It was March 2021, prior to the presidential elections that year, when Kitty Monterrey, president of Citizens for Freedom (CxL), stated from her office in Managua that his party was the option to defeat Daniel Ortega. Four months later, in August, the regime canceled CxL’s status –and with it the last vehicle for the opposition– and days later Monterrey had to leave Nicaragua, given the siege against it and the threats of arrest.
In November, Ortega ended up being re-elected for a fourth consecutive term, after annulling all electoral competition in a process described as “illegitimate.” Given the forecast of the municipal votes in November 2022, in which the local authorities of the 153 municipalities of the country would be elected, Monterrey values that this process will be “a mere process of assigning mayors and councilors” in which the ruler The Sandinista Front –which currently controls 136 municipalities– will only “finish taking over the entire country”.
Exiled in San José, Costa Rica, Monterrey justifies that, if she previously opted for the electoral route as the “only possible way out” to restore democracy in Nicaragua, now “everything has changed.”
Currently, CxL governs in five of the 153 municipalities, but there is no box to retain these municipalities or compete for others. Nor does Monterrey see conditions or guarantees to do so.
The policy ensures that members of the Liberal Constitutionalist Party (PLC) –who collaborated with the beheading of CxL– and the Nicaraguan Liberal Alliance (ALN) have approached mayors and councilors to compete under their banner, and affirms that “there is no orientation” from the party in this regard, because the decision is in “everyone’s conscience”, but question: who in their right mind, from CxL, is going to participate in another of those boxes, which we already know are satellites of the Front?
Monterrey admits that “it is very difficult” for CxL to recover its legal status. “As long as the Sandinista Front is in power, I don’t see any chance,” he declares. However, he believes that “in the end, perhaps they even did us a favor,” because he maintains that “as long as there are political prisoners in the country, it is very difficult to think of participating in any electoral process.”
In November there will be municipal elections, what is the position of CxL regarding these elections?
First of all, I wouldn’t call it elections. One speaks of elections when there is competition. In this case there isn’t. You have one against the other in a normal election, but here there are only one, which is the Sandinista Front and its allies, (and) the opposition is not. Therefore, I was referring, not to municipal elections, I would speak of a mere process of assigning mayors and councilors.
CxL decided to participate in the regional elections in the Caribbean in 2019 under the same current conditions, under repression and also without an electoral reform that would guarantee its transparency. What changes now?
No. Everything has changed. In the first place, there was the hope of being able to go to an electoral process – moderately transparent – against Ortega, and it was not only us who bet on that, obviously, we were the only ones who had legal status. But I remind you, the Coalition, the UNAB, all the organizations, they even had deputies, they already knew who was going to compete, etc. Everyone was clear that the only solution is really the electoral route, and that was the bet when we went to those elections; the whole country bet on that; and everyone, the opposition that was inside the country at that time, was betting on the same thing, and we all wanted to participate in national elections because we saw it as the only possible way out. Everything has changed, obviously.
And do you have any expectation of recovering the legal status of CxL?
I think that at this point it is very difficult. As long as the Sandinista Front is in power, I don’t see any possibility. The fact that we complied with all the procedures required by law should have been enough for them to have returned it by now. But hey, in the end maybe they even did us a favor, because in these conditions, who wants to participate in anything, especially with political prisoners. For me that is the most important thing, as long as there are political prisoners in the country it is very difficult to think about participating in any electoral process.
So they do not contemplate looking for a polling place?
That is a decision of each one. We, as a collective, are obviously not looking, because, to make a little history: ALN, it was us, and they took away that personality; We were PLI, and they took away that status; later we founded CxL, and they took that legal status away from us. So, who in their right mind of CxL is going to participate in another one of those spaces, which we already know are satellites of the Front.
However, I will add something interesting that is happening. I know from information that many of the people in the party tell me, that they have come to look for them from those other organizations, because it is no longer worth even calling them parties, and they even offer them candidacies for mayor, for councilors, but conditional, even, to put the prosecutors. So what does that tell you? That these organizations do not even have candidates, in the first place, much less an electoral spread. What does it mean? That this is an assignment that the Sandinista Front is going to make among themselves, which is them.
There are currently five mayorships in the hands of mayors of CxL. Is there an orientation, a guideline, from the leadership of CxL, for mayors and councilors on what to do in these elections?
No. There is no orientation, we are leaving it to the conscience of each one. What I have seen is that no one has any interest in going to a booth that belongs to the Sandinista Front. I don’t see it happening. However, everywhere there is everything, what if there can be someone who does it? Yes, of course, in a personal capacity they can do it. But obviously, the one who goes in another box stops being from this organization of their own free will, but that is not a decision of a group, that is at the level of the conscience of each one.
Is there a common position of the mayors and councilors of CxL? Do they agree not to participate, or can they go with other parties?
What I have heard from the majority is that they have no interest in any participation that has not been, or could not be, in our own box, that we no longer have it and, therefore, interest, that I have seen, there is no .
Since Ortega returned to power in 2007, among allegations of fraud, more mayors have been awarded in each municipal election; In 2017, only 18 remained in the hands of liberal parties. Is the FSLN going to keep all of them this time?
I think so. But in 2017, the same, there were frauds and we denounced them, including several of the mayorships that we had won, with all the documentation and evidence, and that the OAS supported in the report that it made of those mayorships, (…) it is not that we lost them, is that, obviously, they distributed them because they did not want to comply with the votes that had been obtained. In this one, what I see is, simply, to finish appropriating the entire country.
There are about five months left for these municipal elections and the Supreme Electoral Council has not yet officially called. The last electoral reform establishes a campaign period of 20 days, is that enough time?
It’s not about reforms. I already see it here as decisions that are pulled out of the sleeve simply to save resources. If in the national elections there was 80% or more abstention, what can be expected in this one? Then they come and, between that reform, which they accommodate to favor or to reduce their expenses: now there are 600 voters in each Polling Station, what does that mean? That of almost 14,000 Boards that there were, now there are going to be between 7,000 and 8,000, that reduces your expenses, reduces the number of prosecutors that, obviously, not only does the Front put them in for your party, but you have to put the mosquitoes, who do not have an electoral line.
So, those 20 days is more than enough, if there is no mobilization, there is no freedom of association, there is no opposition, then, in 20 days, it is simply to go through the process of publishing the candidates in La Gaceta, and then telling each Who are they going to vote for? In other words, they are going to convene, I calculate, according to that reform to which you refer, that perhaps they will be convening three months before, that we are talking about August. When you don’t really have a real election, why have a long campaign? There’s no need.
And if this is an electoral circus, what is the opposition proposing that is not going to participate in them?
It is very difficult to make proposals when the opposition is inside the country and is silenced. I do not intend, from here or from any forum, to give any type of instruction, simply, to the conscience of each one, just as they did in this recent electoral farce, according to the conscience of each one, what should they do? to do or not to do
