Biden says elections in Nicaragua were neither free nor fair. The polls are closed and Ortega must be re-elected | Globalism

Immediately after the polls close, chief United StateAnd Joe BidenHe raised the tone against the authoritarian regime in Nicaragua and said the vote was a “farce”: “neither free nor fair, and almost certainly not democratic,” he wrote.

“The arbitrary arrests of nearly 40 opponents since May – including seven potential presidential candidates – and the ban on political party participation rigged the outcome well before Election Day,” Biden said in a statement.

The United States is putting strong pressure on Nicaragua, especially after Ortega tightened the regime in 2018 – when Hundreds were killed in the crackdown on protests against the government.

Nicaragua’s media forecast that Ortega and Vice President Rosario Murillo – who is also the president’s wife – should be able to be re-elected without difficulty. The result is not officially confirmed until 22:00 (GMT) this Sunday.

The current president faced five unidentified candidates accused of collaborating with the government after Seven candidates held In an attack that has led to the imprisonment of dozens of politicians, businessmen, farmers, students and journalists since May.

A poll conducted by the Cid-Gallup Institute showed that 65% would vote for a discount and 19% for Ortega. But the pro-government M&R Institute says 70% will vote for the current president and 11.2% for unknown candidates.

Dissidents are imprisoned or in exile

The candidate for election was Christiana Chamorro, daughter of former President Violeta Barrios (1990-1997) and currently serving as President. prison house.

The detainees are accused of attacking sovereignty and promoting sanctions against Nicaragua and “betrayal of the motherland” or “money laundering”, based on laws passed by Congress in 2020, under government control, as well as elections for the judiciary and authorities.

As for Ortega, the more than 150 dissidents arrested since 2018 are not politicians, but “criminals” and “coups” sponsored by Washington.

Remember in the video below the Nicaraguan police raid of a newspaper

More than 100,000 Nicaraguans, mostly from the United States and Costa Rica, were exiled during the political crisis.

Thus, Ortega’s government rejected international monitoring by bodies such as the Organization of American States (OAS) and the European Union.

The head of European diplomacy, Josep Borrell, said on Tuesday that the elections would not be legitimate because Ortega had arrested all other candidates.

“Mr. Ortega was concerned with the arrest of all political candidates who presented themselves in this election and we cannot expect this process to reach a result that we can consider legitimate, but the opposite,” Borrell declared.