Low turnout at polls in Nicaragua with only one option: Daniel Ortega

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Nicaragua’s general elections, in which the reelection of Sandinista Daniel Ortega, in power since 2007, is expected, have been characterized this Sunday by a low turnout because, for many, the result is determined in advance.

The road to Ortega’s fifth and fourth consecutive term in office was paved when the National Police, led by one of Ortega’s in-laws, arrested seven potential opposition presidential candidates emerging as his main rivals and who could serve as a counterweight.

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Two other dissident candidates went into exile citing security reasons.

Without electoral competition, the day has focused on two other axes: the level of participation and the legitimacy that Ortega would have, who, on his side, considered that what is at stake is peace or “terrorism”, the latter, according to him, promoted by the opposition excluded from the elections.

ORTEGA ATTACKS THE OPPOSITION

After casting his vote together with his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo, who also aspires to be reelected, Ortega offered a message in a television and radio chain in which he attacked the imprisoned and exiled opponents, as well as the protests that broke out against his government in April 2018.

“We are holding these elections, and sure that in this battle, which is a historic battle, where you have to decide for terrorism, confrontation, war or peace,” Ortega said from the Casa de los Pueblos.

In the middle of the electoral day, the president offered his declarations, which have passed calmly and with low voter turnout, in contrast with the forecasts of the ruling Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN), which predicted a massive vote.

The opposition excluded from participating in the elections, Nicaraguans in exile, and the Mothers of April Association, which brings together relatives of the victims of the 2018 social outburst, launched campaigns discouraging voting under the argument that doing so would be legitimizing the “Ortega Murillo dictatorship”.

Opponents are using the tags #YoNoBotoMiVoto, #YoNoVoto or #NicaraguaNoVota, among others, with which they urge Nicaraguans not to leave their homes, keep the doors closed and the streets empty, because they consider that “there is no one to vote for” and that, so far, they qualify it as a success.

EXILES REPUDIATE “CIRCUS”.

Thousands of Nicaraguans exiled in Costa Rica protested in the capital’s main streets against the “fraud” and the electoral “circus” orchestrated, they said, by President Ortega.

Within the framework of a day of demonstrations, several Nicaraguan opposition groups united around the world, including in Madrid, Miami, Panama, and Washington, to repudiate the elections and ask the world not to recognize the electoral results in Nicaragua, considering that the process is a farce that only seeks to reelect Ortega.

With banners and slogans such as “We have no one to vote for, they are all prisoners”, “SOS Nicaragua”, “Viva Nicaragua libre”, “Ortega escucha seguimos en la lucha”, “Yo no salgo a votar el 7 de Noviembre” the protesters asked the population not to go out to vote. The international community does not recognize the elections.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) described the elections in Nicaragua as a “farce”, and according to José Miguel Vivanco, executive director for the Americas, wrote on his Twitter account, “Ortega will assume his fourth consecutive term by force of repression, censorship, and fear”.

LEGITIMACY IS AT STAKE

“Today, the whole world will witness the coronation of the dictatorship in Nicaragua. The electoral farce is underway: “elections” with no candidates other than those of the regime; “elections” with the entire opposition in jail and with the opposition in the streets”, wrote, for his part, former Costa Rican President Luis Guillermo Solís on his Twitter account.

For Solís, the Nicaraguan electoral process “makes a mockery of the methods and instruments of democracy, manipulating them”, and, with this, “the regime slyly defies the international community, feeling protected by (few) nations that share its contempt for freedom and human rights”.

Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó said Ortega seeks to perpetuate himself in power with “tailor-made” elections he called “fraud.”

The United States, Canada, and the EU have warned of sanctions following the Nicaraguan elections amid questions about their legitimacy.

Nicaraguan Foreign Minister, Denis Moncada, affirmed that the Ortega government does not fear that the international community will ignore the electoral results and assured that it would not allow itself to be intimidated.

If he achieves his goal, Ortega, who will be 76 years old next November 11 and who coordinated a Government Junta from 1979 to 1984 and presided over the country for the first time between 1985 and 1990, would reach his fifth mandate and fourth consecutive term since he returned to power in 2007.