The regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo by assaulting military manual the opposition mayors from Santa María de Pantasma, San Sebastián de Yalí and El Cuá, in Jinotega; Murra, in Nueva Segovia; and El Almendro, in Río San Juan, confiscated the vote of thousands of Nicaraguans who chose, in the municipal elections of November 2017, “non-Orteguist” options, said Silvio Prado, a municipalist and political scientist in an interview with the program Tonight.
“In the seven municipalities, if we include Wiwilí, in Jinotega, and Mulukukú, in the North Caribbean, that had already been confiscated before, it has confiscated the vote of 50,300 people who voted directly for non-Orteguist options,” Prado explained.
In addition, he pointed out that the recent dispossession carried out by the dictatorship translates into the “consummation of authoritarianism over municipal autonomy, but above all political autonomy.”
Between July 2 and 4, police from the Ortega regime, paramilitaries, councilors from the Sandinista Front and delegates from the Municipal Development Institute (Inifom) carried out the takeover of the five opposition mayors, led by mayors from the Citizens for Freedom (CxL) party. ).
The opposition mayors were deposed from their positions and in their place councilors from the Sandinista Front were imposed. The Ortega-Murillo regime justified the dispossession by arguing that these mayors no longer had a political party.
The CxL party was left without legal status in August 2021, after the Supreme Electoral Council (CSE) ordered its ban prior to the general elections that year, in which the regime was re-elected without political competition for a fourth consecutive term. .
Argument to assault opposition mayors is “absurd”
Prado described Ortega’s argument as “absurd” because, he explained, “the mandate of the elected is not extinguished by the loss of the legal personality of a political party.”
“The elected, once they come to office, they are no longer from that party, they no longer govern in the name of that party, they are already elected to govern for the entire population, even though that population has not voted for them. There is not, in any of the more than 34 laws that protect local autonomy, not a single reason that says that mayors lose their status because the parties that brought them to power have lost their legal personality, ”he stressed.
The expert considered that the regime, despite this absurd justification that it gives, initiated this assault on the opposition mayors led by mayors of the CxL party because it gave him “anger, allergy, hives” to see that the opposition Óscar Gadea, deposed mayor of the Mayor’s Office of Santa María de Pantasma, dared to give an interview to CONFIDENTIAL.
“I think they stripped the Mayor’s Office of Santa María de Pantasma for having given statements to this medium, that is, the intolerance, anger of the dictators was such that it caused them so much allergy, hives, that they decided to proceed against Pantasma and, since they were in those, they decided to continue with the other mayoralties”, he pointed out.
CONFIDENTIAL published on July 1 an interview with Gadea, broadcast on June 26 on the Program This weekin which the mayor pointed out that there are no conditions in the country for the municipal elections scheduled for next November to be held.
“The healthiest thing for the country is that no party would lend itself to this (municipal elections). That all the parties said: ‘here we do not have the conditions to go to elections’, for everything that has been violating the Electoral Law. It would be the most logical thing”, assured Gadea in that interview.
Population was left “destitute”
Eliseo Núñez, political analyst and former Liberal deputy, stressed that the assault carried out by Ortega in these municipalities far from the capital, where the link with the mayors “is stronger because it is in itself the only contact with the Public Administration”, the The impact is really negative, since those who were imposed by the Ortega regime to lead these mayoralties “do not have the capacity to decide autonomously and are going to filter the requests that come from the population based on the political bias that they have been ordered to apply.”
“These are large masses of the population that are going to be left without ties to the public administration and destitute of everything that can really serve the State,” he said in an interview on the program Tonight.
The opponent considered that it is “probable” that the Ortega-Murillo regime will give these mayoralties taken over, especially in those that have never won in the elections, as “power quotas” to collaborating parties, among them the Liberal Constitutionalist Party (PLC). ) and the Nicaraguan Liberal Alliance (ALN). Although, he stressed, that is not certain either, since the regime “is moving towards the single party, migrating from the hegemonic party to the single party” and shows willingness to want to keep everything.
Prado valued that these actions by the regime can translate into “greater abstention” and contribute to increasing the relative weight of the Sandinista Front in the upcoming municipal votes in November, although, he stressed, that “is not the death of local autonomy.”
“Zelaya, Somoza, have been given up for dead, and now the Front gives it up again, but autonomy knows how to return, knows how to be reborn, because it is within the people who know how to govern themselves, who want to govern themselves, who want to make their own decisions, so I think that’s where the handle is, where the possibility of regenerating that local autonomy is, “he stressed.
Opposition must have “a sustainable plan”
Núñez referred that, in this context in which the regime continues to violate the rights of Nicaraguans and in the face of what may happen during or after the November municipal elections, “the opposition has to have two plans, a plan of indefinite sustainability and the ability to articulate quickly in the event that eventual things happen that generate rapid changes”.
“I think you have to plan for a change that will take a while to come due to the issue of persecution, fear, normalization, but you also have to have the ability to respond quickly when there are imponderables that can change things. short term. That is, to have agreements, which for me are not necessarily agreements of a perfect unity, that are based on a common discourse or narrative, a common strategy, aiming at the same strategic objectives even though the tactics are different for each organization”, he recommended.
Four months before the municipal votes scheduled for November, the opposition Blue and White National Unity (UNAB) called on the Nicaraguan population to “empty the streets” and “ignore” the “electoral farce” that the regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario is preparing. Murillo with the aim of “taking complete control of all municipal governments.
“We repudiate, denounce and ignore the new farce that the regime is preparing for next November and from now on we call on the population and all opposition organizations to reject it, to close the doors and empty the streets as we did in November 2021,” the statement said. opposition organization in a statement released this Wednesday.
The members of the Political Council of the UNAB announced that in the coming months they will be working with their structures, since, just as they did in 2021 during the general votes, They will monitor the “electoral farce” from the territories that prepares the regime for next November.
