Nicaragua is a month away from holding the municipal elections, which will be held on November 6, with few expectations from its citizens that a change can be achieved in the political crisis that the Central American country is experiencing, analysts assure the Voice of America.
In this process, at least 153 mayors, deputy mayors, as well as councilors will be elected from owners and alternates who will lead the country’s municipalities for a period of five years.
The Supreme Electoral Council —made up of magistrates singled out for favoring the ruling party— assures from its perspective that this electoral process will be “fair and transparent” and citizens will “freely” elect the authorities distributed in the municipalities throughout the country.
However, there are several anomalies recorded prior to the November process. The main one is the lack of real opposition political parties.
Since 2021, the electoral power annulled Citizens for Freedom, the last remaining opposition party.
So that six parties will participate in the current contest, the ruling Sandinista Front and five more considered “accomplices” by exiled opponents in Costa Rica, such as the Blue and White National Unity.
open polls, a citizen observatory dedicated to monitoring electoral processes in Nicaragua assures that the Sandinista Front —Ortega’s party— will repeat 118 people, out of the 153 mayoralties in the country, as candidates for mayor, and this is aimed at “control and surveillance” over the territories.
In fact, among the mayoral candidates who are going to repeat in these elections are at least three sanctioned by the State Department from the United States in 2021 for human rights violations and their repressive role in the 2018 protests: Sadrach Zeledón Rocha, from Matagalpa; Leonidas Centeno Rivera, from Jinotega; and Francisco Ramón Valenzuela Blandón, from Estelí.
Another of the serious complaints compiled by the entity is the usurpation or appropriation of names in at least four political parties that were denounced by citizens.
Open ballot boxes recorded 1,158 complaints of citizen usurpation, from 33 municipalities.
“These irregularities demonstrate, on the one hand, the little capacity that the collaborationist parties have to complete the lists, as well as the weak mechanisms to follow up on their internal processes,” he assured. Open Ballot Boxes.
Unknown candidates and zero political rallies
Mariana, a 40-year-old woman from Managua, tells the voice of america by telephone that he does not know the candidates for mayor of political parties that are not from the official Sandinista Front.
“I don’t know the candidates of the famous opposition because there aren’t even any media outlets in the country anymore… there is nothing campaigning or digital. I’m a frequent netizen and I don’t see anything”, indicates the woman.
At the beginning of May, the National Assembly, with an official majority, approved a reform to the Electoral Law where shortened the period of electoral campaigns only 20 days for the municipal elections and only 30 days for the presidential ones. Previously it was 42 days and 75 respectively.
Miguel, another citizen consulted by the VOA, is native to the department of Granada, south of Managua. This young man, who also prefers not to be identified, also does not know who the mayoral candidates are.
“Honestly, I have no idea how many parties there are and I don’t think there are even opposition parties. This is a farce. These people move the votes as a monopoly at their convenience, they never lose,” said the 27-year-old.
Both Miguel and Mariana assure that the opportunity to achieve political change in the country to end the crisis that has been going on for four years, after violent protests against Ortega, was lost in 2021 when the current president imprisoned all his opponents. .
Former opposition deputy Eliseo Núñez outlines that calling this electoral process “elections” “is a lot.” In his opinion, what will take place on November 6 will be “a process of assigning charges.”
“Here there is no chance for the citizen to decide who their councilor is, who their mayor is, and the only thing you are going to find are people who went for the collaborationist parties who are going to be assigned positions to pay them for the favor of having done the parade. to the Sandinista Front,” he asserted.
The last municipal elections held in Nicaragua were in 2017. At that time, the ruling Sandinista Front won 135 mayorships out of the 153 in the country.
According to Núñez, now the question that exists is whether Ortega “is already going to take the step towards the single party”, that is, if all the mayors will be assigned to him “or is he still going to maintain for a while the issue of his false multi-party system giving twenty or twenty-five mayorships to the collaborationist parties. That is the big question. From there, there is no other in my opinion”.
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