The Department of State The United States criticized this Tuesday in its annual report on human rights that the Nicaraguan president, Daniel Ortega, exercises “total control” over the country after being re-elected in elections marked by the imprisonment of opponents.
In its document on the Central American country regarding 2021, the US highlighted that Ortega “was awarded a fourth consecutive term” in the November elections after “arbitrarily imprisoning almost 40 opposition figures” and blocking the participation of political parties. opponents.
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The State Department pointed out that in those elections the party of the Sandinista Ortega expanded its qualified majority in the National Assembly (parliament), which has previously served to modify the Constitution and allow his re-election.
“Ortega’s Sandinista National Liberation Front exercises total control over the Executive, Legislative, Judicial, and electoral authorities,” the report warned.
In addition, he explained that the Government of that country continues without investigating or persecuting the authorities that commit human rights violations, including “the 355 murders and the hundreds of disappearances” that occurred during the protests against Ortega in 2018.
The State Department stressed that police and other people linked to Ortega are carrying out a “campaign of harassment, intimidation, and violence” against those they consider “enemies of the regime,” such as opponents, human rights defenders, and priests.
