U.S. Foreign Minister Mike Pompeo said the anti-opposition law that went into effect this week in Nicaragua makes the president “further isolated in the region.”
Last week the President of Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega, passed a controversial law that prevents the opposition from participating in the November 2021 elections. That is why the US Secretary of State. U.S. President Mike Pompeo urged him to change course, respect human rights and fundamental freedoms, and allow free and fair elections in November 2021.
Pompeo made this call to Ortega in a statement in which he criticized the new law that disqualifies in Nicaragua the candidacies to positions of popular election to which the authorities consider “traitors to the mother country”.
See more: The law with which Daniel Ortega seeks to end the opposition
“The new authoritarian law of the Ortega regime undermines democracy,” said the U.S. foreign minister, who warned that Washington will not tolerate threats to Nicaragua’s democracy.
“The United States will not tolerate these threats to Nicaraguan democracy, nor will it tolerate the oppression of the Nicaraguan people,” Pompeo said.
Authoritarian regime
Pompeo stressed that the Western Hemisphere is now “a hemisphere of freedom, with the exception of a few small-scale authoritarian regimes that remain, such as Nicaragua.”
“This week, the Ortega regime further isolated itself in the region by passing a law that could effectively ban Nicaraguans running for democracy, running for office in next year’s elections.” , he indicated.
Its implementation, he added, will further destroy Nicaragua’s democratic institutions and processes, as it would ban opposition figures from running for popular election, “threatening to turn the 2021 election into an” election. “only in name”.
The Sandinista majority controlled by the National Assembly (Parliament) urgently approved a law on Monday that will inhibit the candidacies of those Nicaraguans who, among other things, applaud the imposition of sanctions against the state and its citizens. , who will also be considered “traitors to the homeland.”
See more: Ortega, the president who disappears when there is a crisis in Nicaragua
The “Law for the Defense of the People’s Rights to Independence, Sovereignty and Self-Determination for Peace” was passed in an extraordinary session with 70 votes from the Sandinistas and their allies, promoters of the controversial initiative, compared to 14 who voted against and 5 abstentions.
Warn of new consequences
“These actions follow the approval by the National Assembly of a Foreign Agents Act that sabotages the ability of Nicaraguans to seek democratic change, and a Cybercrime Act that systematically represses freedom of expression,” he said. continue Pompey.
He noted that EE. UU. He has taken action against the Nicaraguan government, including sanctioning members of Ortega’s family “and the corrupt inner circle, to encourage Ortega’s regime to adopt democratic reforms ahead of the country’s November 7 presidential election.” of 2021 “.
He stressed that its European and Organization of American States (OAS) partners have also spoken out “strongly against the repression of the Ortega regime”, and that the EU has imposed its own sanctions.
See more: Why does Nicaragua not have a visible opposition leader?
“For the good of the Nicaraguan people, we urge Ortega once again to change course, respect human rights and fundamental freedoms, and allow free and fair elections,” he said.
“Otherwise, the United States will not hesitate to impose new consequences,” he warned.
Ortega, who returned to power in January 2007 after coordinating a governing board from 1979 to 1985 and presiding over the country from 1985 to 1990, said last Friday that those Nicaraguans who participated in the revolt against his government in in April 2018, which the Executive describes as a “coup attempt,” they will not be able to run for popularly elected office in the next election.