RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The daughter of former Nicaraguan President Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, Cristiana Chamorro, who aspires to the Presidency, denounced this Thursday that the ruler Daniel Ortega “de facto” canceled next November’s elections by promoting through his deputies reforms to the Electoral Law without observers, with inhibitions of candidates and the votes under his control.
“With these electoral reforms, Ortega is practically canceling the elections. He is already preventing a change through elections”, said Chamorro in a press conference in Managua, which was surrounded by police.
The presence of agents in opposition activities is viewed with suspicion in Nicaragua. They accuse the National Police of being the “repressive arm” of Ortega, who aspires to be reelected on November 7.
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Last Monday, deputies of the ruling Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) introduced before the National Assembly (Parliament), where they are in the majority, a proposal of reforms to the Electoral Law which, according to the opponents, inhibits candidates critical of Ortega, limits electoral financing, suspends electoral observation and restricts constitutional rights.
“With this law, conditions, instead of improving, are worsening. It is confirming a state of police repression of our right to legitimate and credible elections,” said Chamorro.
The presidential candidate encouraged Nicaraguans to unite against what she called, on two occasions, “de facto suspension of elections.”
“United, we have to continue demanding free elections. Right now, Ortega has canceled them de facto, and only altogether, demanding these elections, and putting ahead the reforms we want; this is how we are going to achieve free elections”, she said.
INSISTS ON UNITY
The daughter of national hero Pedro Joaquín Chamorro, who currently does not run for any political party, insisted on her interest in aspiring to the Presidency only if the opposition united her mother in 1990 defeated Ortega, who had governed since 1979.
Chamorro met on Tuesday with the opposition Citizens Alliance, to which the center-right Citizens for Liberty (CxL) party belongs.
The candidate emphasized that the Sandinista bill “are not electoral reforms, they are more restrictions so that the united people cannot go to elections in freedom and with transparency, and to be able to change from a dictatorial system to a democracy in freedom.”
Chamorro, who recalled that the Nicaraguan president is accused of staying in power thanks to electoral “frauds”, said she supports the proposal of the Organization of American States (OAS), which is that Ortega must guarantee “credible” elections.
Calls for “free, fair, transparent, and observed” elections by the opposition were accentuated in 2018, when hundreds of Nicaraguans were killed, disappeared or imprisoned, during armed attacks by police and armed civilians against anti-government demonstrations.
“We were all there united, saying that we did not want more criminal dictatorship, and in response came the monstrous repression, but that criminality of the regime was evidenced in the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) and the Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts (GIEI), and we know that crimes against humanity do not prescribe,” Chamorro stressed.
The November elections could extend or end a near-absolute primacy that Ortega, who returned to power in 2007, has held over Nicaraguan politics for 42 years.