Harold Antonio Baltodano Cruz, son of the deceased mayor of Diriamba, Fernando Baltodano Velásquez, appears on the list of candidates for mayor of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN), as the one anointed to represent the ruling party in the November 6 municipal votes.
The eldest son of the deceased mayor will participate in a formula with the current deputy mayor, Mayling Figueroa Argüello, who was promoted to that position after the strange death of the mayor, according to the Provisional Registry of candidates for the municipal elections published this Tuesday, September 13 in La Gaceta, official newspaper.
The Sandinista mayor was found dead on the afternoon of Monday, August 22, with a bullet wound to the head and inside his truck, parked in a vacant lot on the road between Diriamba and the La Boquita resort.
The Vice President and First Lady, Rosario Murillo then insinuated that Baltodano committed suicide, since he suffered from a supposed “depression”, which led him to make “a tragic and painful decision”. The National Police did not issue any report on the event.
After the death of Baltodano, his son and current candidate for mayor of Diriamba, was appointed by the government party as secretary general of the mayor’s office. Since then he maintains a permanent presence in the activities of the municipality.
The death of Baltodan
Despite the silence of the regime authorities on the death of Mayor Diriamba, a photograph of the body circulated on social networks and on the WhatsApp messaging application, in which he appears sitting in front of the wheel of his vehicle and holding a gun with both hands, which contradicts the version of a possible suicide. The image unleashed a wave of speculation among the residents of Diriamba, who believed that Baltodano was murdered.
According to Murillo, Baltodano, 54, “had been suffering from ailments. We all know how difficult it is to deal with low spirits, with depression. That depression (led him) to make that fatal decision.”
“We are sending a big hug to the family of our fellow mayor Fernando Baltodano, who yesterday (Monday) made a tragic and painful decision for all of them and also for the families of Diriamba who have counted on his work all these years,” Murillo said. .
The death of Baltodano, who first governed Diriamba from 2005 to 2009 and later from 2013 until his death, occurred less than three months before the municipal elections in Nicaragua.
The Diriamba Mayor’s Office was intervened a week before Baltodano’s death by the Nicaraguan Institute for Municipal Development (Inifom), for an alleged “problem with some checks,” as reported CONFIDENTIAL.
