Entrevista a la Presidenta del Consejo Supremo Electoral, Magistrada Brenda Rocha y a la Magistrada Mayra Salinas
13 de enero 2022
El 13 de enero 2022 las compañeras Fiorella Isabel del medio estadounidense "the Convo Couch" y Camila Escalante del medio boliviano "Kawsachun News" hablaron con las compañeras Magistrada Brenda Rocha y Magistrada Mayra Salinas sobre el proceso electoral de las elecciones nacionales en Nicaragua del 7 de noviembre 2021.
How do you as the Supreme Electoral Council respond to accusations from the U.S. government that this election was fraudulent?
Magistrate Brenda Rocha: Thank you for this opportunity and this space. We as the Supreme Electoral Council must reaffirm that our mission is to strengthen and consolidate democracy in our country, Nicaragua. This electoral process as we said since May 6th last when the elections were called based on the Electoral Law, based on our Political Constitution, based on our laws, this process is and was and continues to belong to the Nicaraguan people. The People here is the Sovereign, the ones who decided, the ones who went to exercise their vote in each ballot box, in each voting center, the Nicaragua People decided who were the ones who were going to lead this country as its government and that is how it was, and we respect the Sovereign, which is the people of Nicaragua.
Therefore, we work within that law, we frame our role within what it says, and what the Sovereign People says, so while there may be another opinion at a level outside our electoral process, we base ourselves on what the People of Nicaragua say, on what the Sovereign has said, given that the People of Nicaragua exercised their vote and decided who was going to be elected.
Magistrate Mayra Salinas: I think in this matter it's important to remember that the Supreme Electoral Council as a State Power extended from July 1st 2020 the term for political parties wanting to participate in the electoral process in order for them to do so and at that time the Supreme Electoral Council reduced, or rather extended the term of one year by another six months for the political parties that wanted to do so to register. That shows flexibility in relation to the participation of the political parties. However, we, and when I say we, I mean this branch of government did not receive any new applications from political parties.
Simply and straightforwardly what there was were comments, what there was were expressions of points of view, but formally and officially this Supreme Electoral Council never received a request by any new political party to be constituted as such. So, what they may say about not having space or or not allowing a new candidacy is false, because we simply did not receive any formal document. We did not receive any application and nobody can present us any document proving that they did in fact bring to this Supreme Electoral Council a document or an application or something that we may have rejected. We did not receive it.
So, when we made the call for elections which the president magistrate referred to, the parties that participated were the parties that were already legally constituted and had a legal personality already approved by the Supreme Electoral Council. So, the results that this Supreme Electoral Council made known are the results of the popular will, of the protagonist will of the people of Nicaragua. As the corresponding State power, our responsibility is to tell the Nicaraguan people that these are the results, that we can and indeed have demonstrated them because for the two point nine million votes that we say were deposited in the ballot boxes, we have the ballots, we have the supporting documentatio, we can demonstrate that indeed these results are valid, that all the results are correct and that these results reflect the popular will of the Nicaraguan people.
So, while there may be other views, well, we have no choice but to listen to those views, but simply and bluntly we are fully satisfied that the people of Nicaragua recognize, accept and feel represented in the results that we made known and in the results that each one of the political parties... as you have been able to observe in these days, no political party has questioned the results that we announced, because precisely in all the voting stations and among all the election officers there were monitors from all the political parties, in the national counting center there were political party monitors, in the regional, departmental and municipal counting centers there were political party monitors such that all of them are aware that what we made known is what really happened and that the elections are therefore valid, fair and transparent elections reflecting the popular, sovereign, independent will of the people of Nicaragua and this Supreme Electoral Council is fully satisfied with the results we have given.
May I ask about a couple of things about the pre-electoral phase there are two false accusations made. One is that presidential candidates were not allowed to participate, and another is that the Conservative Party, the PRD and Citizens for Liberty were illegitimately excluded...
