Daniel Ortega seeks his re-election with seven presidential candidates in prison. In Costa Rica, Spain and the United States, there were marches against the elections.
“There is no one to vote for. This is an electoral circus. If they are so sure that the people love them, why did they imprison the presidential candidates? ”Says a 51-year-old Nicaraguan, who prefers not to reveal her identity.
This Sunday, a total of 13,459 Vote Receiving Boards opened their doors for the elections generals of Nicaragua, in which more than 4.4 million citizens had to elect president, vice president, 90 deputies for the National Assembly and 20 representatives before the Central American Parliament.
In this election, a predictable victory for President Daniel Ortega is expected to assume a new mandate after fourteen years in power, without much competition, since seven opposition candidates are imprisoned.
Some 30,000 police and military were guarding the polling stations that closed at 6:00 p.m. local time. The Supreme Electoral Council (CSE) was scheduled to release the first results at midnight.
The Government accredited some 200 “electoral companions” and foreign journalists that the regime considers “friends,” he says. AFP.
The focus of the election in this country of 6.5 million people is not who to vote for, but whether to abstain or participate, and the reaction of the international community that considers these elections to be neither free nor democratic.
The Organization of American States, the United States, and the European Union (EU) they consider that the elections are not carried out under free conditions.
From exile, in Costa Rica, Spain and the United States the opposition prepared marches against what they describe as an “electoral farce”.
Waving Nicaraguan flags and chanting “Long live Nicaragua free!”, Some 1,000 Nicaraguan exiles in Costa Rica marched through San José to demand the departure of Ortega.
“We are looking for that diabolical couple to leave the country and return to democracy,” said Marcos Martínez, alluding to Ortega and his increasingly powerful wife, Rosario Murillo, government spokesman and vice president since 2017.
“It cannot be that we are going to be governed by a president who has only 6% of the country’s acceptance,” added the Nicaraguan, who was leading the march.
With typical music, flags, headbands, baseball shirts and banners, the group of opposition protesters walked at a slow pace reciting slogans such as “Long live Nicaragua free, long live!” “The united people will never be defeated” and “Those who leave, leave and will never return!”
During the day there was participation of the Mothers of April, a group representing those who lost their children during the 2018 protests brutally repressed by the Ortega government. At least 328 people lost their lives in those days, most of them young opposition protesters.
“We do not want dictators or be governed by criminals who killed our children,” said Tatiana Mayorga, in exile since 2018, shortly after the murders of her son-in-law Humberto Parrales, 40, and her grandson Noel Calderón, 19.
Costa Rica is the country that has received the most Nicaraguans in exile since the beginning of the protests in April 2018, about 103,500, according to the Directorate of Migration and Foreigners.
Meanwhile, Ortega declared that citizens are choosing between peace and terrorism, he collects EFE.
After casting the vote with his wife, the president offered a message on a television and radio network in which he attacked opponents in prison and in exile, as well as the protests that broke out against his government in April 2018.
“We are holding these elections, and we are sure that in this battle, which is a historic battle, we must decide on terrorism, confrontation, war or peace,” said Ortega from the House of Peoples.
In an unusual practice, the president made his call in the middle of the electoral day, which in its first seven hours passed calmly and with low voter turnout, in contrast to the forecasts of the ruling Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN), which predicted a massive vote.
The opposition excluded from participating in the elections, the Nicaraguans in exile and the Asociación Madres de Abril, which brings together relatives of the victims of the social outbreak of 2018, launched campaigns advising against voting on the grounds that doing so would legitimize the “dictatorship Ortega-Murillo ”.
Opponents are using the hashtags #YoNoBotoMiVoto, #YoNoVoto or #NicaraguaNoVota, among others, with which they urge Nicaraguans not to leave their homes, keep the doors closed and the streets empty, because they consider that “there is no one to vote for ”And that the process is a“ sham ”.
“There is the vote, the vote does not kill anyone, the vote does not cause any injury to any person, the vote does not call for terrorism, war, never, the vote does not call for roadblocks in the country and for it to be paralyzed. the economy, and the destruction of families, the vote does not call for public torture, ”criticized Ortega.
The president affirmed that Nicaragua has been committed to voting since 1984, since since then the country has held 49 electoral processes, including presidential, municipal and regional, in which president, vice president, departmental and national deputies are elected, as well as for the Central American Parliament (Parlacen), mayors, vice mayors and councilors, as well as autonomous authorities of the Caribbean.
Ortega, who came to power at the polls in 2007 and will turn 76 on Thursday, is preparing to start another five years as president, at the head of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN, left) and together with Murillo, 70. , running for vice-presidency for the second time.
His tenure in the presidency is not in doubt. The former Sandinista guerrilla, who also ruled in the 1980s after the FSLN overthrew dictator Anastasio Somoza in 1979, faces five right-wing candidates, unknown and labeled as government collaborators.
Meanwhile, international pressure on the Ortega regime has been increasing.
US President Joe Biden whose country, like the EU, adopted sanctions against Ortega’s inner circle, is getting ready to sign an arsenal of measures under the Renacer Law, to increase the pressure.
The situation in Nicaragua will be debated this week in the General Assembly of the Organization of American States (OAS), where the suspension of the country’s participation in the regional bloc could be considered.
Analysts warn that isolation will worsen the socio-economic situation and trigger migration, Although the Government predicts a GDP growth of 6% with the injection of remittances – $ 1,400 million from January to August-, international credits and the non-imposition of restrictions despite the advance of the pandemic. (I)
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