Nicaragua’s Ortega set to win election amid international criticism

Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega won a majority of the vote in an election condemned by international leaders as fraudulent.  

The country’s Supreme Electoral Council said that Ortega had won 75 percent of the vote in what was a sure victory after his government imprisoned seven of his opponents, according to The Associated Press.

The wire service added that Ortega’s government had exiled or jailed people who opposed his rule. 

On Monday, Ortega and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo, celebrated their victory while also criticizing international entities that rebuked his country’s election. 

“The European Union has a parliament whose majority are fascists, Nazis,” Ortega said, per the AP. “The fascist little brothers of Hitler that are governing there, now want to form a fascist international in our Americas.”

“Those who are in prison are the sons of the female dog of Yankee imperialism,” the president also said. “They should be taken to the United States, because they stopped being Nicaraguans a long time ago, they have no fatherland.”

Ortega’s remarks followed scathing statements from European and American leaders about his country’s elections. 

“Elections held in Nicaragua on 7 November have taken place without democratic guarantees and their results lack legitimacy. Daniel Ortega has eliminated all credible electoral competition, depriving the Nicaraguan people of their right to freely elect their representatives,” the European Union said in a statement on Sunday. 

Also on Sunday, President Joe Biden also issued a statement condemning the “sham elections” and accusing Ortega’s government of running “a pantomime election that was neither free nor fair, and most certainly not democratic.” 

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken issued his own criticism of the elections on Monday. 

“The Ortega-Murillo government has deprived Nicaraguans of any real choice by dissolving all genuine opposition parties and imprisoning all the principal presidential candidates,” he said.