Magistrate Brenda Rocha: OK, in our electoral process as we saw, the participation of the political parties is also regulated according to the Electoral Law and according to that legislation all political parties must be seen to comply with the Political Constitution, so as to guarantee the greatest democratic participation in the whole electoral process. During the electoral process, for example, the legal status of the Conservative Party was eliminated because it decided not to participate in the elections and the self-same Electoral Law states that any party that does not want to participate will be eliminated. The law says so and we complied with the law. Likewise, in the case of the Democratic Restoration Party it was precisely because they engaged in procedures that were not in accordance with the law, that is to say, within the process for thein internal meetings, situations arose that were not in accordance with the law.
We received a communication from other political parties denouncing those circumstances, which this Supreme Electoral Council proceeded to confirm finding that indeed, they acted according to modifications they made to their bylaws which were not legally carried out within their activities as a political party. So, that is why we proceeded... Likewise with the Citizens for Liberty party it was precisely because, in the registration process, their candidate for Vice President made threats and menaces and on that the Electoral Law itself states, as also did the resolution we made, for the electoral process for the political parties to behave with due respect and not make threats of this type, menacing peace in Nicaragua. Nicaraguans lived through a period in 2018 after which we had made clear that it is here in Nicaragua where we are going to decide who is going to lead the country, the President and Vice President, their deputies. But, for them to come and make threats was not possible. So, it is because of this that the elimination was made in their case.
Magistrate Mayra Salinas: On tht issue, regarding the cancellation of the legal status of the political parties mentioned, it is important to remember that the Supreme Electoral Council issued as part of its functions the Ethical Regulations for the participation of the political parties. We work based on what is established by the Political Constitution of the Republic of Nicaragua, based also on what is established by the Electoral Law and therefore the political parties are under the obligation to comply with the Ethical Regulations, they are under the obligation to comply with what the Constitution says, what the Political Constitution of the Republic mandates, what the Electoral Law mandates and what certain laws linked to the electoral processes also mandate.
So, in the case of the Conservative Party, as the Presiding Magistrate already said, this Supreme Electoral Council received a letter signed by the then president of the Conservative Party informing us that they were not going to participate in the process, that they were evaluating their participation and that they considered that they were not going to participate. This is a violation to the Electoral Law, it is a violation to the Ethical Regulations we issued at the time and it is an immediate cause for the cancellation of the legal personality of that party. So, that was the reason why the Conservative Party was eliminated and we issued the resolution at the time, explaining the reasons.
The same thing happened with the Democratic Restoration Party, where we received here, a complaint with a significant number of signatures from... I must say so that it is clear, dated May 17, 2021, a number of citizens, reverends and pastors and participants of the party, where they denounced violations of the statutes established by the party. And they requested the withdrawal of the legal personality because the interests for which the political party had been created were not being represented. So, we reviewed that document, we reviewed everything they had presented and the resolution was made where it was resolved to cancel the legal personality.
I must point out that this electoral process is one of the electoral processes in the history of the Republic of Nicaragua has been most widely explained, one of the most informed for the population and that is why I brought here just so that we could see on camera the complete number of information bulletins we issued. We issued 28 informative bulletins, because we issued a weekly bulletin where we made all these issues known. We held a press conference every Monday and we published all the resolutions, the communiques and all the matters we were addressing in the decisions made by the Supreme Electoral Council.
In other words, the people of Nicaragua were duly informed of the reasons that led us to cancel the legal personality of both the Democratic Restoration Party and the Conservative Party, as well as the Citizens for Freedom Party, where in that particular case, what we received was a complaint to the Supreme Electoral Council from the Constitutional Liberal Party presenting evidence that the president, or the person who at that time was the president of that party, had obtained Nicaraguan nationality fraudulently and therefore it was a serious violation not only of the statutes of the party but also of the laws of Nicaragua. But also, as the magistrate just pointed out, there were other violations leding us to consider that the party could not continue to participate in the electoral process, because the Ethical Regulations were broken.
So, in these three cases there was no deliberate intention to exclude any political party, but simply and straightforwardly this Supreme Electoral Council applied the laws of the Republic of Nicaragua, applied the Electoral Law, applied the Constitution and elminated the political parties which themselves gave the reasons for the cancellation of their legal personalities. So, we were left working with the 15 political parties that did comply with all the requirements to participate in the electoral process. Because I believe that at this moment when we are talking about this issue of political parties, it is important to remind people at international level that 15 political parties participated.
