MANAGUA, Nicaragua: As Nicaragua President Daniel Ortega seeks a fourth consecutive term in November, hes pulling all the levers at his disposal to ensure his Sandinista National Liberation Front retains power.
Last week, the countrys Sandinista-dominated congress chose new members of the Supreme Electoral Council, who immediately set the electoral calendar to make Wednesday the deadline to register political alliances.
That threw Nicaraguas already divided opposition into chaos. Days of intense negotiations ensued, culminating in a last-ditch attempt to find common ground mediated by Dennis Martnez, the first Nicaraguan to play Major League Baseball. With a midnight deadline looming, talks were expected to extend late into the night.
Nicaraguans have suffered political repression, human rights abuses and a contracting economy in recent years as Ortega has continued to consolidate power and enrich his family. In April 2018, government forces and allies violently put down street protests, leading to months of unrest. Ortega called the protests an attempted coup with international backing.
With protest leaders forced into exile or hiding, Ortega and Vice President and first lady Rosario Murillo set about strengthening their grip on power while ignoring international recommendations for electoral reforms and demands from the domestic opposition.
In October 2020, the Organization for American States approved a resolution demanding electoral reforms. On Wednesday, during a discussion of the situation in Nicaragua, Secretary General Luis Almagro said, None of this has happened.
Nicaragua is on track to have the worst possible election, he said.
Instead, changes enacted by the National Assembly and Supreme Electoral Council clearly give the official party an absolute advantage in controlling electoral administration and justice, eliminating the necessary guarantees and minimal institutional credibility for the development of a free and fair electoral process in November 2021,” the OAS said last week.
Police have authority to decide what political gatherings are allowed. Government financing of campaigns was reduced. Laws passed earlier bar Nicaraguans working for organizations that receive foreign funding from running for public office.
Public protests already had been prohibited and activists were harassed by frequently having police cars parked outside their homes.
Ortega spent a decade in power after leading rebels who ousted dictator Anastasio Somoza in 1979, and he has been in office for nearly 15 additional years since returning in 2007. He won reelection in 2011 and 2016 and is once again the Sandinistas presidential candidate. The former guerrilla commander will turn 76 four days after the Nov. 7 election.
Nicaraguas fragmented opposition has managed to gather itself under two large umbrella groups: the National Coalition and the Citizen Alliance.
The two groups trade insults on social media, but agree on one thing: They stand little chance against Ortega in November unless they present a united front.
Time has been lost in setting locations and few direct meetings, Juan Sebastin Chamorro, the Citizen Alliances presidential pre-candidate, wrote on Twitter.
Oscar Sovalbarro, vice president of Citizens for Freedom, part of Citizen Alliance, said among the disputed issues was how a united opposition would divide up seats in the National Assembly.
Pastor Saturnino Cerrato, president of Democratic Restoration Party and a negotiator for the National Coalition, said there simply is not political will to arrive at an agreement, accusing the Citizen Alliance of arrogance.
At the OAS Wednesday, Almagro said electoral reforms approved last week by Nicaragua’s National Assembly do not comply with the democratic standards necessary to ensure free and fair elections. Ortega wants to consolidate total control of the electoral process, he said.
Luis Alvarado, Nicaraguas representative before the regional body, asked the OAS and the United States to stick to their own affairs. The Nicaraguans will resolve Nicaraguas affairs.
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AP writer Claudia Torrens in New York contributed to this report.
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