Nicaragua Has Had Free Elections Since the Revolution Triumphed

On Sunday, Nicaragua's President Daniel Ortega recalled that thanks to the Sandinista Revolution the country will hold free elections in November.

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"Thanks to our first Constitution, the first free election in Nicaraguan history was held after the triumph of the Revolution. Despite the aggressiveness of the Empire, the people together with the Sandinista National Liberation Front won the first elections in November 1984," Ortega said during the second day of the citizen verification process of the electoral roll.

He also recalled that the first Constitution not only established fundamental rights but also basic principles such as the right of the people to elect their authorities without foreign interference and the principle of a mixed economy.

"My parents never took part in elections. There were no elections here because Nicaragua remained occupied by the Yankees... From September 15, 1821, to July 19, 1979, Nicaragua was not an independent nation... It was one of the first Central American countries that the Yankees invaded."

On Sunday, Ortega congratulated Nicaraguans who took part in a verification process of the electoral procedure.

"The verification is very important so that young people over the age of 16 know where they should vote in November. This will happen when God wants and not when the empire wants," he stressed, adding that "despite the rain, thousands of Nicaraguans came out to register their ID cards in a sovereign exercise. These elections are one more battle for our second independence."

Alluding to US economic and media harassment, Ortega recalled that Washington never respects sovereign processes because "for them, elections are valid when their wimps win them. When they lose them, the US says that the elections are not valid and does everything possible to destabilize the country. This has happened in Cuba, Bolivia, Bolivia, and Brazil."

"The Empire is the biggest terrorist and criminal on the planet. There is not a single country that has not suffered the aggressions of Yankee imperialism. There is no room for negotiation and understanding with the Empire. Those who have illusions are forgetting their own history," said the Nicaraguan president.