That is to say, there were 15 platforms, however, there was an alliance which as you all know was the Unida Nicaragua Triunfa Alliance of the Sandinista National Liberation Front Party, which thanks to its negotiating abilities managed to bring together nine political parties both national and regional and lso there were five additional national parties and one regional party. This was what led us to an electoral ballot with six voting options at national level, and another ballot with six national voting options plus a regional one, but that does not mean only six political parties and one regional party participated, in fact 15 political parties participated. It is important that this is also known internationally because there was a coincidence of thought, a coincidence of criteria, a coincidence of programmatic platforms among them and therefore they decided to form an alliance of new political parties, but the Nicaraguan people had 15 political parties in this electoral process.
Can you give us a summary of your response to the accusation that six or seven presidential candidates were imprisoned?
Magistrate Brenda Rocha: Since the beginning of this electoral process we have always said that what we had to do within the process was to guarantee for our Nicaraguan people a process of transparency, democracy and peace, and that is what we managed to do. As we have already explained, the electoral process began in June of 2020, where the political parties were told that the process was extended for those who wanted to form a new political party, those who wanted to say this is my political party, but those who wanted new political parties had enough opportunities to be able to form a political party. When the elections were called, there were no new political parties registered.
Also within the process, by the time the candidates were going to be registered or when this process was carried out for these people claiming to be candidates, we were not yet in the process of registration of candidates or candidates. That part of the election process had not been opened, the election process iself had been opened. And what we had to do was to receive from the registered political parties, the ones who were registered. And in the process of the inscription of candidates, these people were not in any... not active members in any of the political parties. So far as we know, they were not active members of any of them. So, as far as we are concerned within the electoral process, we complied, we gave opportunity to Nicaraguans who wanted to form a political party. They did not do so.
Likewise, for the registration of candidates, each political party had time to decide who their candidates would be and here what they did was with each political party in writing. So this is the process that leads us to this. Beyond the process that the other entities are carrying out, we do not ignore... that is to say whether they have been active in any political party, they have not been in any political party, because in the inscription list that each political party gave, they are not there as militants or aspirants to those responsibilities, because each political party decides. We coordinate as a State entity with the other entities, the other powers of the State. It was not up to us the part of the legal process because it is only the Public Prosecutor's Office, the Police and the Judiciary that carry out these processes. As far as we are concerned, we complied with the process of registration of political parties, there was no new registration and that is what we have to reaffirm.
Magistrate Mayra Salinas: I believe that the easiest way to disprove this issue that they were presidential candidates is to demonstrate at what time they ran as presidential candidates and which party they represented because we know of citizens that are detained for processes that the judiciary is carrying out but we do not have registered here at the Supreme Electoral Council any of those citizens that are detained as belonging to any political party. They cannot prove that they participated in a political party. We are six and a half million Nicaraguans. The Electoral Law, the Political Constitution of the Republic says that any Nicaraguan who believes he/she meets the requirements can say that he/she aspires to the presidency of the Republic of this country, if he/she meets the requirements.
Thus any Nicaraguan could have had the intention and could have expressed publicly “I intend to be a candidate of the Republic”. Any candidate, any person, any person can say in this country I want to be a candidate as long as I fulfill the requirements, but I must belong to a political party, I must be registered in a political party and therefore I must fulfill the requirements established in the Constitution and in the Electoral Law. However, these names of these citizens never came to this Supreme Electoral Council in any registered political party nor did they form any new political party, as I was saying, so as to present themselves as candidates, therefore they were never formally presidential candidates.
They could have had aspirations, as any Nicaraguan can have aspirations to be part of or to take part in the Presidency of the Republic. Any Nicaraguan can do so. However, they must comply with a series of requirements and none of these citizens, who are answering to a judicial process that is not the competence of this electoral power, but is rather the competence of the judicial power, arrived at this power of State to register as a candidate, not even as an aspiring one. Because as I have been telling you ever since July 1st of the year 2020 when we made that extension of the deadline, no additional political party was created to say that we are taking so and so or so or such person as a candidate of the party.
