Nicaragua: Ortega took office for the fifth time as president in the absence of the majority of Latin American leaders
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- BBC News World
image source, Reuters
Ortega with the President of the National Assembly, Gustavo Porras, and his wife and Vice President Rosario Murillo.
On Monday, Daniel Ortega assumed the presidency of Nicaragua for the fifth time (fourth in a row), amid widespread rejection from the international community of the elections in which he was re-elected last November and the absence of the majority of Latin American leaders.
From within and outside Nicaragua, the lack of adequate democratic guarantees in the presidential elections was denounced, after most opposition candidates were arrested or exiled abroad.
Ortega took office a day after the inauguration of the new National Assembly, in which the ruling party controls 75 of the 91 seats.
The European Union announced a few hours before its opening on Monday new Ronda Penalties Against two of Ortega’s children and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo.
The bloc also announced sanctions against members of the Supreme Council for Elections (CSE), director of the Nicaraguan Institute of Telecommunications and Correos (Telcor) and supervisor of banks in Nicaragua.
In the same way, the Department of the Treasury and the US Secretary of State announced new sanctions against persons associated with the Nicaraguan army and police forces.
The European Union spoke out in its announcement of sanctions An attempt to undermine democracy by the sanctioned.
Already in November 2021, the Organization of American States (OAS) issued a declaration signed by 25 of the organization’s 34 member states, rejecting Ortega’s fourth consecutive election after warning that the elections “were not free and fair. They have no democratic legitimacy.”
image source, Reuters
Dozens of Nicaraguans in Costa Rica protested Ortega’s inauguration.
a little help
Local opposition media, such as La Prensa, asserted that Ortega’s fourth consecutive holding, which was held in the Plaza de la Revolución in Managua, was the least attended to date.
The only regional leaders who attended the event were Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel, who arrived in the morning in the Nicaraguan capital; The President of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro, and the outgoing President of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernandez.
image source, Environmental Protection Agency
Nicolas Maduro was among those who attended the event.
Bolivian Foreign Minister Erwin Mamani was also present.
In the midst of the controversy surrounding the legality of elections in the Central American country, Other left-wing governments in the region, such as Argentina and Mexico, sent diplomatic representatives at the inauguration.
Days before the ceremony, the Mexican Foreign Ministry, led by Marcelo Ebrard, announced that it would not send representatives to Ortega’s inauguration.
However, in his morning space with the press, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador not only announced that he would send the current head of the embassy in the country, but also announced the name of the new Mexican ambassador in Managua.
In the same way, the government of Alberto Fernandez in Argentina announced a few hours before the event that it would send a representative from the embassy in Managua.
image source, Reuters
Ortega and his wife in a file photo.
Attack on the United States
In his sworn address, Ortega attacked the US government and demanded that President Joe Biden release 700 political prisoners, he said, in US prisons, referring to Donald Trump supporters who attacked Congress on January 6, 2021. .
According to La Prensa newspaper, Ortega He did not indicate that there are more than 160 political prisoners in Nicaragua.”
He also called for an end to the embargo imposed on Cuba and sanctions against Venezuela.
He referred positively to the recent restoration of diplomatic relations between his country and China and to the “cooperation and trade” agreements that his son signed with the special envoy from Beijing.
Other latitudes
Other countries that sent delegations, as reported by the government of Nicaragua, were Belize, Honduras, China, Iran, Palestine, the Sahrawi Arab Republic, Russia, India, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, North Korea, Angola, Syria, Turkey, Belarus, Egypt, Malaysia and Yemen .
In the case of the Chinese delegation, the envoy of Xi Jinping’s government was Vice Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, Cao Jianming.
The United States also punished Cao a year ago for his role in the persecution of protesters during the protests that erupted in Hong Kong in 2020.
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