The Diplomat
Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, backed by Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, on Monday lashed out at Spain, the European Union and the United States for their disqualification of Sunday’s elections in the Central American country.
According to the report of the Supreme Electoral Council, Ortega’s party, the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN), obtained 75.92% of the votes cast in an electoral process that was highly questioned because opposition leaders were imprisoned and could not attend the elections. Criticism of the lack of democratic guarantees for the elections included Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares, who called them a “mockery of democracy”.
Speaking to supporters in Managua’s Plaza de la Revolución on Monday, Daniel Ortega branded the EU and the Spanish government “fascists”, “descendants of Francoism” and “Hitler’s brothers”. “It is time for Europe to understand once and for all that, in these lands, in these peoples, in these nations, that here in Nicaragua, the Nicaraguan people govern and not the European governments,” he said.
According to the Nicaraguan leader, in the EU “most of the fascists are governing”. “And in the European Parliament the majority are fascists, Nazis, that is why there is so much hatred for peoples who are fighting for independence,” he added, referring to Venezuela, Cuba and Bolivia, according to the pro-Ortega regime media, Canal TN8 Nicaragua.
Ortega also denounced the “interventionist, expansionist and colonialist policy” of the United States and “European countries” and said that Nicaragua is “under threat and aggression from the Yankee empire”, because, in his opinion, regardless of who gets to the White House, it is “the military and economic powers that decide”.
“Nicaragua has had to confront the Yankee troops directly, not because we want war with them, but because they have wanted to take over Nicaragua”, he said, before hurling his darts at the imprisoned opposition politicians. Ortega called them “sell-outs” and “sons of bitches of Yankee imperialism” because, he said, “they invited the Yankee troops” to the country because “they wanted them to invade Nicaragua now”.
He said that US President Joe Biden “should be ashamed” and “ask for forgiveness” for the “crimes” committed by Washington “in Nicaragua, Latin America and the world”.
In his attacks on Europeans and Americans, Ortega received support from Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, who after calling the results of Sunday’s elections “an unobjectionable victory” for his Nicaraguan counterpart, demanded “respect” for Nicaragua.
Maduro referred to Albares as “Spain’s colonial foreign minister” and rejected his refusal to recognise Ortega as president. “Fuck the foreign minister of Spain,” he said.
He also criticised the US State Department, which he said “is calling on foreign ministries and governments to issue a communiqué” in an action aimed at “delegitimising” the elections in Nicaragua.
“Daniel Ortega and the Sandinista Front have five times more votes than those who speak out against the elections in Nicaragua”, he stressed, adding that “to speak out against the elections is to speak out against the Nicaraguan people”.
