The Seventh report of “Urnas Abiertas” [Open Ballat Boxes] was just released. They are a citizen electoral observation group composed of a multidisciplinary team of political and social science, communication and human rights professionals, whose reports are based on information that comes from territorial networks throughout the country. The purpose of the group is to document the political and human rights conditions for the 2021 elections. What follows is the translation of the executive summary of this seventh report.
Open Ballot Boxes, Aug 31, 2021
Executive Summary
Legitimacy is one of the principal elements of political power, since the approval of electoral reforms in May 2021, the Government of Nicaragua has committed actions that show the absence of the will to ensure the necessary conditions for a free, fair, credible, legitimate, transparent and observed electoral process. Chapter 1 provides a summary of the events that happened between May and August 2021.
Since June a hundred people have been summoned to the Prosecutor´s office, principally journalists, as a strategy of intimidation. Political violence and judicial persecution have generated a new wave of displacements and forced migration, and also an absolute international rejection of the government of Nicaragua. The repressive strategy has had the objective of eliminating electoral competition, using especially criminal law against the competition: this situation results in a process without the minimal conditions to be fair, credible, legitimate, transparent and free.
Chapter II develops an analysis related to the illegitimacy of the origins and exercise of political power in Nicaragua.
Nicaragua does not have an Electoral Law which would ensure the conditions for competitive, transparent and democratic elections. For more than 5 years, different social organizations, political parties and civil movements socially demanded a reform of the electoral law that would reduce the margins for fraudulent elections and would block the hegemony of the Ortega regime and their allied organizations. In that sense, barely six months before the elections, a new reform to the Electoral Law was approved which goes completely contrary to the demands of the Nicaraguan citizenry and the international community.
Up until August 30 it has been recorded that 35 people were arbitrarily detained within the framework of judicial persecution undertaken by the government, with the objective of eliminating all electoral competition. The fact that within an electoral context there would exist so many abuses of fundamental rights and serious affectations on human rights, as well as high deficiencies on issues of electoral justice, only indicates that that electoral process lacks legality and legitimacy, and therefore, must not be recognized as a competitive, free, transparent and democratic electoral process.
To name some actions which de-legitimize the exercise of political power on the part of the Ortega government, we could mention: cooptation of the Electoral Branch, electoral fraud, cooptation of the Legislative Branch through fraudulent electoral processes, cooptation of the Judicial Branch, persecution of journalists, before and after 2018, immediate and undefined unconstitutional presidential re-election, construction of a nepotistic family State, Control over the National Police, Control over the Army of Nicaragua, diversion of international aid funds, elimination of academic freedom, crimes against humanity, police repression and harassment, excessive use of force.
All these actions that break with the social contract based on the definition of the State as a Social Legal entity are eliminating all signs of legitimacy in the government of Nicaragua by category of fitness.
Therefore, in spite of the fact that there is an apparent division of Powers and political processes are carried out according to the legal framework, the levels of corruption are so high that the prevalence of legality and respect for fundamental principles of justice which should rule in a contemporaneous democracy do not exist. Likewise, a serious problem exists with the excessive use of force on the part of state authorities.
Given this reality, the government of Nicaragua then lacks legality and legitimacy of origin and exercise, which puts Nicaragua in a serious crisis of sovereignty. Nicaraguan society is not capable of participating freely in a process which would allow it to choose its political representatives, define its legal frameworks and internal norms, exercise its right to freedom of expression and actively participate in any political process that does not have the approval of the government. The Nicaraguan regime, on not having legitimacy, does not have the right that the law confers on asserting national sovereignty.
It is fundamental that the international community recognize that the political apparatus of corruption built by the Ortega Murillo family to govern Nicaragua based on the use of force does not have the legitimacy to represent that State, according to principles of democracy and pertinent international norms. Likewise, the government of the Sandinista Front of National Liberation, accused of crimes against humanity, does not possess the faculties to continue making use of the exercise of political power and must cease its functions with the purpose of returning national sovereignty to the people who demand free elections and the end to state violence.
Between July 15 and August 15 of 2021 214 deeds of political violence were recorded in the electoral context, as indicated in Chapter III.
Between October 1, 2020 and August 15, 2021 1, 375 deeds of political violence have been committed within the electoral context.
43.46% (32) of the acts of political violence which happened were of harassment, the number of these acts increased due to the strategy of intimidation that was carried out within the framework of Citizen Verification of the Voter Rolls on July 24-25.
In this period were also registered cruel and degrading treatment of people arrested arbitrarily, who still have not been able to see their relatives nor their defense attorneys. Likewise, 29 cases were included of arbitrary detentions, which up to August 15 were found to be in a situation of forced disappearance, based on what is indicated by Amnesty International in their latest report on Forced Disappearances in Nicaragua.
Of the 214 deeds of political violence that were recorded, 77 (35.98%) were reported against the citizenry in general, this number is especially due to the political violence exercised against the population that participated in the Voter Verification campaign on July 24 and 25, 2021.
As was warned in previous reports, the repression focused on members of social or political organizations can vary as activities planned in the electoral calendar move ahead. Even though the victims vary, the violence exercised in this period had the purpose of eliminating electoral competition, as well as restricting the political rights of Nicaraguans who are opposed to the government.
During the period of the analysis of this report, the abusive use continued to be observed of the justice system with partisan purposes, for the purpose of eliminating electoral competition. Especially, evidence was shown of the criminalization of the enemy, given that the people arrested were deprived of all their rights.
The people arrested in the period between July 16 and August 15 were: José Peraza, Francisco Aguirre Sacasa, María Oviedo, Mauricio Díaz and Juan Lorenzo Holman. Also put under house arrest were Jaime Arellano, Noel Vidaurre and Berenica Quezada. House arrest was later lifted on the latter person.