Nicaragua Elections 2021: A Malicious Plan to Put an End to Democracy

October 29, 2021

This study of the electoral context of Nicaragua by Urnas Abiertas (Open Ballot Boxes) was published just days before the next elections (to be held Nov 7th), where the government has jailed 7 potential candidates, closed 3 opposition parties, and is now denying international communications media (Le Monde, NY Times and El Heraldo from Honduras) entry to the country to cover the elections. They call for new date be set for elections and changes be implemented that allow parties to campaign and organize, something not permitted in this cycle. What follows is a translation of the Executive Summary.  

Nicaragua Elections 2021: A Malicious Plan to Put an End to Democracy

By Urnas Abiertas, the Latin America and Caribbean Office of the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) and the Center for Political and Governance Studies of the Andrés Bello Catholic University

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

  1. Just a few days before general elections in Nicaragua this report brings together the principal results of the observation and monitoring of the different phases of the electoral process between October 2020 and September 2021.

 

  1. The result of this follow up allows us to conclude that the bases for legitimizing a complete electoral process have been violated in a systematic way through the exclusionary manipulation of the electoral rolls, judicial persecution of opponents and exclusion of candidates, illegal use of state resources for proselytizing purposes and in general the lack of assurance of rights and freedoms on the part of the executive branch and electoral authorities.

The integrity of the process is compromised and consequently the elections on November 7, 2021 lack legitimacy.

INCLUSIVE AND FAIR ELECTIONS

  1. The electoral authorities act outside of democratic standards of impartiality and transparency. The magistrates of the Supreme Electoral Council (CSE) elected by the National Assembly in May 2021 (7 magistrates and 3 alternates) either are active members of the FSLN or are known as collaborators with the party in power. In addition, the intermediate bodies of electoral administration are under the control of the FSLN and its collaborating parties registered in the campaign. These are the Provincial, Regional and Municipal Electoral Councils (CED, CER and CEM, respectively). These bodies have the attribution of exercising in their areas of responsibility the electoral functions for the administration, organization and regulation of the electoral process in the provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities.

 

  1. The electoral rolls have been managed in a discriminatory fashion by the CSE denying the access of citizens and civil society to them for the purposes of verification. The law establishes its posting outside Voting Centers (CV) up to 90 days before an election.

 

  1. More than 1,100 voting centers (CV) have been eliminated out of a total of 4,300 that existed in 2017, equal to 25%, or one out of four CVs. The largest reduction of CVs happened in the provinces of Jinotega, Matagalpa and Managua, three of the principal electoral populations of the country, which in 2017 had a third of all voters in the country (36%) distributed in 1,312 Centers that included more than 5,111 polling sites (JRVs).

 

  1. In terms of the rolls of the last election in 2017, a technical estimate suggests that a million voters have been eliminated from the rolls, equal to nearly 20% of the total electorate. On the one hand, of the 5,095,747 on the rolls at that time, the rolls for 2021 only have 4,478,334. On the other hand, this new figure does not even reflect the natural increase of the population of voting age (16 years of age), which is at least 100,000 new voters per year, which should produce an electoral roll of some 5.5 million people able to vote. The CSE has not reported on the reasons for the variation in the total number of voters nor why the natural increase in the rolls is not observed.

COMPETITIVE ELECTIONS

  1. Three opposition political parties have been cancelled and 7 candidates to the presidency have been arbitrarily detained; which constitutes a de facto inhibition, which uses illegal and deceitful means to eliminate all electoral competition. Likewise, an inhibition was also ruled on against a candidate for the Vice Presidency. The people detained are: Cristiana Chamorro, Arturo Cruz, Félix Maradiaga, Miguel Mora, Juan Sebastián Chamorro, Medardo Mairena, and Noel Vidaurre. The parties whose legal status was cancelled are: the Democratic Restauration Party (PRD), the Conservative Party (PC) and the Citizens for Liberty Party (CxL).