Therefore, these are not presidential candidates and that is what we said at the time, when it was said that presidential candidates were being detained. They were never presidential candidates because they were never registered by any political party as presidential candidates. They could have had aspirations, but they were never registered as presidential candidates and they would have to prove to us that they were registered, but they cannot do so because they were never inscribed here by any political party registered as a party, therefore they were never presidential candidates.
In addition, I must point out something else that is also important, we at the time made a resolution where we said that all the accredited political organizations had to comply with all the obligations established in the Political Constitution of the Republic, in the Electoral Law, in the Law of Sovereign Security of the Republic of Nicaragua, in the Law of Regulation of Foreign Agents, and in the Law of Defense of the Rights of the People to Independence and Sovereignty and Self-Determination for Peace. Those were part of the requirements that were established as part of the obligations of the political parties. And the Political Constitution of the Republic is very clear in this respect when it says in Article 147 in order to be President or Vice President of the Republic, within the qualities in paragraph (b) it says that those who lead or finance a coup d'état or who alter the constitutional order and as a consequence of such events assume the head of government and its ministries or other powers of the State cannot be candidates for President or Vice President of the Republic. That is to say, the Political Constitution is clear on this.
So, we are working with all these elements and when the judicial power decides to take its judicial measures, what we have to do is to comply as one of the powers of the State of Nicaragua with what the judicial power mandates. Let us remember that we are four powers of the State that work in a coordinated, harmonious way and therefore if the judicial power decides to suspend the civil political rights of a certain citizen we cannot incorporate them, even if any political party wants to include them. So in this sense we do not... we categorically deny that the citizens who are detained for being subject to a process begun by the judiciary have been presidential candidates, if they had any pretension, that was their pretension, but that is as far as it went.
Can you give us a summary of the process of the municipal elections, what are these elections and what are the preparations for them?
Magistrate Mayra Salinas: Well, for the year 2022 we have already started the preparations for the municipal elections process that will take place on November 5th, that is, the first Sunday of November of this year, in which the mayors will be elected; mayors, deputy mayors, councilmen and councilwomen in the one hundred and fifty three municipalities of the country. So, the preparation is the same as the preparation we do for the national elections. We are already working on the electoral mapping.
It is really an extremely important process for us because, although the process we have just concluded is the 2021 sovereign election process of protagonic participation of the Nicaraguan people to elect their authorities. Now, in the case of the mayors, it reaches the level of the smallest participation in the municipality. So, the Supreme Electoral Council is already working on all the electoral mapping and preparing to start the process of the timetable, the process of the electoral calendar, which is what we have to do and is what governs the whole process, and to work with the political parties that are going to participate and that comply with the requirements. So, there are one hundred and fifty-three municipalities of the country because let us remember that we have 15 departments and 2 autonomous regions but there are one hundred and fifty-three municipalities, so we have one hundred and fifty-three small elections that we carry out in each one of those municipalities.
Another question that interests us a lot is the way in which our Supreme Electoral Council reflects the reality of our population, maybe you could talk a little bit about the composition and the different members that represent different sectors of the national life in our country?
Magistrate Brenda Rocha: Well, the Supreme Electoral Council was elected last May 6, in 2021. We are composed of 10 magistrates among which six women proudly represent this power of the State, six women of which four are proprietary magistrates and two are supplementaries along with four men of whom three are proprietary magistrates and one supplementary. There is majority representation for women, indeed, and proudly so, there is participation of indigenous communities, of the Caribbean Coast and Afro-descendants, of teachers... in other words, we can see, and the main thing is indeed this, namely everry one of us here, within this power of State, emerged from and originates from Nicaragua's people. Here it is a work we have undertaken as a people, as a people not simply as a result of a family surname or economic power but in representation of the people of Nicaragua, which is the most important thing for me to be proud of as part of this Supreme Electoral Council.
