Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega was reelected on Sunday for a fourth five-year term with 75% of the vote, according to initial partial official results, an election denounced by Washington, the EU and Spain, all of the leader’s serious rivals state having been imprisoned.
In second place, with only 14.4% of the vote, comes Walter Espinoza (liberal), announced the president of the electoral tribunal, Brenda Rocha. Mr. Espinoza is accused by the opposition of actually being an ally of Mr. Ortega.
Only the real participation rate could give an idea of the adherence of Nicaraguans to the “ticket” formed by Daniel Ortega, 76, and his wife Rosario Murillo, 70, vice-president since 2017.
The electoral court gave a turnout of 65.34%, while an observatory close to the opposition, Urnas Abiertas (“Open ballot boxes”), gave an abstention rate of 81.5% based on data provided by 1,450 unauthorized observers present in 563 polling centers.
Supporters of Mr. Ortega were celebrating in the streets of Managua, saying, “We did it, Daniel, Daniel! », While fireworks were launched.
The United States, the European Union and Spain denounced the poll.
“What the President of Nicaragua and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo, have orchestrated is a pantomime, an election that was neither free nor fair, and certainly not democratic,” said US President Joe Biden in a White House press release.
For Spain, this re-election is “a farce (imposed) on the people of Nicaragua, on the international community and especially on democracy”, according to the Minister of Foreign Affairs José Manuel Albares.
The EU considers that the election took place “without democratic guarantees” and completes the shift of this country into an “autocratic regime”, according to the head of its diplomacy, Josep Borrell.
Conversely, the President of Venezuela Nicolas Maduro congratulated his counterpart without waiting for the result.
“Imperialism and its creeping allies in Europe point the finger at Nicaragua, but there are people who love Nicaragua,” he said in a televised address.
President Ortega accused his opponents of being “demons […] who choose violence ”.
The arrested candidates “conspired, they did not want these elections to take place, because they have long since sold their soul to the North American empire”, he justified.
Journalists from several international media, including the Americans CNN and Washington post, were denied access to the territory, and the government refused the presence of independent observers.
The authorities on Saturday accredited around 200 “electoral guides” and handpicked journalists, foreign “Sandinista militants”, according to Urnas Abiertas.
Opposition beheaded
Decapitated, its leaders in detention or in exile, the opposition organized a demonstration of about a thousand people in San José, the capital of Costa Rica where more than 100,000 Nicaraguans took refuge.
Opponents had only one slogan for voters: “Stay at home”.
The five candidates registered to face the head of state are considered by the opposition as stooges compromised with power.
According to a Cid-Gallup poll, if they had had the choice, 65% of 4.4 million registered voters would have voted for an opposition candidate, against 19% for the incumbent.
“It’s horrible: we can’t talk, otherwise we put you in jail. Why would I vote? Only the Sandinistas will vote, ”denounced José, 78, who has supported the FSLN for decades.
Marina Aguirre, 36, was determined to vote: “We have free schools and hospitals […] (Daniel Ortega) makes sure that every child has toys every year ”.
Hunting opponents
Three years after the crackdown that left more than 300 dead among demonstrators who demanded the resignation of Daniel Ortega in spring 2018, 39 politicians, businessmen, peasants, students and journalists have been arrested since June.
Among them, the seven potential candidates likely to pose a threat to the incumbent president.
Favorite of the opposition in the polls, Cristiana Chamorro, 67, daughter of ex-president Violeta Chamorro (1990-1997), was the first to be arrested, on June 2, and placed in house arrest.
Opponents are accused of undermining national sovereignty, supporting international sanctions against Nicaragua, “treason of the motherland” or “money laundering”, under laws passed at the end of 2020 by Parliament, acquired in the executive, as well as the judiciary and the electoral tribunal.
Fear runs in the small country of 6.5 million inhabitants, the poorest in the region, plagued since the unrest of 2018 with inflation, unemployment and the coronavirus pandemic, the extent of which is denied by power.
Hero of the revolution, the former guerrilla Daniel Ortega is accused by his opponents of acting in the same way as the dictator Anastasio Somoza whom he helped to overthrow in 1979.