TODAY NICARAGUA – Without any surprise, the Consejo Supremo Electoral (CSE) – Supreme Electoral Council (CSE) of Ortega – assigned 74.99% of the votes to Daniel Ortega and his wife and co-governor Rosario Murillo in the “first final report” of the results of the disputed elections this Sunday, November 7, read by the CSE president, Brenda Rocha.
The report, presented at 2:15 am this Monday, November 8, according to Rocha, represents 49.25% of the Vote Receiving Boards (JRV) scrutinized. The Constitutionalist Liberal Party (PLC) is in the second position with 14.4%, followed by CCN (3.44%), ALN (3.27%), APRE (2.20%) and PLI (1.70%).
Rocha assured that the level of participation in the elections was 65.34%, a figure that contrasts with the estimates of the independent Urnas Abiertas observatory that estimates a national abstention of 81.5%.
#N7
| CSE da victoria a Daniel Ortega con promedio de 74.99% de votos. pic.twitter.com/49vwH0IPiv
— LA PRENSA Nicaragua (@laprensa) November 8, 2021
Rocha called for “tomorrow at 1 pm” to present the second report.
Read more: Costa Rica does not recognize the reelection of Daniel Ortega
Voting was marked from early in the morning by the low turnout of voters. In a recent poll by the CID Gallup firm, Ortega came out with only 34% favorable opinion.
With the announced results, the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo is consolidated. Ortega, soon to turn 76, will assume his fourth term in Nicaragua. He came to power at the ballot box, in an election deemed democratic, 14 years ago, and has held onto power ever since.
Amid criticisms that point to the electoral process as lacking in transparency and that it was preceded by the arrest of 39 opponents, including 7 presidential candidates, Ortega and Murillo were announced as the winners of the voting.
La Prensa says it was able to verify that the voting was characterized by a low number of voters and by the obligation of state workers to vote. In addition, they confirmed to La Prensa that they came out to vote forced by superior orders, indicating that if they did not show their finger stained with indelible ink, as a sign that they had voted, they could lose their job.
“You know that we cannot lose our job, for our children,” they told La Prensa on condition of anonymity.
A worker in the health sector commented that his boss sent them to ask how the voting centers were and to show a photograph of his finger in ink. “I voted void and I have other colleagues who left (the ballot) blank, the important thing was that they mark our finger so as not to lose our job,” he commented.
Prior to the delivery of results, the president of the United States, Joe Biden, described these votes as a pantomime.
“What Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo, orchestrated today was a pantomime election that was neither free nor fair, and certainly not democratic. The arbitrary imprisonment of nearly 40 opposition figures since May, including seven potential presidential candidates, and the blocking of political party participation manipulated the outcome long before Election Day.
“They shut down independent media, locked up journalists and members of the private sector, and intimidated civil society organizations into closing their doors. Long unpopular and now without a democratic mandate, the Ortega and Murillo family now rule Nicaragua as autocrats, no different from the Somoza family that Ortega and the Sandinistas fought four decades ago, ”Biden said.
Urnas Abierta calculates abstention at 81.5 percent nationwide
Urnas Abierta in its second informative cut calculated that the abstention nationwide on average was 81.5%. In addition, they denounced irregularities such as the siege of the police and para-police officers and the manipulation of the electoral roll.
Article originally appeared on Today Nicaragua and is republished here with permission.
