inciting foreign interference in internal affairs”, so, according to he told reporters, he was ready for anything.

In a statement, police said Maradiaga “is under investigation for committing acts which” undermine independence, sovereignty and self-determination, incite foreign interference in internal affairs, require military interventions, organize themselves with funding from foreign powers to commit acts of terrorism and destabilization ”. Also for “proposing and managing blockades of economic, commercial and financial operations against the country and its institutions, demanding, exalting and applauding the imposition of sanctions against the State of Nicaragua and its citizens, and harming supreme interests of the nation”.

“My strongest protest against the detention of Felix, which is illegal and arbitrary. Those responsible for these abuses will be condemned in Nicaragua in court, ”he wrote on his Twitter account. Juan Sebastian Chamorro, Cristiana’s cousin and also with presidential aspirations. That same day, a few hours later, it is he who will be arrested.

Olama Hurtado, Chamorro’s niece, confirmed that the politician was arrested by police officers who broke into his home in southeastern Managua after 7:00 p.m. local time to conduct a search.

On June 20, the journalist was arrested Miguel Mora. It was not the first time. The owner of the television channel 100% News He had previously been arrested with his partner and also a journalist, Lucúa Pieneda during the social protests of 2018. Both spent nearly six months in prison, accused of “incitement to hatred”.

Although they were released, they never recovered their canal, which has since been seized by government forces.

Mora had announced his intention to run for the presidency of the opposition Democratic Restoration Party (PRD), from which the Supreme Electoral Council, made up of Ortega supporters, stripped its legal personality. When he launched his candidacy, he argued that he would sever diplomatic relations with Cuba and Venezuela, open a permanent embassy in Israel and remove the Sandinistas from his possible government, with the exception of those “who did not stained hands with blood ”.

On July 6, the peasant chief Medardo Maiena, who had also suffered a previous bloody arrest and announced his intention to run for president, was arrested along with three other rural leaders.

“The Ortega-Murillo hunting dictatorship. Today they have kidnapped, for the moment, four main leaders of our movement. Pedro Mena, Medardo Mairena, Freddy Navas and Pablo Morales, ”the group said in a statement.

Mairena had been one of the iconic prisoners among the hundreds detained during the 2018 proposals. He was arrested on false charges and suffered torture in prison until a regime-linked judge sentenced him to 216 years in prison for the alleged murder of four police officers. Then, thanks to international pressure, he obtained amnesty.

On Saturday, July 24, the national police reported that the opposition Noel José Vidaurre Argüello, 66, had been taken into police custody for investigation by alleged treason.

Vidaurre, a seasoned conservative politician, thus became the seventh presidential candidate of Nicaragua to be apprehended. The national police, led by Francisco Díaz, a brother-in-law of Ortega, thus left the opposition Citizens for Freedom Alliance (CxL) without a presidential candidate.

However, against the clock, the opposition alliance came to register on Monday the former guerrilla Óscar Sobalvarro as presidential candidate, accompanied by the former Miss Nicaragua. Berenice Quezada.

But this Wednesday, CxL denounced that Quezada “was notified at his home by the judicial authorities and the public prosecutor, accompanied by the police, who from that moment remained in home detention, without access to telephone communication, with immigration restriction and ban on running. for the public office of popular election, ”according to a statement.

With these eight arrests, Ortega believes he has paved the way for another re-election, despite the growing international repudiation he is harvesting, even from his former allies, and the rejection of the majority of Nicaraguans.

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