The electoral farce of the voting on November 7, 2021, in which Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo elected themselves for a new five-year government termwas a business that left more than 16 million dollars for the Sandinista Front, as electoral reimbursement.
In addition, the five collaborating political parties received a total of 3.5 million dollars for lending themselves to this process, carried out without political competition, transparency and under the shadow of repression and violence against the population.
The Budget Execution Report of the Ministry of Finance and Public Credit January-June 2022 revealed that the electoral reimbursement for the 2021 votes was 803.9 million córdobas (about 22.5 million dollars at the current prevailing exchange rate).
Electoral refund has already been delivered
The same report indicates that this electoral reimbursement has already been disbursed to the Sandinista Front and the five collaborationist parties, in amounts corresponding to the allocation of votes made by the Supreme Electoral Council (CSE), directly controlled by the Ortega regime.
Reimbursement is a publicly funded mechanism to help competing political parties defray electoral campaign expenses.
However, one of the main asterisks of the 2021 electoral farce is that the Sandinista Front and the long-legged parties they practically did not campaignl, whose term was even cut by the same CSE.
In addition to the candidacies of Ortega and Murillo, in their goal of perpetuating themselves in power, none of the other candidates from the collaborationist parties was known among the population.
Population closed the doors to the 2021 electoral farce
The CSE of the regime assigned in a process marked by the high level of abstentionism-the specialized civic organism Open Polls estimated it at more than 80%– as the winner of these votes to the Sandinista Front, with 75.92% of the votes.
The Electoral Power determined that the second place in the votes corresponded to the oldest political partner of the dictatorship, the Constitutionalist Liberal Party, with 14.15% of the votes.
Camino Cristiano Nicaragüense was assigned 3.30%, Alianza Liberal Nicaragüense (ALN) 3.15%, Alianza por la República (APRE) 1.78% and Partido Liberal Independiente 1.70%.
CONFIDENTIAL calculated how much was the amount disbursed to each political party, according to the allocation of votes made by the CSE, as established by the reforms to the Electoral Law made by the deputies of the dictatorship and their political allies in the National Assembly.
These disbursements were made without the need for the political parties to present invoices or justifications for the alleged expenses incurred in the electoral campaign.
The Sandinista Front received 602.9 million córdobas (16.9 million dollars), while its political partners in the PLC received 114.5 million córdobas (3.2 million dollars).
The other four zancudos political parties received much smaller amounts, which together represent a little more than 7.7 million córdobas (217,921 dollars).
Electoral reimbursement: prize for “mosquito parties”
Looking ahead to the municipal elections of November 6, 2022, a process that also reproduces the pattern of irregularities, lack of political competition and violence of the 2021 voting, electoral reimbursement re-emerges as a prize element for collaborationist parties.
During a interview on the show Tonightthe political analyst and former opposition deputy Eliseo Núñez, affirmed that the electoral reimbursement is the perk that the stilt parties will receive before this municipal process, whose only question is whether the Sandinista Front will be assigned the 153 mayorships of Nicaragua.
“The collaborationist parties are going to accompany this with prebends. That is why they made the issue of electoral reimbursement. Now the reimbursement is not against campaign expenses. Now the refund is direct. The votes you get are reimbursed and you do not have to submit invoices or support for any type of expense. It is a prize that they give you for participating,” said Núñez.
“Each vote has an amount in value and the vote assigned to you by the Supreme Electoral Council, they pay you with an amount of money. I think that is going to be around 350 to 400 million córdobas. You’re talking about 10 million dollars. In other words, for every one percent of votes you get, you will have 100,000 dollars in the bag”, stressed the political analyst.
Municipalities follow pattern of electoral farce 2021
The electoral and political observation body Open Ballot Boxes has already warned of various irregularities in the municipal election process next November, such as the elimination of the electoral register To over 755,000 voters, going from 4.4 million Nicaraguans registered for “the 2021 electoral farce”, to 3.7 million people eligible to vote this year.
The CSE also compacted the 3,106 Voting Centers, by eliminating 5,528 Vote Receiving Boards (JRV), going from 13,459 JRVs enabled in general voting in 2021, to 7,931 (JRV) enabled this year.
The measure is part of the reform to Law 331, Electoral Law, approved last May by the National Assemblyin which —among other things— an “express electoral process” was established and the number of voters per JRV was increased from 400 to 600.
These changes to the Electoral Law also establish “greater control over the electoral process, limit citizen oversight and contradict the recommendations” of civil society and international organizations, warned Urnas Abiertas.
This organization also pointed out in a recent report that “none” of the changes made suggest “fundamental reforms” that contribute to improving the transparency or general integrity of the electoral system, “such as the non-partisanship of the intermediate instances of electoral administration.”
