The regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo demonstrated, with the adjudication of the 153 mayors of the country to the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN), which is “advancing” towards the imposition of a single party system in Nicaragua, warned political analysts and opposition organizations.
They indicated that this is not an issue that occurs “in fact”, since the Constitution and the laws would have to be reformed, but in practice Nicaraguans have been left “without political options”.
The former liberal deputy and political analyst, Eliseo Núñez, assessed that, given the results of the “municipal electoral farce” on November 6, the Front “is going to say that it has a mandate from the citizens and that it is the only viable party In Nicaragua”. This situation “is going to lead them to value the issue of the single party,” he pointed out.
Núñez recalled that the idea of a single party in Nicaragua is an issue that Ortega himself mentioned on April 22, 2009, in a statement he gave to the Cuban program Mesa Redonda, in which, among other things, he assured that “multipartyism is not more than a way to disintegrate the nation. That is the multi-party system, disintegrating the nation, confronting the nation, dividing the nation, dividing our peoples”.
The analyst commented that “there are many people who believe that this (the imposition of the single party) is simply an issue in fact and it is not, because when you have a single party and make it the center of the system, you have to include it within the law and what is done within the party is part of what is done in the State. It is a system like the Cuban, North Korean and the (former) Soviet Union.”
Similarly, the former deputy and political analyst, Enrique Sáenz, estimated that by awarding all the mayoralties to the FSLN, the Ortega regime “gave the blow he needed and for which he had been working for years, to impose a single-party regime in Nicaragua”similar to the Cuban regime.
By completely liquidating the representative democracy in Nicaragua, the regime is leaving citizens “without political options,” said Núñez. “This is what it seeks to do is get people to lower their guard, because as there are no representative options, people do not tend to throw themselves into the void and this generates the feeling of collapsing hopes.”
CSE confirms award
The Supreme Electoral Council (CSE) confirmed at the end of the afternoon of this Monday, November 7, the award of 100% of the mayorships to the FSLN, as part of a process lacking in credibility in in which the Sandinista Front participated only with its historical collaborators: Constitutionalist Liberal Party (PLC), Alliance for the Republic (APRE), Nicaraguan Liberal Alliance (ALN), Independent Liberal Party (PLI Alliance) and Yapti Tasba Masraka Nanih Asla Takanka (Yatama ).
In a second report, with 99.13% of the boards scrutinized, the president of the CSE, Brenda Rocha, pointed out that 2.1 of the 3.7 million Nicaraguans who were summoned to the polls participated in the #Municipales2022. Which shows an abstention of 42.9%.
The data of the CSE contrast with those of the citizen observatory Urnas Abiertas, which registered an abstention rate of 82.7%. This level of abstention exceeds that observed in the “electoral farce” of 2021, which was 81.5%. This information was calculated based on data received from 366 Voting Centers (CV) throughout Nicaragua, where citizen participation reached a meager 17.3%.
Hours before the second count of the CSE was known, the Ortega Police attacked and harassed supporters of the Yatama regional party while they were doing a parallel count of the #Municipales2022 in the municipality of Puerto Cabezas, in the North Caribbean Autonomous Region.
According to a report by Urnas Abiertas, Yatama supporters claim that their party won several mayoralties in the North Caribbean, including Waspán, and that the FSLN is trying to rob them. In response to citizen complaints, the Police reacted with aggression.
They fear “more repression”
For the Permanent Commission on Human Rights (CPDH) this “municipal electoral farce” cannot even be called an election, since it occurred in a context “of crisis in which human rights violations are daily bread” and its The results increase the “concern” about the “total control” of the regime over the national territory.
The executive secretary of the CPDH, Marcos Carmona, warned that the award of the country’s 153 mayoralties to the government party will generate “more repression, more organization of paramilitaries” and “Nicaraguans will continue to leave the country” fleeing from the crisis.
Carmona also highlighted that the high level of abstention in the #Municipales2022 is the reflection of a society “that has no one to vote for, that the candidates who participated are the same as always” and that “the people of Nicaragua are aware that these Elections have no value, they have no seriousness, because they did not have the international parameters of a true electoral process”.
Similarly, the member of the CPDH, Denis Darce, emphasized that “we cannot call this electoral farce elections”, since “it is impossible to think that the people of Nicaragua —with a dictatorship like the one we have right now— can freely elect” their authorities. Those who attended the polls did so under “intimidation” by the regime and its apparatus of repression.
The CPDH also stated in a press release that the “farce” of the municipal elections was the confirmation that “in Nicaragua there are no conditions and there are no minimum guarantees” of transparency.
“The dictatorship did not show even the slightest shame in accrediting the electoral victory in the 153 mayorships of the country, increasing the centralization of power and the strengthening of party control and repression structures at all levels,” he stressed.
UNAB urges to continue pressure on the regime
Meanwhile, the Blue and White National Unity (UNAB), after hearing the results of the aftermath of the “electoral farce”, urged the international community “to continue exerting political, diplomatic and economic-financial pressure” on the Ortega regime. and Murillo.
“The municipal electoral farce was rejected by the population that was absent from the voting centers and like a year ago (in the general voting), closed the doors and emptied the streets. The loneliness and isolation of Ortega was evident once again,” UNAB said in a press release.
In this regard, the National Unit denounced that the ruling party, “in its eagerness to achieve some influx to the polls and consequently try to give some legitimacy to the farce, in the previous days imprisoned at least 19 people.”
In addition, “he blackmailed and pressured independent citizens, ordered state workers, soldiers and policemen to participate in the farce,” he continued.
In Nicaragua, the UNAB warned, “there are no elections under Ortega” and “there cannot be while there are more than 220 political prisoners and citizen freedoms are violated, while a de facto police state is maintained and tens of thousands of Nicaraguans they go into exile and migrate for political reasons.”
The organization invited “citizens to maintain civic resistance and denounce the regime in every inch of the country,” and demanded “to the dictatorship the total, unconditional and guaranteed release of all political prisoners, including the 19 kidnapped in the context of the electoral farce”.
The president of the canceled Citizens for Freedom (CxL) party, Kitty Monterrey, avoided referring to the “electoral farce” and only commented on her Twitter account that “Nicaraguans must continue to demand free, transparent and observed elections.”
