Caribbean & Central America - December 2016 (ISSN 1741-4458)

The 6 November general elections, which produced a sweeping (72.5%) victory for President Daniel Ortega and his ruling Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional (FSLN) [RC-16-11], have come under criticism from various sectors. While the opposition has accepted the result, candidates like Saturnino Cerrato, of the small opposition Alianza Liberal Nicaragüense (ALN), have denounced irregularities. Given the FSLN’s control of the country’s institutions, these complaints are unlikely to prosper.

In a press conference on 10 November, Cerrato, who came a distant fourth in the election, with 4.3% of the vote, gave various examples of these irregularities. He cited the alleged refusal by the electoral authorities (CSE) to release the figures concerning absentee voters, along with its alleged cancellation of ballot papers. As well as highlighting acts of intimidation which took place at polling stations – including those where the ALN had fielded candidates and the one in which he himself cast a ballot – Cerrato also reiterated claims of widespread abstention, contrary to the CSE’s official line that abstention was 31.8%.

With the international community having also waded in (last month deputy spokesperson at the US State Department, Mark C Toner, expressed “deep concern” about Nicaragua’s electoral process [RC-16-11]), Cerrato’s complaints have been echoed by two damning reports released since the vote. One is by ‘Panorama Electoral’, a group of local civil society organisations which sent 650 observers to voting centres around the country. The other is by Ciudadanos por la Libertad (CxL), one of two separate recently formed opposition coalitions, along with Frente Amplio por la Democracia (FAD).

Released on 7 November, the ‘Panorama Electoral’ report was unequivocal that “the 2016 elections have failed to meet basic standards of electoral integrity and have represented an even further step back from three previous elections that were not credible.” It cited multiple areas of concern both regarding voting day itself and the electoral period as whole. As regards the latter point, these include: irregularities in voter registration; the rulings by the CSE and supreme court (CSJ) against the main opposition Partido Liberal Independiente (PLI) [RC-16-07], which ended up third in the presidential vote, with 4.5%; the imbalance in financial aid for parties and the misuse of state funds and facilities; the lack of transparency on the part of the CSE; and the blanket ban on observers.

Four days later, CxL released its own report. That report, which put abstention at 76.2%, also flagged up as a major concern the intimidation of voters, particularly those who receive state benefits, and the use of state funds in the FSLN campaign. The opposition coalition also accused the Ortega government of helping people to travel between voting stations in order to vote multiple times, as well as manipulation of the electoral register to create 545,161 ‘ghost’ voters, thus significantly inflating the number of voters. CxL calculates that just 1.034m people voted in the election, in contrast with the CSE’s figure of 2.58m.

CSE moves against PLI leader

In a move likely to fan democracy-related concerns further, on 19 November PLI president, Pedro Reyes Vallejos, told reporters that the CSE had stripped him of the party presidency and suspended his political rights for three years. In a statement circulated in the press by Reyes, who was controversially awarded PLI leadership by the CSJ in June from long-time Ortega opponent, Eduardo Montealegre [RC-16-07], the CSE resolved in ‘record time’ a request for his removal from PLI figures including secretary general, Mario Asensio Florez, and PLI former presidential candidate, José del Carmen Alvarado.

Reyes, who Montealegre previously accused of being an Ortega collaborator, said that the PLI members accused him of creating “internal political conflict” and that he would appeal the ruling before the local authorities (a move unlikely to prosper given the FSLN’s control of all of the country’s institutions). He also mooted the possibility of taking his complaint before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR).

Final legislative results

According to the CSE’s final results, released on 16 November, the FSLN will have 71 national deputies in the 92-member unicameral legislature, up from the 62 seats won in the previous November 2011 elections. The opposition Partido Liberal Constitucionalista (PLC) of disgraced former President Arnoldo Alemán (1997-2002) which took 15% of the presidential vote, will have 14 deputies, up from two in 2011. The PLI will have two deputies, down from 26. The ALN will also have two seats while the Partido Conservador (PC), the Alianza por la República (Apre), and the regional indigenous party, Yatama, will have one a piece.

• Violence

The ‘Panorama Electoral’ report on the Nicaragua general elections also cited 211 instances of intimidation or violence. It noted that on voting day itself, three people were killed in the community of Magdalena, Ciudad Antigua municipality, in the northern department of Nueva Segovia. According to the local human rights group, Centro Nicaragüense de Derechos Humanos (Cenidh), the relatives of the three killed have denied police reports that the deaths stemmed from clashes between drug traffickers. The relatives instead have told reporters that the individuals were the victims of political persecution.