RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Nicaragua recalled on Monday (9) its ambassadors to Argentina, Mexico, Colombia, and Costa Rica, whose governments criticized the wave of arrests of opponents and rivals of President Daniel Ortega in the run-up to the November 7 elections.
“The government has recalled ambassadors to Argentina, Orlando Gómez; Colombia, Yara Pérez; Mexico, Juan Carlos Gutiérrez, and Costa Rica, Duilio Hernández, for consultations, in reciprocity (…) to similar calls from the aforementioned governments”, reads a letter read by the Nicaraguan vice-president and first lady, Rosario Murillo.
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Argentina and Mexico withdrew their ambassadors from Managua in mid-June, Costa Rica froze the appointment of its representative, and Colombia did the same last month amid a wave of arrests of Ortega’s opponents, among them seven presidential aspirants.
Murillo criticized “the constant and undeserved disrespectful, interfering, meddling and interventionist remarks in our internal affairs by the highest authorities of each of these countries” on issues that concern Nicaragua’s people and government.
Nicaragua expressed its “categorical” rejection of what it described as “caricatured imitation” of those who “have arrogated to themselves functions that no one has granted them.”
At least 32 opposition leaders have been detained since June, with former diplomat Mauricio Diaz the latest to be arrested on Monday, most of them charged with “treason” under laws passed by the pro-government Congress.
Ortega, a 75-year-old former guerrilla fighter, has governed since 2007 after two successive reelections. To do so, he had to modify the laws that prevented him from remaining in office.
At the head of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN), the president aspires to remain in power for five more years together with Murillo, 70, who has accompanied him in the vice presidency since 2017.
The European Union (EU) has sanctioned Murillo, her son Juan Carlos and six other government officials with migratory and financial restrictions for their responsibility in the “serious human rights violations” in Nicaragua.
The measure joins others taken by the U.S. and Canada against Ortega government officials to protest the repression it maintains against its opponents since the outbreak of anti-government demonstrations in 2018.
NO COMPETITION
One of the latest measures of Sandinismo was the disqualification of the main remaining opposition bloc, led by the Citizens for Liberty party (CxL), which had managed to register a candidate to face Ortega.
This action provoked new international reactions and condemnations regarding the credibility of the elections.
In a statement, the head of EU diplomacy, Josep Borrell, considered that “Ortega wants to win the elections without competition.”
“The decision, implemented by the Supreme Electoral Council on August 6, to strip the last remaining opposition political party of legal personality before the November general elections, shatters the prospects for a legitimate and credible electoral process,” he said.
The official said that the EU considers that “the opposition has been eliminated” and that Nicaraguans are being deprived of the right to vote in “in credible, inclusive, and transparent elections,” the official said.
Meanwhile, Spain deplored the obstruction of the CxL. It called on Managua to give itself an independent, impartial electoral authority not controlled by the ruling party, saying that “only a credible electoral process” could offer a way out of Nicaragua’s social, political, and economic crisis.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Saturday that the November elections in Nicaragua have “lost all credibility” due to Ortega’s “autocratic” maneuvers.
OPPOSITION TRIES TO REGROUP
After the prohibition of the CxL, the opposition bloc called National Coalition, integrated by parties and civil society organizations, was trying this Monday to regroup to “set a clear position” before the international community and “disavow the electoral process”.
However, they cannot compete because they are not legally recognized, which prevented them from presenting candidates.
Although they accept that elections are the way to solve the crisis in the country, “we do not support nor promote citizen participation in the electoral farce that will only result in the perpetuation of Ortega and Murillo in power,” they said in a communiqué read in a virtual conference.
The leader of the Coalition, Luis Fley, in exile, stated that it is time to put aside personal positions and called for the unity of the parties that do not belong to that bloc to “put Nicaragua first and to think that in this country there will be no life for anyone if Ortega is in power” after November 7.