Nicaraguan President and candidate for reelection, Daniel Ortega, has exercised his right to vote in the general elections held this Sunday in the Central American country and has criticized the opposition, “demons” who promoted the “terrorist coup” of 2018 .
“We saw the attempted terrorist coup of 2018. They already thought that that way they were going to take power. Then order was restored, stability in all economic and social fields and the economy was recovered thanks to peace”, Ortega highlighted after voting, according to related Nicaraguan media.
“Although they dress as they dress, they are demons who do not want peace or tranquility for our country,” the president of the Central American country has riveted.
Ortega has denounced that the opposition “opts for discrediting so that Nicaragua once again has violent confrontations.” “Those do not want peace, they are sowers of death, of hatred,” he added.
According to the president, the opposition was conspiring. “They did not want these elections to take place. Therefore these elections are thanks to God a sign, a commitment by the vast majority of Nicaraguans to vote for Peace. Not for war, not for terrorism,” he argued. .
For Ortega, the vote “does not torture or harm the physical integrity of the Nicaraguan.” “We cannot forget after so many years of peace, we cannot forget those who sowed terror. They did not respect our anthem and bragged about filming the destruction, filming the murders,” he said in reference to the protests and riots of 2018.
As for the arrests of activists, including several potential candidates, Ortega has raised “allegations of fraud” in elections such as those in the United States. “The United States has in prison sympathizers members of the other party who participated in the acts of violence, while here they have financed, promoted through those who live on their knees before them,” he pointed out.
“In other countries even the death penalty is applied to them,” he warned, while recalling that “they have rights to prosecute terrorists (and) we have those same rights in Nicaragua.”
The Nicaraguan president has highlighted that in the last years of his government, schools and hospitals have been built even without knowing that there was a pandemic on the way and for this reason he has stressed that the country has managed to confront it “in a truly extraordinary and surprising way.” .
Ortega has also referred to the international collaboration of countries such as Russia and “sister peoples such as India, Cuba (that) delivered vaccines without any political condition.”
Activists have denounced a wave of arbitrary detentions against voices critical of Ortega, including seven presidential candidates, as well as journalists, defense attorneys, student leaders and peasants.
Ortega, in power since 2007, and his vice president, his wife and right hand, Rosario Murillo, seek to exceed 72 percent of the votes they managed to collect in the last elections, held in 2016 and also involved in controversies and accusations.