Opposition party in Nicaragua presents candidate to challenge Ortega amid arrests

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The opposition Citizens Alliance for Liberty (CxL) presented this Wednesday its presidential candidate to challenge Nicaragua’s President Daniel Ortega in the general elections of next November 7, amid the wave of arrests against political and civil leaders.

The former head of the Nicaraguan Resistance, Oscar Sobalvarro, and the former beauty queen of Nicaragua 2017, Berenice Quezada, were proclaimed candidates for president and vice-president, respectively, for the center-right CxL Alliance.

Read also: Check out our coverage on Nicaragua

That formula was presented in a hotel in Managua, guarded by the National Police, and amid criticisms to the electoral process for the arrest of seven presidential aspirants, the cancellation of the legal entities of two political parties, and the electoral structural control by the Sandinistas.

SEVEN ASPIRANTS ARRESTED

Three of those arrested, who are being investigated for alleged treason, were registered as pre-candidates to the Presidency of the CxL Alliance: Arturo Cruz, Juan Sebastián Chamorro, and Noel Vidaurre.

The Police, led by Francisco Diaz, an in-law of Ortega, has also apprehended opposition presidential aspirants Cristiana Chamorro, Felix Maradiaga, Miguel Mora, and Medardo Mairena, and two others left Nicaragua for fear of being arrested.

Cristiana Chamorro, daughter of former president Violeta Barrios de Chamorro (1990-1997) and accused of the crimes of abusive management, ideological falsehood, both in real competition with money laundering, goods, and assets, as well as treason, was the opposition figure with the highest probability of winning the November elections, according to a poll by the firm CID Gallup.

These presidential aspirants are being investigated under the Law for the Defense of the People’s Rights to Independence, Sovereignty and Self-Determination for Peace, promoted by the Executive, which classifies them as “traitors to the homeland” and disqualifies them from running for public office.

PARTICIPATE IN OR DISREGARD ELECTIONS?

“I know that some people in Nicaragua, and especially in exile, defend that we should not run in these elections due to the situation in which we find ourselves”, noted the legal representative of the CxL Alliance, Carmella Rogers, known as Kitty Monterrey, during the extraordinary convention where the presidential ticket of that coalition was ratified.

Monterrey said that this alliance is fully aware that Nicaragua is going through an unprecedented, serious political crisis and political and social leaders, opposition pre-candidates, journalists, and businessmen are being imprisoned, with the purpose, she considered, of “driving us all to despair and thus facilitating the path to victory for the regime”.

“If we are not brave, strong, and decisive, we will be paving the way for those who practice repression in Nicaragua”, she pointed out.

The leader maintained that they are “the only hope of the opposition to the regime for all those Nicaraguans who yearn to move from dictatorship to democracy through civic struggle” and that they are presenting the presidential ticket because they do not want to “give the road to the regime and that they can say that the opposition did not want to run”.

ORTEGA HAS NOT YET REGISTERED

Authorities had arrested almost thirty opposition leaders in the last two months for the alleged crime of treason and less than four months before the elections, in which Ortega, a former Sandinista guerrilla who returned to power in 2007 after coordinating a government junta from 1979 to 1984 and presiding the country for the first time from 1985 to 1990, will seek to extend his mandate for five more years.

The president, who since 2017 governs together with his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo, has not yet registered his candidacy before the electoral authorities.

The Supreme Electoral Council (CSE), controlled by Ortega’s supporters, set between today and next Monday the presentation and provisional registration of candidates for president and vice president of the Republic, deputies to the National Assembly (national and departmental), and deputies to the Central American Parliament (Parlacen).

The resignations and substitution of candidates to popularly elected positions will be between August 3 and 9, while the provisional publication will be on August 12.

Between August 13 and 15 will be the period for challenges, which will be resolved no later than August 17. One day later will be the definitive publication of candidates for president and vice-president of the Republic, legislators before the National Assembly deputies before Parlacen.