Ortega romps home, draws farce poll flak

POWER COUPLE: Daniel Ortega and his vice-president wife Rosario Murillo. (Reuters file photo)

International opprobrium rained down yesterday on Nicaragua’s longtime leader Daniel Ortega after he won a fourth straight presidential term in what critics described as a “farce” election with his political opponents jailed or exiled.With Ortega’s victory in Sunday’s poll a foregone conclusion, the United States and Europe led fierce criticism of the 75-year-old former guerrilla whom they accused of dictatorial tactics and of crushing dissent.By early yesterday, ballots had been counted in 49% of polling stations, with Ortega and wife Rosario Murillo, his vice president, securing 75% of votes, according to official partial results from the country’s Supreme Electoral Council.Nicaragua is now fully “an autocratic regime” after the deeply deficient elections handed Ortega his fifth overall presidential term, the European Union said yesterday.The polls “lack legitimacy” after Ortega “eliminated all credible electoral competition,” EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said in a withering statement on behalf of the 27-nation bloc, adding that further sanctions were being considered.The election took place without independent international observers and with most foreign media denied access to the country.Spain branded the vote “a farce against democracy,” with seven would-be presidential challengers detained in Nicaragua since June and the five contenders Ortega did face dismissed by critics as regime loyalists.US President Joe Biden said the outcome was “rigged” long before the “sham” vote. Ortega and Murillo “orchestrated... a pantomime election that was neither free nor fair, and most certainly not democratic,” Biden said in a statement, adding the pair now run Nicaragua “as autocrats.”Overnight in the streets of the capital Managua, supporters waving red and black flags of Ortega’s party celebrated in the Plaza de las Victorias.“Whether the Yankees like it or not, we rule!” said one woman.Nicaragua’s neighbour Costa Rica, however, refused to recognise the elections because there was no way to determine whether they were “credible, independent, free, fair and inclusive.”Former guerilla hero Ortega launched a new attack on his opponents Sunday, saying: “This day we are standing up to those who promote terrorism, finance war, to those who sow terror, death.” He was referring to Nicaraguans who took part in massive protests against his government in 2018, which were met with a violent crackdown that claimed more than 300 lives in Central America’s poorest country.Some 150 people have been jailed since then, including 39 opposition figures rounded up since June in the run-up to the vote.