Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega is guaranteed to be reelected for a fourth term of five years after Sunday’s elections, described as a “comedy” by Washington and whose only unknown is the abstention rate since all serious rivals of the Head of State were taken into custody.
Polling stations closed at 6 p.m. local time, and the first results were expected around midnight, according to the electoral tribunal. Only the participation rate could give an idea of the real adherence of Nicaraguans to the “ticket” formed by Daniel Ortega, 76, and his wife, Rosario Murillo, 70, vice-president since 2017.
The United States vigorously denounced the poll. “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,” said US President Joe Biden , quoted in a White House press release on “the elections-comedy in Nicaragua”.
Conversely, the President of Venezuela, Nicolás 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, there are people who defend Nicaragua,” he said in a televised address, announcing his intention to visit the Central American country soon.
The streets were almost deserted on Sunday in Managua. Fearing low turnout, the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN, ex-guerrilla in power) organized door-to-door tours during the day to mobilize voters.
After placing his ballot in the ballot box, President Ortega accused his opponents of being “demons. […] who choose violence, denigration, slander, campaigns so that Nicaragua is again in the grip of violent confrontations, of war ”.
The arrested candidates “conspired, they did not want these elections to take place, because they have long since sold their souls to the empire. [nord-américain] and live on their knees demanding attacks against Nicaragua, ”he said.
Journalists from several international media, including CNN and the Washington post, were denied access to the territory, and the government refused the presence of independent observers.
The authorities, however, accredited on Saturday around 200 “electoral guides” and handpicked journalists, foreign “Sandinista militants”, according to Urnas Abiertas, an independent observatory.
The last opposition daily in the country that still appeared, La Prensa, was arrested in mid-August by the police and its director was thrown in prison.
A week before the poll, Meta, the parent company of Facebook, announced that it had dismantled a thousand Facebook and Instagram accounts run by a “troll factory” of the Nicaraguan government to manipulate public opinion.
Opposition beheaded
Decapitated, its leaders being 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 fled the repression took refuge.
Opponents have only one slogan for voters: “Stay 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 the 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 go and vote? Only the Sandinistas will vote, ”denounces José, 78, who has supported the FSLN for decades.
Marina Aguirre, 36, will vote: “We have free schools and hospitals […] [Daniel Ortega] make sure every child has toys every year, ”she says.
Hunting opponents
Three years after the repression which left more than 300 dead among the demonstrators who demanded in the spring of 2018 the resignation of Daniel Ortega, and six months before the election, the hunt for opponents is raging: 39 politicians, business people, 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 Central American country of 6.5 million inhabitants, the poorest in the region and plagued since the unrest of 2018 with inflation, unemployment and the coronavirus pandemic including the magnitude is denied by power.
Since the protests of spring 2018, more than 100,000 Nicaraguans have taken the path of exile while 150 opponents are still behind bars, described by Daniel Ortega as “criminals” and “coup mongers” in the Washington pay.
Hero of the revolution, the former guerrilla Daniel Ortega is today accused by his opponents of acting in the same way as the dictator Anastasio Somoza, whom he helped to overthrow in 1979.
For Nicaraguan analyst Elvira Cuadra, exile, the country’s isolation will affect international investment and funding, with social consequences and growing emigration.
Especially since, in addition to the new sanctions adopted by the United States and the European Union, relations have strained even with historic allies such as Mexico and Argentina. Cuba, Venezuela and Russia remain as supporters of the government of Mr. Ortega and Mr.me Murillo.
“No power” will “intimidate us” with sanctions, trumpeted Nicaraguan Foreign Minister Denis Moncada when voting.