 

  1. Systematic coercion has been shown to condition voter preferences on the part of the public authorities. On the one hand, State workers and their relatives, as well as beneficiaries of social programs, are forced to participate in different activities of the electoral calendar and propaganda of the regime. In addition, seven candidates to the Presidency have been jailed, which also limits the possibility that the integrity of the preferences be respected of those who have opted to vote in favor of the arrested individuals.

 

  1. Since the beginning of 2007, when Daniel Ortega assumed the Presidency of the Republic for the second time, several situations were made evident where use was made of State assets, resources and personnel for individual activities of the party in power, as well as campaign events inside and outside of electoral periods.

 

  1. The conditions of the political campaign are completely unequal due to the fact that the FSLN is permanent campaign mode from State institutions, neighborhood structures, their communications media and social networks, in addition to the repeated abuse of the use of public resources. Likewise, within the framework of state-party activities, housing has been given out, vaccination campaigns held, property titles given out, infrastructure projects inaugurated, among other governmental programs which are regularly used for partisan and electoral purposes.

 

  1. As of September 15th the use of State resources was recorded for partisan and electoral purposes of the ruling FSLN, which includes the partiality of governmental programs and party commemorations of the FSLN. These reports were received from the 17 provinces and Autonomous Regions of  132 of the 153 municipalities (86.27%) of the country, with the participation of at least 23 public entities.

 

  1. In terms of electoral financing, there is no access to ways of monitoring the financing of political parties, turning this factor into another opaque source of financing for the ruling FSLN and perks for the collaborationist parties that are participating in the elections. This fact reflects a wider phenomenon which is that the party in power operates through networks of corruption that cross over social, family, party, state and business entities, in addition to the lack of access to public information and mechanisms which would ensure accountability processes.

 

  1. Due to COVID-19 and for the electoral campaign political parties were prohibited from having caravans of vehicles, marches, concentrations and political crowds; also in person political concentrations were limited to no more than 200 people and for a reduced amount of time, of between 30 minutes to one hour; in addition it was established that encounters must be held in open areas and parties were obligated to prioritize “vritual and digital forms of dissemination.” Nevertheless, during the weekend of the beginning of the campaign the Government held more than 4,300 activities in this type of cultural, entertainment and sports encounters, there was no restrictions as to people nor time, nor of any other type.

HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE ELECTORAL CONTEXT

  1. Since way before the beginning of the electoral period there was continuity in the persecution of people opposed to the Government, among whom were aspiring candidates, journalists, social leaders and opposition individuals in general. Nevertheless, it should be noted that that persecution has been developed in a systematic way since the social uprising in April 2018, being prolonged and intensified over time, through the use of the repressive machinery of the regime and the financing of the National Police.

 

  1. The profiles of the victims of the repression according to citizen reports processed by Urnas Abiertas include members of political and social organizations (especially those who aspire to public office), journalists and staff of communications media, human rights defenders, health personnel and activists. The restrictions imposed by the government happened in different ways: intimidation, threats, aggressions, discrediting campaigns, judicial persecution, arbitrary arrests, among others.

 

  1. Starting on May 25, 2021 women and men who work as journalists, editors, photographers, international reporters, administrative staff or owners of media, independent workers, among others, have been called in by the Prosecutor´s Office, with the justification of the investigation for money laundering against the Violeta Barrios de Chamorro Foundation and the Nicaraguan Foundation for Economic and Social Development (FUNIDES). Testimony from journalists and human rights defenders who follow up on the investigations state that the prosecutors are carrying out interviews in a hostile manner and use manipulation as a strategy of intimidation.

 

  1. Judicial persecution as a repressive strategy against candidates, political organizations, members of parties and movements and civil society in general so far have put 155 people under arrest, 37 of them within the framework of the electoral context and 7 presidential candidates.

 

  1. Based on the Observatory of Political Violence of Urnas Abiertas, between October 1, 2020 and September 15, 2021 there were 1,513 acts of political violence within the framework of the electoral contest. The specific data and more detailed information can be accessed at the Urnas Abiertas website (urnasabiertas.com). These acts of political violence have had the principal objective of eliminating the electoral competition and have been shown through manifestations of violence such as intimidation, harassment, injuries, arbitrary detentions, forced disappearances, bad treatment, among others.

