Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega rules out early elections

NICARAGUA’S President Daniel Ortega on Saturday ruled out early elections as demanded by protesters in the country where more than 220 have died in unrest since April.

“Here the rules are set by the Constitution of the Republic, through the people. You don’t just change them overnight because a group of coup plotters got the idea to do so,” Ortega said at a rally.

Roman Catholic bishops are working to mediate dialogue between the government and opposition in a bid to end the protests and government repression that have wracked the country since April 18.

Ortega, 72, had previously remained silent on a proposal by the influential Catholic hierarchy to bring forward elections scheduled for 2021 to March of next year.

The mediation committee said on Thursday they would convene a new round of talks on Monday at 10am.

The protesters demand the resignation of Ortega, a former leftist guerrilla who came to power with the popular uprising that defeated dictator Anastasio Somoza in 1979, and retook the presidency in 2007 after a vote.

Activists accuse him – together with his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo – of establishing a dictatorship characterised by nepotism and repression.

“We shall see if the people will give their vote to the coup plotters who in these past weeks have carried out so much violence,” Ortega said, stressing that: “There will be a time for elections. Everything has its time.”

Thousands of Ortega supporters attended the rally in Managua where he spoke on Saturday.

“Down with the coup plotters!”, “Not one step backward!”, “Stay, my commander stays!”, “We want peace,” they shouted, waving flags of the ruling Sand- inista National

Front.

The march set out from the Plaza de las Victorias toward the Hugo Chavez Rotunda, where a colourful metallic structure of the bust of the deceased Venezuelan socialist leader is surrounded by gigantic metal life-size trees installed by Ortega’s wife.

“I’m supporting Comandante Ortega, the only one who has watched over the poor against the right-wing coup, which is lying . . . the hooded are theirs, the ones who are assaulting people,” Guillermo Ramirez, a 43-year-old mason, told AFP. Liberation

INTI OCON/AFP Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega (right), accompanied by his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo, speaks to supporters during the governmentcalled Walk for Security and Peace in Managua on Saturday.