Nicaragua will go to its municipal elections this Sunday to choose the authorities of the 153 municipalities of the Central American country, in a process that is not very transparent, according to expert organizations on the matter.
Critics of President Daniel Ortega point out that it will be a new electoral “farce” due to a number of irregularities, such as the control exercised by the ruling party of the court responsible for the scrutiny.
The organization Urnas Abiertas pointed out in a report that “there was no real electoral campaign” and neither “conditions or democratic guarantees”.
The main opposition parties have been canceled in the country through the Supreme Electoral Council, such as the Citizens for Freedom (CxL) party, whose president, Carmela Monterrey, went into exile in Costa Rica in 2021.
And the parties that run in the contest are accused of being “accomplices” of Ortega and “false opponents.”
In fact, the electoral campaign was reduced to just 13 days, beginning on October 20 due to the passage of Hurricane Julia, according to some political parties, however, according to Open Ballot Boxes, “this provision” was never officially reported.
“During the entire campaign period there was a notorious silence, the atmosphere in the municipalities does not point to the approach of a civic party as the elections should be,” emphasized Urnas Abiertas.
He added that the streets lack notorious political advertising except for a few posters, the rallies or caravans in the streets are non-existent and the few political acts registered during the last two weekends were not massive.
A “fraudulent” process?
William Marín participated twice in different electoral processes in Nicaragua, on one occasion as a candidate for mayor, a party that today considers an ally of the government of President Daniel Ortega.
Marin advances to the voice of america that what there will be will be awards to “those close to Ortega and his allies” in the voting on Sunday and foresees a “same script of fraud” as in 2021, when President Daniel Ortega was imposed for a period of five more years, then to imprison seven opposition candidates.
“This is a fraudulent process because not all the political forces in the country are participating, those that are participating have been allies of the FSLN. It is the same fraud script from 2021,” Marin said.
“Those that run are parties that we know have served to sell themselves to the ruling party and the true opponents have been exiled or their legal status has been withdrawn,” Marin said.
“A democratic process”, according to the government
The government of President Daniel Ortega has stressed that the electoral process will be “a civic exercise,” as Vice President Rosario Murillo assured.
“We are preparing once again to ratify our national sovereignty policy that leads us forward in work, peace, but above all, that peace, without which it is impossible to build,” Murillo said on October 24 in reference to the municipal elections. .
Candidates of the ruling party are going to repeat
In these elections, the ruling party named 101 active mayors as candidates for the municipal elections, including three aldermen sanctioned by the United States.
More than 3 million Nicaraguans are authorized by the Supreme Electoral Council to participate in the municipal elections that will be held this Sunday in the Central American country.
In total there will be five political parties that will participate in the process: the Constitutionalist Liberal Party, the Yatama Regional Indigenous Party, the Alliance for the Republic, APRE, and the Independent Liberal Party, PLI.
“I think that democracy in Nicaragua is over a long time ago and for those who had doubts, the fraudulent elections of 2021, it was just a great illustration when it made all the opposition parties illegal,” he explained to the press. VOAEvan Ellis, a Latin American studies researcher at the US Army War College’s Institute for Strategic Studies.
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