The Supreme Electoral Council (CSE) made official the definitive list of party and alliance candidates that will participate in the municipal elections to be held next November. The same ones that have been pointed out for a large number of anomalies in the lists and for being “comparsa” groups of the ruling Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN).
Through publication number 2022-02862 in the official gazette The Gazettethe CSE provided the names that will be definitive in the list of the “candidates for mayors, vice mayors and members of the municipal councils in the 2022 municipal elections to be verified on Sunday, November 6.”
The list maintains the candidates for mayors in the 15 departmental capitals and two autonomous regions by the ruling party, as published in the preliminary list.
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In the list are the sanctioned mayors of Matagalpa, Jinotega and Estelí; Sadrach Zeledón Rocha, Leónidas Centeno and Francisco Valenzuela. All sanctioned by the United States for “cooperating with the Police and paramilitaries to repress social protests using the resources of the municipalities.” They participated in “Operation Cleanup”, in addition to ordering the placement of snipers in different areas.
The regime maintains Reyna Rueda and Enrique Armas as mayor and deputy mayor of Managua for re-election for the second consecutive term, both remaining under the figure of the Secretary General, Fidel Moreno.
The electoral campaign is expected to begin on October 12 and end on November 1, as established by the reform to the Electoral Law approved by the regime that establishes a period of 20 days to carry out the campaign for the municipal elections and the election of councillors.
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According to official data, at least 4.4 million citizens will be able to participate in the municipal elections, out of a total of 6.5 million Nicaraguans. In the voting, 153 mayors, 153 deputy mayors, and more than 6,000 councilors from all the country’s municipalities will be “elected.”
The electoral court is accused of executing and directing an “electoral farce” in which the FSLN is expected to gain absolute control of the country’s mayoralties, of which it already dominates 135, after eliminating in 2021 all traces of opposition with the cancellation of three political parties that would bring together the groups that criticize the Ortega-Murillo administration.
