Nicaragua: State Department urges Ortega to release opposition leader Chamorro

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The U.S. State Department urged the regime of Daniel Ortega to release opposition leader Cristiana Chamorro, recently detained by the Nicaraguan judiciary.

In a statement, the Department of State maintained that Chamorro’s detention “is an abuse of her rights, and represents an attack on democratic values, as well as a clear attempt to thwart free and fair elections.”

“Ms. Chamorro’s detention comes amid relentless attacks on pro-democracy presidential candidates and independent media. The Ortega regime has committed itself to preventing Ms. Chamorro from participating in the November elections and, in May, groundlessly cancelled the legal status of two opposition political parties,” the letter added.

Along these lines, the statement highlighted that “rather than implementing electoral reforms within the time frame established by the Organization of American States, President Ortega has imposed new restrictions and curtailed electoral transparency.”

“The current repressive and exclusionary conditions are incompatible with credible elections. The region and the international community must stand with the Nicaraguan people in support of their right to freely choose their government,” concluded the department led by Antony Blinken.

Chamorro was arrested on Wednesday after a Managua court issued a search and arrest warrant for crimes of “abusive management, ideological falsehood combined with the crime of money, goods and assets laundering.”

Chamorro, 67 years old, had publicly stated her intention to represent the opposition as sole candidate for the November 7 elections. Recent polls place her as the most popularly supported candidate after Ortega.

Friday’s statement is an upgrade from another earlier this week, in which Blinken considered that the house arrest and disqualification of the opposition candidate denotes a “lack of confidence” by Daniel Ortega’s government in her popular support.

“When I hear our Nicaraguan counterparts talk about all the positive things the government has done for the people, given all of this, I would assume that they would welcome the judgment of the people in free and fair elections. Apparently this is not the case,” the head of U.S. diplomacy stated.

“I believe it is a sign of a total lack of confidence,” Blinken added in an interview with CNN.

The United Nations (UN) and the European Union (EU) on Thursday also expressed their repudiation of the detention of Cristiana Chamorro Barrios by decision of the Daniel Ortega regime. The UN assured that the measures against Chamorro could “worsen confidence” in the November 7 elections, in which President Daniel Ortega will seek a new reelection.

“We are well aware of the recent legal proceedings taken against Cristiana Chamorro”, said spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric when asked about the decision, recalling that this comes amidst a period of “tensions” between the Sandinista regime and the opposition. “These developments run the risk of undermining confidence in the upcoming elections,” said the spokesperson for the organization’s secretary general, António Guterres.

The opposition candidate, daughter of ex-President Violeta Barrios de Chamorro (1990-1997), who defeated Ortega in the 1990 elections, was also disqualified from participating in next November’s elections under the argument of “not being in full exercise of her civil and political rights.”