RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The opposition Citizens’ Alliance for Liberty (CxL) denounced Wednesday (4) the arrest and disqualification of its candidate for Vice President of Nicaragua, former beauty queen Berenice Quezada, amid a wave of arrests against political leaders just three months before the elections, in which President Daniel Ortega will seek another reelection.
Quezada, Miss Nicaragua 2017 and whose candidacy had been officially registered on Monday, “was notified at her home by the judicial authorities and the Public Prosecutor’s Office, accompanied by the Police, that she was from that moment under house arrest, without access to telephone communication, with migratory restriction and inhibited from running for public office of popular election,” said the Alianza CxL, in a statement.
The young woman, 27 years old, “is currently at home with police custody”, it added. For the moment, Nicaraguan authorities have neither confirmed nor denied this accusation.
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SANDINISTAS HAD ASKED FOR HER DISQUALIFICATION
The day before, a group of citizens who identify themselves as “victims and relatives of the coup terrorism of 2018” requested, before the governmental Office of the Attorney General for the Defense of Human Rights (PDDH), the disqualification of Quezada’s candidacy for an alleged apology for crime and incitement to hatred.
According to the complaint, reported by official media, the former beauty queen incited hatred after her alliance registered its candidates for president and vice-president, deputies to the National Assembly and the Central American Parliament (Parlacen).
Quezada told journalists that “in Nicaragua, the (electoral) conditions have never been” and that “the conditions are set by the people, and how do they set them? by going out to vote.”
She also made a call to vote on November 7 to demonstrate that in Nicaragua, “we do not want more dictatorships,” an allusion to the government of Daniel Ortega.
She also said that, in his opinion, Nicaraguans defined themselves politically after the popular revolt that broke out in April 2018 over controversial social security reforms, and then turned into a demand for President Ortega’s resignation because he responded with force.
“From 2018 to now, Nicaragua drew a line, everyone decided where they want to be,” she said.
The executive branch has described these revolts – which left at least 328 people dead, according to humanitarian organizations such as the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) – as an attempted coup d’état.
32 ARRESTS ALREADY IN THE LAST TWO MONTHS
Quezada becomes the first registered candidate to be arrested by the authorities. Since the end of May, they have arrested 32 people, seven presidential aspirants of the opposition, while two others left the country to avoid being captured.
Within the framework of the electoral process, Nicaraguan authorities have arrested opposition presidential aspirants Cristiana Chamorro, Arturo Cruz, Félix Maradiaga, Juan Sebastián Chamorro, Miguel Mora, Medardo Mairena, and Noel Vidaurre, who are being investigated for alleged treason.
The National Police, headed by Francisco Díaz, an in-law of Ortega, has also apprehended a former foreign minister, two former deputy foreign ministers, two historic dissident Sandinista ex-guerrillas, a business leader, a banker, a former first lady, and five opposition leaders.
In addition, two student leaders, two peasant leaders, a lawyer and human rights defender, a political scientist and specialist in political and electoral systems, a journalist, a commentator, two former NGO workers, and a host of Cristiana Chamorro.
Two other opposition presidential hopefuls, María Asunción Moreno and former “Contra” leader Luis Fley left Nicaragua for security reasons.
Ortega, who returned to power in 2007, will seek his fifth term, his fourth consecutive, and the second with his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo, as his running mate.
These elections will be key for Ortega since 42 years of almost absolute domination of Nicaraguan politics will be at stake.