OAS head Almagro considers that Nicaragua is heading to “the worst possible election”

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The Secretary-General of the Organization of American States (OAS), Luis Almagro, considered this Wednesday that Nicaragua is heading towards “the worst possible election” due to the lack of guarantees to ensure a free, fair and transparent process.

Almagro made these statements during a meeting of the Permanent Council of the organization to address the situation in the Central American country.

“The country continues to be immersed in a serious situation of lack of democracy, human rights violations, deinstitutionalization and social crisis, aggravated by the consequences of the covid-19 health emergency,” he said.

Almagro reiterated his concern over the appointment of ten new magistrates to the Supreme Electoral Council (CSE), most of them Sandinistas, who will be in charge of supervising the November 7 elections, in which President Daniel Ortega is seeking his third consecutive reelection.

He also expressed his rejection of the electoral reforms subscribed by the National Assembly (Parliament) of Nicaragua, with a pro-government majority, which hinders the presentation of candidates instead of Ortega and annuls the electoral observation give way to the limited figure of “accompaniment”, among other points.

“Behind these initiatives – said Almagro – there is a clear attempt to consolidate the total control of the electoral process through the suppression, limitation, and restriction of dissident voices.”

Therefore, in his opinion, these reforms “move even further away from the possibility of having transparent, participatory and equitable processes.” “It is like Nicaragua is heading towards having the worst possible election,” he stressed.

He also recalled that since February 2017, he had expressed his willingness to collaborate with the Government of Nicaragua to carry out electoral reforms that make the political system freer and more democratic and denounced the failure of Ortega’s Executive to comply with agreements reached in the past.

At the beginning of the session, the Nicaraguan ambassador to the OAS, Luis Alvarado, expressed his refusal to discuss in an international forum the electoral process of his country, which he considers an internal matter.

“No state or group of states has the right to intervene directly or indirectly and for whatever reason in the internal affairs of any other,” he denounced.

Nicaragua’s elections in November will be the first held by the country after the wave of demonstrations in 2018, which began over social security reforms and led to anti-government protests with hundreds of dead, imprisoned, and disappeared people, in addition to thousands of Nicaraguans in exile.