Washington (EFE).- Former Nicaraguan presidential candidates Félix Maradiaga and Juan Sebastián Chamorro, expelled from their country and stripped of their nationality in February, stressed this Wednesday in the United States that their action from exile does not currently have electoral objectives.
“At this moment there is no electoral plan while in Nicaragua there is no respect for human rights and freedom for all political prisoners, fundamental conditions for the transition to democracy,” Maradiaga told EFE after having appeared in a joint session of the Western Hemisphere and Global Health, Human Rights and International Organizations subcommittees of the US House of Representatives.
The politician recalled that in February 2021, before his arrest, the two of them, the peasant leader Medardo Mairena and the journalist Miguel Mora, all of them opponents of the Presidency, signed an agreement to submit to a democratic election process within the dissidence , respect the results and support the winner to face together the country’s president, Daniel Ortega, in the November elections of that year, which Ortega won.
“That agreement is maintained, in the sense of a united opposition around democratization objectives, where the electoral aspect is secondary at this time. (…) Thinking about elections with Ortega in power is unacceptable, ”he added.
His appearance in Washington served to expose the situation in his country and demand greater pressure against his Executive.
“We are denouncing all these atrocities that the dictatorship commits out loud so that all the people who are in the international concert know what is happening,” added Chamorro.
The two former candidates were arrested in June 2021 and sentenced in March 2022 for conspiracy to undermine national integrity to the detriment of the State of Nicaragua and society. They were released and expelled from the country to the United States along with 220 other political prisoners on February 9.
Both have been in Geneva and now in Washington as a platform from which to express their criticism.
“What the regime wants to do, which is to shut us up, is not succeeding. The arbitrary deprivation of our nationality is done for many purposes, and one of them is to take away our voice, something that they will not achieve,” Maradiaga stressed.
As the opposition, Chamorro added, they have the responsibility “to establish a unified plan of civic and peaceful struggle” that allows a change in their country.
“National and international pressure is fundamental. We see Ortega’s interest in continuing to carry out electoral fraud and staying in power at all costs. (…) At this moment it is very difficult for an electoral process to take place soon, ”he admitted.
The two celebrated, however, that despite the diversity of the 222 released, the strength of their struggle has not diminished.
“This collective action, this joint action of an opposition on the same objectives is what will lead us to move forward,” concluded Maradiaga, not without acknowledging that there are “many logistical complications” because they are distributed “in many states” of the country. .
Maradiaga and Chamorro: “The electoral aspect at this moment is secondary”
Former Nicaraguan presidential candidates Félix Maradiaga and Juan Sebastián Chamorro, expelled from their country and stripped of their nationality in February, stressed this Wednesday in the United States that their action from exile does not currently have electoral objectives.
“At this moment there is no electoral plan while in Nicaragua there is no respect for human rights and freedom for all political prisoners, fundamental conditions for the transition to democracy,” Maradiaga told EFE after having appeared in a joint session of the Western Hemisphere and Global Health, Human Rights and International Organizations subcommittees of the US House of Representatives.
The politician recalled that in February 2021, before his arrest, the two of them, the peasant leader Medardo Mairena and the journalist Miguel Mora, all of them opponents of the Presidency, signed an agreement to submit to a democratic election process within the dissidence , respect the results and support the winner to face together the country’s president, Daniel Ortega, in the November elections of that year, which Ortega won.