(Washington) The United States threatened Monday to impose new sanctions on Nicaragua after the “undemocratic” elections won by President Daniel Ortega, who had previously “jailed all the main candidates”.
“We will continue to use diplomacy, coordinated measures with our allies and regional partners, sanctions and visa restrictions” to hold “accomplices in the undemocratic acts of the Ortega-Murillo government to account,” said the head of American diplomacy Antony Blinken in a statement, without further details.
“Election pantomime”
US President Joe Biden denounced the election on Sunday evening, described as “comedy”. “What the President of Nicaragua and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo, orchestrated today is a pantomime election that was neither free nor fair, and certainly not democratic,” he said in a statement.
The outgoing president of Nicaragua was re-elected Sunday for a fourth five-year term with 75% of the vote, according to first partial official results.
“The Ortega-Murillo government has deprived the Nicaraguans of any real choice, by dissolving all the real opposition parties and by imprisoning all the main presidential candidates,” said Antony Blinken, calling for their “immediate and unconditional release” “.