The leader of the Anti-canal Campesino Movement (Movimiento Campesino Anticanal), Medardo Mairena, told La Prensa that he has received information from the U.S. Embassy in Managua, Nicaragua, that president Daniel Ortega has agreed to hold early elections, but not resign his position.
Mairena sent an audio message to the campesinos who are in the barrios across the country, in which he tells them that Ortega accepted the early elections during a meeting she had with Caleb McCarry, an American official, sent by the Republican senator from Tennessee and president of the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Bob Corker.
Mairena claims to have been informed in a private meeting with U.S. ambassador, Laura Dogu, and a member of the US Senate, whom she did not identify.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQ3yDOBDpmo]
Mairena is part of the Civic Alliance for Justice and Democracy, which participated in the national dialogue, which was suspended on May 31.
In an audio message, that circulated in the social networks and whose authenticity was confirmed by him, Mairena asked the residents who are in the tranques (barricades) to resist, that the end of Ortega is near.
“We have to resist because the dictator is weaker every day. I want to inform you that yesterday we had a meeting with the American Ambassador, there was also someone from the Senate of the States who suggested that they had a meeting with Ortega. Ortega is proposing to advance the elections when we are asking for his resignation. So that means we have him crazy with the barricades, we have him cornered with the pressure that there is, although they also always continue to kill us,” said Mairena.
After 57 days of protests against the Ortega government, the demands of the population is for Ortega and his wife and vice-president, Rosario Murillo, to resign and then call for elections.
Mairena maintains that they do not trust Ortega and therefore are asking for his resignation.
“We have proposed early elections, but with the condition that the dictator Daniel Ortega resign first and then have early elections; that is our position and we are not going to back off. If the elections are to be called in six months, how many people will have to die? We reiterate: we want him out,” said Mairena.
More than 140 people have been reported killed as a result of the repression.
In the La Prensa article by Emiliano Chamorro Mendieta and Lucía Navas, Ortega and Murillo are referred to as ‘designated by the electoral power’.
Ortega without a response
On Tuesday, day 6, following the meeting with the bishops of the Episcopal Conference of Nicaragua, Ortega has yet to respond to the request of the bishops for the restoration of the national dialogue and a move towards the democratization of the country. On Thursday Ortega told the bishops he needed two days to mull things over.
Tuesday afternoon in her speech to the official press, Murillo again fell silent about whether there will be a response to the bishops, but said that to restore peace they are working on finding a reasonable, fair and negotiated solution.
“Let us work together for reconciliation so that we can dialogue together with reason to look for the proposals that will do Nicaragua good,” said Murillo.
Article originally appeared on Today Nicaragua and is republished here with permission.
