Controversial election in Nicaragua: Government declares Ortega the winner

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A man walks past a mural of Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega

Photo: Andres Nunes / dpa

The authoritarian government of Nicaraguan head of state Daniel Ortega has declared itself the clear winner of the much-criticized presidential election. The 75-year-old ex-revolutionary and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo, received around 76 percent of the votes in just under 98 percent of the polling stations, as the electoral authority announced on Monday. The government portal »El19« reported the victory of the ruling party FSLN.

Ortega ran for a fourth term in a row in the election on Sunday without serious opponents. In addition to numerous critics, seven candidates for the presidency have been arrested or placed under house arrest since June. An important party alliance of the opposition was not allowed to vote. Some international election observers and foreign journalists were not allowed to enter.

The EU and the US government, among others, denied the legitimacy of the election. Ortega had prevented credible competition and deprived the people of the right to freely choose their representatives, said the EU foreign affairs representative Josep Borrell on Monday on behalf of the member states. The integrity of the electoral process in the Central American country has been undermined by the systematic detention, persecution and intimidation of presidential candidates, opposition leaders, student leaders, journalists, human rights activists and business representatives.

Ortega was already in power after the revolution of the socialist Sandinista against dictator Anastasio Somoza from 1979 until he was voted out of office in 1990.

In 2006 he was re-elected head of state and government of the Central American country.

His Sandinista party, the FSLN, implemented a constitutional reform in 2014 that removed limits on the presidential term of office.

In 2018, Nicaragua saw mass demonstrations against the government that were quashed, with more than 300 dead and hundreds arrested.

More than 100,000 Nicaraguans fled abroad.

kfr / dpa