RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The ruling Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) and its allies registered this Wednesday a coalition before the Supreme Electoral Council (CSE) to compete in the November elections. Its main leader, President Daniel Ortega, seeks his third consecutive reelection.
The alliance headed by the FSLN was registered before the CSE, dominated by Sandinista magistrates and criticized by opponents for allegedly favoring the ruling party in every electoral process since Ortega returned to power in 2007.
“I come before you to present the FSLN party alliance electoral alliance, known as Alianza Unida Nicaragua Triunfa,” said the Sandinista party’s legal representative, Congressman Edwin Castro.
Castro was accompanied by former Vice President of Nicaragua Jaime Morales Carazo (2007-2012) and representatives of each of the nine parties and five social movements that make up the Sandinista alliance.
The FSLN forms the United Nicaragua Triumphs Alliance, Nationalist Liberal Party (PLN), Christian Unity Party (PUC), Alternative for Change (AC), Nicaraguan Resistance Party (PRN), Multiethnic Indigenous Party (PIM), Yapti Tasba Masraka Raya Nani Movement Party (Myatamaran), Autonomous Liberal Party (PAL), Progressive Indigenous Movement Party of the Moskitia (Moskitia Pawanka).
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It is also integrated by the Alianza Resistencia Nicaragüense, Movimiento Evangélico en la Convergencia, Movimiento Indígena de la Costa Caribe, Liberales Constitucionalistas y Convergencia, Movimiento Liberal Constitucionalista Independiente, together with Morales Carazo and the former president of the Central American Parliament (Parlacen) José Antonio Alvarado.
The FSLN registered the alliance just a few minutes before the deadline for registering this type of society.
Hours before, the opposition Alianza Ciudadanos por la Libertad did the same with the party Ciudadanos por la Libertad (CxL), Partido Movimiento de Unidad Costeña (PAMUC), plus the organization Alianza Cívica por la Justicia y la Democracia (Civic Alliance for Justice and Democracy).
The CSE plans to authorize the constitution of the alliances between tomorrow and Friday.
NICARAGUAN OPPOSITION STILL WITHOUT SIGNING ALLIANCES
The two main opposition blocs in Nicaragua still have not reached an electoral alliance to face and dispute the power of the country’s president, former Sandinista guerrilla Daniel Ortega, in the November general elections, the parties informed on Wednesday.
Representatives of the Citizen Alliance, one of the opposition factions, assured in a press conference that they would wait “until the last minute” for the other party, the National Coalition, to sign agreements that will allow them to go in a single bloc in the next elections, in which Ortega, in power since 2007, seeks new reelection.
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Both factions have until 17.00 hours (23.00 GMT) to request before the Supreme Electoral Council (CSE), controlled by the Sandinistas, registering the constitution of political party alliances.
DENOUNCES SLANDER AND “MEDIA CIRCUS”
Carmela Rogers, known as Kitty Monterrey, president of the Citizens for Liberty (CxL) party, which heads the Citizens Alliance, said in the press conference “that the last few weeks have been very hard” for her and her group, “because what we have faced is rudeness, baseness, lies and slander”, in the framework of the negotiations with the National Coalition.
“And we prefer to keep silent, because when one seeks true unity, what one does is the greatest effort to maintain those conversations with the discretion that should be maintained and not turn them into a media circus”, he pointed out.
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The coalition has proposed to that alliance and has made it public to elect a legal representative by common agreement, that the candidacies for deputies will be distributed in equal proportion of 50% each block, and to reach a consensus on a method of selection of candidacies that is satisfactory for both parties.
Representatives of the coalition have said that they have “given in”, and that the alliance has refused to sign an electoral alliance, which Monterrey rejected.
“TODAY IS NOT THE END OF UNITY”
“We have never refused that unity, and in all the meetings in which we have participated throughout this week”, with former MLB pitcher Dennis Martínez as a witness, “have been the evidence of those efforts”, he noted.
He assured that the Citizens’ Alliance “has the doors open to receive anyone, because we know the difficult task we will have to face Ortega”, and that they will wait “until the last minute” for the possibility of reaching agreements.
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In any case, Monterrey continued, “today is only a day to register electoral alliances between political parties. It is not the end of unity”.
“Today begins a new stage in which all of us must continue our efforts to incorporate the organizations to have this great opposition bloc”, he added.
NO CONSENSUS IN DEPUTATIONS
Regarding the proposal of the coalition, he assured that the alliance is in agreement with “all the points, the only thing we cannot say is that Nicaragua is a cake to distribute 50 % and 50 % deputies, that corresponds to the people, making assemblies, and that it is with the participation of the citizens that they decide”.
“This is not a distribution, this is not only a fight to defeat Ortega for the presidential candidacy; this is a fight for the future of all Nicaraguans, where we need the right people, willing to take our country forward”, he said.
Monterrey regretted the attacks among opponents and that abroad, the image of a “media circus” is being sent.
The opponents, who are fragmented, are looking for ways to defeat the Sandinistas, led by Daniel Ortega, 75, who on January 10 completed 14 consecutive years in his second stint as president of Nicaragua, after coordinating a government junta from 1979 to 1985 and presiding the country for the first time from 1985 to 1990.
Nicaragua’s general elections scheduled for November 7 will be key for the country’s immediate future, as they will determine whether Ortega will extend or lose his grip on local politics, which he has held almost absolutely since 1979.