When are they and who are competing? Keys to the elections in Nicaragua

Public Ministry accuses vice-presidential candidate 3:13

(CNN Spanish) -

With the main opposition candidates detained or disqualified, Nicaragua will hold presidential elections in November marred by the political crisis and in which President Daniel Ortega will seek his third re-election and a fifth presidential term.

On the same day, 90 deputies of the Nicaraguan National Assembly and 20 deputies of the Central American Parliament will also be elected.

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This is what you should know about the general elections in Nicaragua:

When will they be held?

The general elections for president and deputies will be on November 7, 2021, according to the official calendar of the Supreme Electoral Council published by the National Assembly of Nicaragua.

Between July 28 and August 2, the reception of nominations for the elections for president and for deputies of the National Assembly and the Central American Parliament was open.

Challenges can be filed between August 13 and 15.

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Meanwhile, the electoral campaign will begin on August 21, and should conclude on November 3.

A man votes during Nicaragua's presidential elections in 2016. (Credit: ALFREDO ZUNIGA / AFP via Getty Images)

Following the elections on November 7, provisional results are expected on November 15.

The inauguration of the new president will take place on January 10, 2022, while the deputies of the National Assembly will do so on January 9 and the deputies for the Central American Parliament will do it between January 15 and February 15 of the same anus.

Who is competing in the presidential elections?

On August 2, seven forms of candidates for president and vice president were registered in the Supreme Electoral Council.

Among them is that of President Daniel Ortega and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo, for the Alianza Unida Nicaragua Triunfa, headed by the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN).

Ortega seeks in this way to achieve his third reelection and his fifth main term.

He had already held the presidency between 1985 and 1990, and then between 2007 and 2012, 2012 and 2017, and from 2017 to the present, after a constitutional reform that eliminated the limits on re-election for successive terms in Nicaragua.

Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega with his wife and vice president, Rosario Murillo, in a file image taken in Managua on October 13, 2018 (Inti Ocon / AFP / Getty Images).

The former commander of the counterrevolution Óscar Sobalvarro and the then Miss Nicaragua 2017 Berenice Quezada registered to compete for the Citizens for Freedom Party (CxL), although Quezada was accused by the Public Ministry of "provoking and conspiring to commit terrorist acts."

"Yesterday I was notified that I am inhibited as a candidate for the vice presidency," Quezada explained in a message on his Instagram account thanking those who had been concerned about his physical integrity and indicated that he is well.

CNN has contacted the political leader to find out her point of view on the accusation, but has not yet responded.

Neither has the CxL party provided the name of the lawyer who will represent it.

La Quezada had told CNN, after Monday's registration in Managua, that "in Nicaragua the conditions (for an electoral process) have never been, the conditions are set by the people. And how do they set them? Going out to vote. As we have done on the streets, as we did in 2018, as we did in April. "

The Electoral Power withdrew CxL's legal status last Friday and on Sunday, the Nicaraguan Ministry of the Interior annulled the Nicaraguan passport of Carmella María Rogers Amburn, president of CxL, and also canceled her identity card and her birth certificate, "Which would show that Ms. Rogers Amburn is solely a US citizen," the government said.

Differences fracture the opposition in Nicaragua 2:35

CNN has not been able to independently know the date of nationalization of Rogers Amburn, known as Kitty Monterrey, who has not responded to calls and messages sent in order to know his reaction to these events.

But the CxL Party, through its Facebook page, spoke out in this regard this Sunday, condemning "the illegal cancellation of the documents that prove the Nicaraguan nationality" of Rogers Amburn and showing solidarity "in the face of this attack by the regime for demanding freedom and democracy."

Lawyer Alfredo Montiel and business administrator Jennifer Espinoza will compete for the Nicaraguan Liberal Alliance Party (ALN)

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While the deputy Mauricio Orue Vásquez will be a candidate for president and Zobeida del Socorro Rodríguez for vice president for the Independent Liberal Party (PLI).

Deputy Walter Espinoza was elected as a candidate for the Presidency of Nicaragua by the Liberal Constitutionalist Party (PLC) in an extraordinary meeting of the party's board of directors, and registered this Saturday before the Supreme Electoral Council.

Espinoza replaces Milton Arcia, who resigned due to differences with the party's president, María Haydée Ozuna.

Meanwhile, Pastor Guillermo Osorno and Violeta Martínez de Moncada will be candidates for president and vice president for Camino Cristiano Nicaragüense.

