After imprisoning dozens of opponents and accused by international organizations of human rights violations, Daniel Ortega assumes his fifth and fourth consecutive term this Monday, in a ceremony to be held in the Plaza de la Revolución, in Managua, with the support of Argentina and a handful of governments around the world.
With the attendance of very few foreign delegations, the Sandinista leader will assume his new mandate after winning the controversial November 7 elections with more than 40 opposition leaders arrested.
Among them, seven presidential candidates led by the favorite in the polls, Cristiana Chamorro, who on Saturday served 220 days of home detention.
Argentina will attend the ceremony represented by its ambassador, Daniel Capitanich, despite the fact that the elections were described as a “pantomime” by the United States and rejected by the European Union for its lack of transparency.
The swearing-in ceremony, which will take place in the Plaza de la Revolución in Managua, will be attended -among the main delegations- delegates from China, Iran, Russia, North Korea, Mexico, Cuba and Venezuela, as confirmed by the regime, in the middle of the ignorance of Europe, the United States and dozens of democratic countries.
The government of Alberto Fernández will be represented by its ambassador in Managua, brother of Jorge Capitanich, the governor of Chaco. This weekend, when confirming the integration of the delegations, Vice President Rosario Murillo attributed to the pandemic the minimum number of representatives that will be present.
The 76-year-old former Sandinista guerrilla has been in power since 2007 and is the Nicaraguan president who has remained in power the longest.
To the Secretary General of the OAS, Luis Almagro. The body questioned the elections on November 7 in Nicaragua. Photo: EFE
A questioned mandate
If you count his first government between 1985 and 1990, this Monday he will be starting his fifth five-year term.
On November 7 he prevailed in the elections, not recognized by a large part of the international community, with 75.87% of the votes. His wife, Rosario Murillo, was also re-elected as vice president.
In Murillo’s opinion, in the controversial elections last November, the ruling Sandinista National Liberation Front defeated “the devil”, alluding to the anti-government demonstrations that broke out in April 2018 against controversial social security reforms and later they turned into a rebellion in rejection of Ortega.
The protests, classified by the Executive as an attempted coup, left at least 355 dead, according to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), although local organizations raise the figure to 684. The government only recognizes 200.
Dates and relevant data of the political crisis in Nicaragua. / AFP
Ortega won an election in which his rivals did not participate because, in the previous months, heThe authorities dissolved three political parties and arrested more than 40 leaders opponents, including seven presidential hopefuls, including the independent Cristiana Chamorro.
In reaction, the General Assembly of the Organization of American States (OAS) approved a resolution in which it assured that those elections lacked “democratic legitimacy” and they were neither free, nor fair, nor transparent.
At the same time, the United States said that it would ignore the electoral result and the European Union maintained that the electoral contest failed to meet minimum requirements of transparency and reliability.
Later, the Ortega government accused the OAS of “interference” and announced that it intended to leave the organization, for which the Charter of the organization denounced, its founding document signed in 1948. According to the organization’s regulations, any country who denounces the OAS Charter has to wait two years for the withdrawal to become effective.
This Sunday the electoral authorities put into office the National Assembly, where the ruling party will have 71 seats out of 91, a figure that allows the approval of laws and reforms to the Constitution without any difficulty. The opposition was reduced to 20 legislators.
The relationship between the Argentine government and the regime is ambiguous. On November 8, Buenos Aires issued a statement in which it avoided condemning the fraudulent elections of the previous day.
On the 13th of the same month, a project endorsed by the United States and 8 other countries that condemned the elections accompanied the OAS General Assembly. But when he seemed to be distancing himself from the Sandinistas, he replaced his ambassador in Managua.
Last week, finally, the regime supported the candidacy of Buenos Aires for the pro tempore presidency of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, a regional body that is not made up of the United States, Canada or Brazil.
Source: EFE and AFP
CB
.