San José.- Nicaraguan co-president Daniel Ortega said this Friday that the “terrorists and coup plotters,” as he labels the opponents and critics of his Government whom he has stripped of their nationality, will not be able to participate in future elections.
During an official event in Managua, the Sandinista leader indicated that, in coordination with the National Assembly (Parliament), which is subordinate to the Presidency, they are preparing a partial reform of the Constitution with the aim of excluding “terrorists and coup plotters” from elections.
“We have to fight to strengthen peace and strengthen it with laws, with those reforms (the goal is) to not give space to terrorists, to coup plotters, where they can come to organize wars again like the ones they organized in 1856,” when the two majority parties of that time clashed, which allowed the “American filibuster William Walker to proclaim himself president of Nicaragua,” he indicated.
Ortega, who co-presides the country alongside his wife, Rosario Murillo, qualified this time the statements he offered on July 19 at a rally in Managua, when he stated that “there will be no more elections for them (the opposition) to try to seize the government, to seize power through them.”
“We are working on constitutional reforms so that elections can be held in Nicaragua with sovereignty and not like in the era of the North American invasions in Nicaragua,” he pointed out.
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He commented that those constitutional reforms are “to strengthen peace, because in the meantime the others (opponents) continue conspiring to bring about war”.
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“It is not about imposing peace with states of siege, at the point of a gun; it is about maintaining peace reinforced by the laws,” he insisted.
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Constitutional reforms
He maintained that the amendments will ensure “that there are no places left there where they (the opponents labeled as traitors to the homeland or coup plotters) can launch their criminal wars again, like those they have launched against Nicaragua, and the American government must be clear about this: that Nicaragua does not want war, it wants peace.”
The Organization of American States (OAS) reported this Friday that it is considering convening a meeting of foreign ministers from the region to evaluate the situation in Nicaragua, after Ortega announced that there will be no more elections.
The OAS Permanent Council will hold an extraordinary session on August 5 to debate a resolution titled ‘Convocation of a Meeting of Consultation of Ministers of Foreign Affairs to consider the situation in Nicaragua’.
Nicaragua formally left the OAS in 2023, following the completion of the withdrawal process initiated by the Ortega government, and therefore currently has no representatives before the organization.
Ortega’s statements generated rejection from neighboring countries, such as Costa Rica, Panama, and Guatemala, as well as from United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
Ortega, an 80-year-old former Sandinista guerrilla, has ruled Nicaragua since 2007 amidst accusations of electoral fraud, political persecution, and the elimination of rivals to avoid electoral competition.
He is the man who has held power for the longest time in Nicaragua, with thirty years. He coordinated a Government Junta from 1979 to 1985, and presided over the country for the first time from 1985 to 1990.
