The Civic Alliance for Justice and Democracy (ACJD) met with the leaders of the Indigenous and Afro-descendant organization YATAMA, autochthonous expression of the political organization of the Caribbean Coast of Nicaragua, to address and analyze the call for regional elections that the regime Ortega-Murillo has announced for March 2019.
The YATAMA representatives identified the four main points for which these voting should not be carried out:
1) The socioeconomic crisis of the country that is affecting all Nicaraguans.
2) The experiences of fraud during the last three elections, such as the fact that the government party announced the number of councilors they would obtain in advance, foreseeing an imminent technical fraud, adding to those the different forms of repression during the process.
3) The nonexistent regional autonomy as a form of self-government. On the contrary, the rights of the communal authorities are violated by denying them the certification of the appointments. The autonomy has been hijacked by the government in power.
4) Failure to comply with the 2005 IACHR ruling in favor of YATAMA, despite the commitment that Daniel Ortega acquired in 2006 with the indigenous party within the framework of the alliance they had.
YATAMA is aware that, if they refuse to participate in the regional electoral contest, the electoral authorities subject of the regime would order the suspension of their legal status; However, they considers that there are no viable conditions for transparent elections, so it will initiate a process of consultation with its bases (at the level of community, territory and municipalities) in both regions.
The representatives of the ACJD, on their part, reiterated their support on the decisions they´ll take in this regard and invited them to be part of the efforts being made to achieve national unity, as part of the way out of the socio-economic and political crisis of the country.
The Civic Alliance for Justice and Democracy (ACJD), conformed by students, countrymen, academics, religious, representatives of the Caribbean Coast, civil society and private enterprise, was created in response to the call to the National Dialogue by the Episcopal Conference of Nicaragua to work around two priority issues to get out of the great crisis that the country has been living since April 2018: justice and democracy.
Managua, August 30 th , 2018
