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“No One Here Is Safe From Ortega”: Kitty Monterrey, Nicaraguan politician

Kitty Monterrey, El American, Emmanuel Alejandro Rondón

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Growing repression and persecution, coupled with the constant loss of freedoms, make Nicaragua’s future look frightening. Despite this reality, there are people who hold out hope for change. For Kitty Monterrey, president of the Alianza Ciudadanos por la Libertad party and vice-president of Liberal International, an electoral process with minimum conditions is the only way to confront tyranny in the immediate future.

The American spoke exclusively with Monterrey, who, among other things, denounced that Daniel Ortega’s regime is ramping up persecution against dissidents and opponents as the registration process for the presidential elections next November approaches.

Currently, there are more than 120 political prisoners in Nicaragua. Among them are journalist Cristiana Chamorro, diplomat Arturo Cruz, politician Felix Maradiaga and businessman Juan Sebastian Chamorro, all pre-candidates for the November presidential elections.

Both Arturo Cruz and Juan Sebastián Chamorro are pre-candidates of the alliance presided by Kitty Monterrey.

For the president of Citizens for Liberty, the persecution of opponents and dissidents in view of the elections is due to a great “combination of factors”, especially is a “response to Daniel Ortega’s fear of facing a united opposition in this platform (united opposition) which would undoubtedly defeat him in an electoral process”.

Kitty Monterrey, Alianza Ciudadanos por la Libertad, entrevista, El American
Citizens for Liberty Alliance (CXL) president, Kitty Monterrey (c) speaks at a press conference. Nicaraguan authorities continued the arrests of opposition leaders, including four aspirants to Nicaragua’s presidency, while the United States sanctioned four of Ortega’s advisors, his daughter Camila Antonia Ortega Murillo among them. (EFE).

Kitty Monterrey: “We live under constant threat”.

The president of the opposition coalition explained that freedom of political speech in Nicaragua is practically non-existent and that being a dissident of Sandinismo and the regime is synonymous with putting oneself in danger:

“In this indiscriminate hunt, we are all at risk. Here we don’t know who is safe. We live under a constant threat. Our party and office are besieged from very early in the morning, surrounded by police or paramilitary elements, sometimes they don’t even identify what kind of people they are.”

In addition to the fear of participating in elections, Kitty Monterrey believes that the regime also wants to demonstrate its strength through state coercion, because if there is one thing that the Sandinista tyranny has, it is the control of all institutions and the monopoly of arms.

On this tricky subject, Monterrey said she understands the challenge of displacing a dictatorship through the vote. She affirms, however, that there is only one plausible option at this time to confront Ortega and his leadership: pressure to achieve minimum electoral conditions.

“The pressure we must all exert is to go to this electoral process, even in these adverse conditions, because we understand that with the control that exists it will be very difficult to confront Ortega in elections that, so far, do not present the conditions required to guarantee Nicaraguans the right to choose freely”

Kitty Monterrey talked about the many elements of the Nicaraguan political crisis, including a brief evaluation of the international community’s response to the outrages of the Sandinista regime. She made it clear that not much can be expected from international organizations and countries in general because they have very little understanding of the internal issues of each country.

Kitty Monterrey, entrevista en El American
Kitty Monterrey is not only president of the Alliance, but also vice president of Liberal International (EFE).

Monterrey also pointed out that she and the Citizens Alliance for Freedom are against Sandinismo in all its presentations. For her, Nicaragua is an anti-Sandinista country not only because of Ortega but also because of the excesses of the Sandinistas in the eighties who today are also presented as “opponents” to “Orteguismo”.

“For me, Sandinismo is Sandinismo. It does not matter if it is the one in power or the one that wants to recover it, they are the same thing. We are a country where more than 70% of the population is against Ortega, and besides being against Ortega, they do not want Sandinismo in any of its expressions”.

Emmanuel Alejandro Rondón is a journalist at El American specializing in the areas of American politics and media analysis // Emmanuel Alejandro Rondón es periodista de El American especializado en las áreas de política americana y análisis de medios de comunicación.

Contacto: [email protected]

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