By Alejandra Garcia on June 20, 2021
Life in Nicaragua, seldom seen in corporate media. photo: Madeline McClure
Nicaragua will go to the polls on November 7 and all the polls point to President Daniel Ortega and the Sandinista party triumphing by an overwhelming majority. However, the major corporate media has collectively launched a campaign to try and discredit the Nicaraguan government, working hand in hand with the Organization of American States (OAS).
“Ortega is against everyone,” “Nicaragua, towards a hereditary dictatorship,” “We don’t want another Venezuela in the region,” “If Ortega gets his way, he will set a bad precedent for Latin America,” are some headlines leading Google searches about the country of independence fighter Augusto Cesar Sandino.
El Nuevo Herald, The BBC of London, CNN, and El Pais are just some of the media emporiums that have set their sights on Nicaragua and have echoed OAS Secretary-General Luis Almagro’s accusations against President Ortega. This is generally the same media that seldom if ever mentions the significant social gains of Nicaragua under Sandinista leadership that includes cutting poverty in half, becoming 90% self sufficient in food, having one of the best health care systems in Latin America and having one of the lowest Covid mortality rates in the world.
“The country is immersed in political irregularity. The November presidential elections will have no credibility,” Almagro said after he proposed to the OAS Council the end of Nicaragua’s membership in the organization and called for sanctions against that nation and its top leaders.
“What is the best way to damage an electoral triumph that is more than a foregone conclusion? The answer is to muddy the playing field to sow doubts about electoral results because it responds to nothing more and nothing less than the people’s will. We have seen it on many occasions, always with Washington behind the curtains,” Nicaraguan analyst Juanlu Gonzalez explained.
Nicaragua has always been under the critical eye of White House allies for promoting a democratic and revolutionary model of its own, that does not conform to Western -specifically U.S.- structures. However, international hatred has increased in the last week following the decision of the Nicaraguan Attorney General’s Office to order house arrest for Cristiana Chamorro, an opposition leader who aimed to run against Ortega in the upcoming elections and is involved in a money-laundering scandal.
The presidential pre-candidate was arrested one day after authorities accused her of abusive management and ideological falsehood for her role in the NGO named after her mother and Nicaragua’s former president Violeta Barrios de Chamorro.
After months of investigation, the Interior Ministry revealed that the Foundation received over $1 million from the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID) and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) in 2020. Cristiana’s brother Carlos Chamorro also received over $152,000 that same year from both agencies, created by Western hemisphere hegemonies to interfere in the internal affairs of sovereign countries.
The Violeta Barrios de Chamorro Foundation, which closed in February, “gravely violated the law. After analyzing its financial books for fiscal years 2015 through 2019, we were able to identify clear instances of money laundering,” said the Interior Ministry last week.
Chamorro, who denies the charges against her, will be disqualified from holding public office for as long as the legal process against her lasts, meaning that the opposition leader cannot run in the presidential elections next November 7.
The Nicaraguan justice system is also investigating 13 former directors of the Nicaraguan Foundation for Economic and Social Development (FUNIDES), a private research center that publishes analyses on the country’s economic situation. Among those investigated are two of the country’s most powerful businessmen, José Antonio Baltodano and Jaime Javier Montealegre.
While the OAS qualifies these political moves as “a campaign of terror,” Nicaragua merges its democratic path, according to national and foreign analysts.
“Again, the U.S., OAS, Europe and the power media have unanimously come out to denounce what they consider a maneuver by the ‘regime’ to annul the main opposition candidate since national polls place her as the one with the best chances of defeating Ortega-Murillo in November,” Juanlu Gonzalez noted.
What the big transnationals failed to mention is that Chamorro could only get 20 percent of the vote, while Ortega could receive 25 percent, according to the Gallup pollster.
“It would be convenient for the Sandinistas to face such a candidate and defeat her by a wide margin at the polls. But this is not about electoral calculations, but about respect for the Law and the sovereignty of a country,” Gonzalez concluded.
Source: Resumen Latinoamericano – English