 

  1. Of the 1,513 acts of political violence recorded up to September 15th:
    • 5 out of 10 have been harassment
    • 200 acts are related to irregular judicial processes (13.22%)
    • 6 of every 10 have been against people who are members of political parties or organizations
    • 168 acts have been carried out against journalists and their communications media (11.10%)
    • 497 acts have been taken against the Blue and White National Unity and its members (32.85%)
    • 2 of every 10 acts have been committed against precandidates for the presidency or for parliament
    • 7 of 10 acts were committed by the National Police.

 

  1. In terms of freedom of association, between November 2020 and January of 2021, the party in power installed Electoral Victory Units (UVEs) on the provincial, municipal, institutional, university, neighborhood and community levels. These entities have been publicly financed and have made use of State resources for the development of their activities, many of which come from international aid. In contrast, different opposition organizations who tried to organize to participate in the electoral process in October 2020 saw their activities and meetings crushed by serious manifestations of political violence, among others, harassment, physical attacks and arrests.

 

  1. Within the time framework including from the beginning of the electoral reforms in May 2021 up to now, the restriction on the freedom of association was manifested principally through the arbitrary and illegal cancelation of the legal status of 3 opposition political parties and of more than 40 national and international social organizations, adding up to a total of 55 organizations eliminated since 2018.

 

  1. The freedom of mobilization, like the rest of human rights, has been under erosion since 2018 and within the framework of the electoral process, a continuity has been observed of the restrictions on Nicaraguans being able to freely move about, with the variation that the principal objective has been limiting political participation through the prohibition of organized political and social activities or demonstrations. The electoral process has been dominated by a climate of discrimination and intimidation against any person who is opposed to or expresses themselves against the Government.

 

  1. As the monitoring data of Urnas Abiertas show, the Government has committed systemic violations of Human Rights, especially against the right of opinion, expression, peaceful meeting, association, and mobilization, not respecting the principles of non-discrimination and non-intimidation.

 

  1. The illegal and fraudulent development of the process in its entirety blocks any possibility that the elections of this coming November 7th can lead to a result which would reflect the free expression of the popular will as democratic standards and international agreements and declarations of rights and liberties signed by the Nicaraguan State would require. Consequently, these elections must be considered flawed from the outset, and therefore illegitimate.

RECOMMENDATIONS:

Based on the findings as a result of the monitoring and the observation of the social and political situation between October 2020 and September 2021, and on the extraordinary and precarious situation of the electoral process, which allows it to be said that it is public and well known that the integrity of the electoral process has been significantly undermined, revealing practices and actions that jeopardize its legitimacy and the credibility of its results, as well as the rule of law, due process and the human rights of Nicaraguan citizens, this work team proposes the following recommendations for immediate attention in favor of democracy, human rights, social peace and the well being of all Nicaraguans:

  1. Exhort the Nicaraguan government, from national and international bodies, to suspend and reschedule the elections, so that they might be held and organized in accordance with law and internationally accepted principles, and with the presence of national and international missions of qualified electoral observation.
  2. The immediate end to repression, full freedom for political prisoners and procedural guarantees so that justice and reparation be ensured for the victims of human rights abuses and crimes against humanity. End of persecution against journalists and communications media, and access to public information and citizen participation, in accordance with what is stipulated in the law.
  3. Effective implementation of the necessary reforms in the electoral framework, including the faculties and nature of the Electoral Branch.
  4. It is fundamental that democratic governments, international organizations and other pertinent international actors make use of their good offices to reveal the lack of legitimacy at the outset of the Nicaraguan Executive and Legislative Branches who will be elected in the process of this coming November 7th, given the serious violations to its integrity as well as the persecution and de facto inhibition of opposition candidates, and promote mechanisms of international aid necessary for the reestablishment of the constitutional order.
  5. If a turn toward full guarantees of human rights and electoral integrity is not produced through the rescheduling of new elections, a call is made to the international community to not recognize the results of the elections.