Washington, Mar 29 (EFE).- The president of Costa Rica, Rodrigo Chaves, affirmed this Wednesday that in neighboring Nicaragua “there is no democracy” and recalled that in the 2021 elections in that country, opposition candidates were imprisoned.
“In Nicaragua you don’t see any democracy. We are neighboring countries, we want to have a relationship of peace with the Nicaraguan people, but in the last election all the candidates for the presidency were imprisoned. There is no democracy there and we see that with concern”, declared Chaves.
This is how the Costa Rican president responded to a journalist’s question after concluding the activities of the Summit for Democracy this Wednesday, a virtual event organized by the United States that has several countries as co-hosts, including Costa Rica.
In recent years, Costa Rica has denounced in international forums the human rights violations that have occurred in Nicaragua since mid-2018 when protests against President Daniel Ortega broke out, to which the Government responded with repression that caused hundreds of deaths, injuries and detained opponents.
Costa Rica has advocated on multiple occasions for the release of political prisoners and respect for human rights in Nicaragua.
Since 2018, refugee applications from Nicaraguans have increased exponentially in Costa Rica to more than 120,000, in response to which the Government has requested the support of the international community in various forums.
Since the outbreak of the crisis in Nicaragua, Costa Rica has not appointed an ambassador in Managua.
The crisis in Nicaragua deepened after the controversial general elections of November 7, 2021, in which Ortega was re-elected for a fifth term, fourth in a row and second along with his wife, Rosario Murillo, as vice president, with his main contenders in prison. or in exile.
At the beginning of last February, the Nicaraguan authorities expelled 222 political prisoners from the country, including Cristiana Chamorro, the candidate for the presidency of Nicaragua who had the greatest probability of defeating the current president, Daniel Ortega, in the November 2021 elections.
The list includes businessmen, human rights defenders, Sandinista dissidents, journalists, activists, and independent professionals.
