Over the weekend, Nicaraguan riot police officers occupied the opposition mayor’s office in Santa María de Pantasma, located some 192 kilometers north of Managua and which has historically been considered a bastion of opposition to President Daniel Ortega.
Oscar Gadea Tinoco, mayor of the town, told the digital media Confidential that the Nicaraguan Institute for Municipal Development (INIFOM) notified him on the grounds that since 2021 the legal status of the Citizens for Freedom Party (CxL), through which he was elected, had been cancelled. The cancellation had occurred prior to the general elections in November of last year, in which Ortega won another term.
According to the testimony of Gadea Tinoco, dozens of riot police forcefully assaulted the municipal government of Santa María de Pantasma, in Jinotega. Citizens of the town told the media Confidential that the site had been surrounded since noon on Saturday, July 2.
“If they have notified us that they have to hand over, we would have peacefully handed over. There was no need for police or riot police,” Gadea told the Confidential media.
The action occurs when there are only four months left for the municipal elections. Also in the context of the political crisis that began in 2018. This fact generates uncertainty in at least four more offices of the Citizens for Freedom party that “condemned” the actions of the government of Daniel Ortega.
The voice of america He tried to communicate with the opposition mayor this Sunday to delve into more details about it, however, there was no response.
Uncertainty in other mayors
The capture of the Pantasma mayor’s office is considered one more blow to the already weak Nicaraguan opposition. Some critics of Ortega claim that he is becoming “more totalitarian” by perpetrating “coups” against democratically elected people.
In the last municipal elections held in Nicaragua in 2017, the Supreme Electoral Council (CSE), controlled by Ortega, assigned 135 mayorships to the ruling party out of a total of 153 existing in the country.
However, not all of them managed to complete their term, as happened with the mayor of the Liberal Constitutionalist Party (PLC), Reyna Hernández, who was removed from office and is now in exile.
Opposition mayors who remain in office govern with many obstacles from the central government. Among them is the Mayor of El Cuá, located about 73 kilometers northeast of the municipality of Jinotega, and about 210 kilometers from Managua.
In 2021, the mayor of Citizens for Freedom (CxL), Isidro Irías, explained to the voice of america who has governed under threats and limitations since transfers from the central government were suspended and even a radio station owned by the mayor’s office was closed.
“What they (the government) want is to destroy us completely so that we can’t do anything for our municipality, so that in the electoral campaigns they say: ‘Look, these didn’t work.’ We are going to do things right,” the official said last year.
Municipal elections are coming up
The occupation of the historically oppositional mayor’s office provoked criticism and condemnation from electoral organizations.
The Nicaraguan organization Urnas Abiertas said that “the serious situation” against the Mayor’s Office of Santa María de Pantasma demonstrated “once again the absence of conditions in Nicaragua for legitimate and complete elections”, in addition to representing “a heavy blow against municipal autonomy.
The municipal elections in Nicaragua are scheduled to be held on November 6, however, to date there is no official call.
At the beginning of May, the National Assembly made a reform to the Electoral Law that reduced the electoral campaign time, before 75 to 30 days, to between 42 to 20 days.
Sanctioned official mayors
The role of the official mayors has been questioned throughout the political crisis in Nicaragua. In November 2021, the President of the United States, Joe Biden, issued a proclamation suspension of entry into the country, whether as immigrants or non-immigrants, to a large number of members of the Nicaraguan government, including Ortega and his wife and vice president, Rosario Murillo.
The mayors, deputy mayors and political secretaries are the first to appear after Ortega and Murillo on the list of officials who are prohibited from entering the United States.
“Mayors loyal to the Ortega government have organized and channeled state funds to vigilante groups involved in violent repression. These municipal officials wield enormous political power and discretionary budgetary authority vested in them by the highest levels of the Ortega government,” the White House said in announcing the sanctioned list.
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