Finally, the Alliance for the Republic Party (APRE) registered 29-year-old lawyer Gerson Gutiérrez Gasparín as a candidate for president and Claudia María Romero as a candidate for vice president.

Why have the elections been questioned?

The Nicaraguan National Police reported that it has detained more than 30 opposition politicians and activists to date, including seven presidential candidates who have thus been unable to register.

Most of the group is accused of violating the controversial law 1055 approved by the National Assembly in 2020 for the "defense of the rights of the people to independence, sovereignty and self-determination for peace", and which has been used by the government de Ortega to detain mainly members of the opposition.

Among these are Arturo Cruz, Félix Maradiaga, Noel José Vidaurre Argüello, Medardo Mairena Sequeira, Miguel Mora Barberena and Juan Sebastián Chamorro.

All the candidates have rejected the charges against them.

While the presidential candidate Cristiana Chamorro, one of the first to be arrested and a leading figure in the opposition, was accused by the Public Ministry of alleged "abusive management" and money laundering during her tenure in front of the Violeta Barrios Foundation and placed under house arrest.

Electoral period in Nicaragua, uncertain due to arrests 3:43

"I am not an official candidate and they intend to inhibit me. They are afraid of change. United, Nicaragua will once again be a republic," Chamorro said after the accusation.

For the lawyer and former priest Edgar Parrales, consulted by CNN, five of the seven formulas that managed to register do not represent the opposition because they are presented by parties he calls "collaborators", whose activity is limited to electoral time.

CNN contacted the legal representatives or communicators of the PLC, CxL, APRE, PLI parties to inquire about these allegations, which refused to be considered "collaborators" and said they were the target of smear campaigns for not agreeing with the approaches of other sectors of the the opposition rejecting the elections alleging lack of conditions.

They define themselves as organizations that intend to contribute to the country and that are legally constituted and claim to have representation in various departments of the country, although they indicated that they cannot calculate exactly how many members there are in their parties. Nor did they explain what kind of political activities they carry out outside of electoral times.

Regarding the arrests, the Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights (Cenidh) has condemned the "brutal escalation of repression and persecution against social and political leaders" and pointed out that "it is evident that the Ortega Murillo regime intends to remain in power at the cost of terror. ".

There were also reactions from the Organization of American States (OAS), whose resolution "Situation in Nicaragua" condemned the arrest of opposition leaders.

The trees that would have cost Ortega US $ 25,000 2:08

Ortega reacted by pointing out that "the enemies of the revolution, the enemies of the people, are shouting that poor people, how is it possible that they are detained, imprisoned, processed", and assuring that the sanctions will not subdue Nicaragua, in reference to the measures taken by the United States and then also by the European Union and Canada.

The vice president and first lady of Nicaragua, Rosario Murillo, questioned the government's critics: "In how many countries and in how many organizations have we seen how people who run over the towns, looting, stealing, are taken to justice."

While the Nicaraguan Foreign Minister, Denis Moncada, has said about the international requests that the government "will not admit interference or impositions, or that they force us to break our legal system."

What is the general situation in Nicaragua?

In April 2018, social protests broke out in Nicaragua, one of the countries with the least human development in Latin America, against the social security reform, which increased the employer and labor quota and created a new contribution for retirees.

Nicaragua: second anniversary of the protests against the government 3:28

The violent mass demonstrations throughout the country were the first in the 11 years of Ortega's government so far, and they left hundreds of deaths and a climate of tension in the country.

The arrival of the covid-19 pandemic in 2020 has raised doubts about the impact in Nicaragua.

The director of medical emergencies of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), Ciro Ugarte, lamented weeks ago that there is no exact data on the situation of the pandemic in the country.

While the World Health Organization (WHO), expressed in 2020 its concern about the possible impact of the coronavirus in Nicaragua.

The Ortega government has not reacted to these doubts from international organizations, and Vice President Murillo has expressed that the pandemic is under control.

According to official data collected by Johns Hopkins University, Nicaragua has so far reported 9,853 confirmed cases and 196 deaths from covid-19.

While the number of people with complete vaccination amounts to 5.18% of the population.

With information from Mario Medrano, Tatiana Arias, Rafael Romo, Claudia Rebaza, Hannah Ritchie, Kiarinna Parisi, José Manuel Rodríguez, Marlon Sorto.

Daniel Ortega