With just a press release, without any pomp, the Nicaraguan opposition formalized this Wednesday the formation of a new group who will try, once again, to unify forces to counterbalance President Daniel Ortega, who has governed the country for more than 15 years.
Most of the opposition groups, now from exile, assure that they will not make their members public for security reasons.
In the first communiqué of the block of opponents, it is alleged that “it is an inclusive space” and they invite citizens “to be agents of change and to unite to achieve a Nicaragua with justice.”
Ana Quirós, one of the few members who agreed to be quoted in this article, told the voice of america that this space is a unity process that began in October 2021 and where different leaders and representatives of organizations have been participating.
Initially, Quirós explained, the members of this organization sought “the release of political prisoners, and they have done so from the beginning; the restitution of rights and respect for human rights and the rule of law”.
but after release in February Of more than 200 political prisoners who were exiled and sent to the United States, this group “has been enriched.”
Several released people have joined this organization, Quirós explained.
It has no name and it is not an electoral alliance
Félix Maradiaga, a former candidate for the presidency and a former political prisoner who recently joined a meeting promoted by opponents in the United States, indicated that this group “is not in itself a political organization, but a process of plural dialogue between opponents.”
“I found it interesting that it doesn’t even have a definite name, being popularly known as Green Mountprecisely to avoid confusion with electoral alliances”.
Maradiaga assures that in this phase of the process, “we have focused our attention on building trust and reaching basic agreements to have a common position.”
Not all the exiled Nicaraguan organizations or youth movements have yet converged in this group.
Enrique Martínez, spokesman for the Student Youth Unit, explains that they -as an organization- do not participate in the process because “they have not been informed and included”, so they are working on their own “proposals for the new panorama of the Nicaraguan opposition “.
“The Youth prefer to keep their reservations about participating or not, but we emphasize that it is a space that from its beginnings has not sought equality, the recognition of young actors,” lamented Martínez.
After the political crisis in Nicaragua in 2018, the Nicaraguan opposition is dispersed in different blocks.
Ideological issues were a point of polarization prior to the elections in Nicaragua in 2021, until the government imprisoned all applicants for president.
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