Winner without surprise with an election without opponents, President Nicaraguan is threatened with new international sanctions.
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The victory of President Nicaraguen, Daniel Ortega, re-elected without surprise, Sunday, November 7, during a non-competitive ballot, was welcomed by a quasi-unanimous conviction of the international community. The former Sandinist guerrilla and his wife, Rosario Murillo, Vice-President, have officially won the presidential election with 74.9% of the vote. A result in block rejected by the opposition which denounces an “electoral joke”, after the arrest of seven declared candidates.
Sunday, the 3,106 polling stations were almost deserted in this small country in Central America (6.6 million), governed by Mr. Ortega from 1979 to 1990 and 2007 to today. The Supreme Electoral Council (CSE), however, announced, late in the night, a participation of more than 65% of the 4.4 million voters, after the departure of half of the ballots. According to the CSE, subject to the regime, the Sandinist National Liberation Front (FSLN, in power) will also retain the majority of the 90 MP seats on Sunday. Figures disputed by the 1,450 unofficial observers, mobilized in 353 polling stations by the non-governmental organization Urnas Abiertas. The Observatory ensures that the participation has capped 18.5% on average, confirming that most Nicaraguans responded to the call for a “mass abstention”, launched by the opposition.
“Citizens have expressed their discharge from the dictatorship,” Monday, a statement of the White Blue National Unity (UNAB), who federates some of the protest movements, born in April 2018 of an unprecedented revolt and Pacific claiming the departure of the presidential couple. At the time, the brutal repression against the protesters had made 328 dead, pushing exile more than 100,000 Nicaraguans, most of the neighboring Costa Rica. The vote of several liberticide laws, end 2020, by the members of the FSLN, has led to the arrest, this summer, seven contenders of the opposition to the presidential election, and the exile of two others, prevented from candidate. All are accused of “betrayal at homeland” or “money laundering”, just like thirty-two other opponents, journalists or large patterns, also incarcerated since. Not to mention that the CSE canceled, a few months before the elections, the legal existence of the three opposition parties, leaving only five small political formations, satellites of the plan.
Election “Pantomime”
According to the rare independent media, the FSLN organized Tours on Sundays to mobilize voters, while a survey, published in mid-October by the Cid-Gallup Institute, revealed that only 19% of them Vote for Mr. Ortega. Information passed by television channels, related to the plan, preferring to cover the vote of Mr. Ortega, soon 76 years, and of M me Murillo, 70, in the center of Managua, under the applause of their supporters.
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