Magistrate Mayra Salinas: Furthermore, the Supreme Electoral Council is a council elected by the National Assembly based on proposals from different sectors, which might be the President of the Republic, or which might be the legislative deputies. We are seven proprietary magistrates and three alternate magistrates elected for a period of five years. On this occasion, for women it is a source of pride that we are in the majority for the first time in the Supreme Electoral Council and thus, here there is diverse representation, we come from different sectors, some of us, as my colleague said, have varied experience, we come from the State sectors, from other institutions, others come from the university area. There are comrades who represent... comrades with disabilities for example, which is also a very important issue.
There are some representing the Nicaraguan Caribbean Coast, which for the first time is, let's say, widely represented because there was a representation, well, we did have also in the previous council, in the previous collegiate body, but this time there are four colleagues from the Caribbean Coast. So, imagine what that means for the Caribbean Coast of Nicaragua, that there are four men and women comrades participating in the Supreme Electoral Council. And also really, for us, more than an election, it is a responsibility. It is a responsibility and it is an honor, to be in front of this task because precisely, as our president magistrate said, when we started the interview, the Supreme Electoral Council, its responsibility is, its fundamental mission, is to guarantee the participation, the organization and all the conditions for the people of Nicaragua to participate as protagonists, wth every guarantee, in freedom, with transparency, with fairness, as regards their election rights, to elect their authorities and to be elected.
So, for us it is a great responsibility to be in charge of this task, and for... and as the compañera said, for us it is not so much a post as such, but rather a responsibility and an honor to be in charge of this task and we are doing it beyond any particular vision or beyond, and I speak sincerely, beyond any political position, we have a responsibility to all the six and a half million Nicaraguans who see in us, as their compañeros and compañeras, the people who are responsible for announcing the popular will at the time when the votes are counted.
Because that is what we do, simply and straighforwardly, organize a process, create a mechanism that allows them to cast their votes and then we make known what the sovereign decision of the people of Nicaragua is, which in this case, as you know, was the ratification of the formula of the Alliance Nicaragua United Triumphs, but well, that is not our decision, that is a decision of the people of Nicaragua. So, as the Supreme Electoral Council, we six women and four men, who are in charge of this responsibility, who are organizing this responsibility, we feel extremely proud, extremely happy with the results we had in this process.
And we remain committed because for us it is a commitment and it is one more responsibility towards the people of Nicaragua tha we have, to continue at the forefront of the tasks that are coming, as we have already said, the municipal elections that we have this year and to continue working so that the people of Nicaragua feel represented, feel satisfied, feel content with what the Supreme Electoral Council is doing.
We have felt from all sides that there has been recognition from the people of Nicaragua for the work we did on this occasion, precisely because of the communication and that permanent contact we maintained with the people, which we will continue to maintain because we are of the people, we come from the people, each one of us represents the people of Nicaragua. And that is something about which we are clear that we cannot forget. We are not merely officials of Nicaragua's people, we are servants of the people of Nicaragua, public servants to the people of Nicaragua and that is why we carry out this responsibility in the best way we possibly can.
M
agistrate Rocha, we have read in the Nicaraguan media about your own story, would it be possible to tell us a little bit about that...?
Magistrate Brenda Rocha: Okay thank you, well, I was born in Bonanza, the North Caribbean Coast, in a very humble family. The Northern Caribbean Coast, Bonanza is mostly a working mining town because people there live from that, really, extracting gold from the mines. There, the United States was in charge of those mines in the seventies, the Somoza years, so the people were subjugated there. And so, from a very young age, my grandparents taught me that one had to be... to search for how to be yourself, to fend for yourself, not to be subdued by all that they had gone through themselves.
In 1979, when the Sandinista People's Revolution triumphed, my brothers and sisters and part of my family were already in the ranks of the Sandinista Front, and so with the triumph, I found myself with others and that is how I joined that battalion in the fight against the darkness that was the National Literacy Crusade. When I was thirteen years old I went to teach literacy, right there in a community of Salto Grande de Bonanza, sorry, Siempre Viva there, Siempre Viva and then, also, working with the Sandinista Youth right there in the town of Bonanza. In the eighties, with the war that was very, very fierce, the US intervention, in that area, most of the young men left for the war fronts, leaving very few people, so I joined the Sandinista popular militias, which one could say at that time were the ones who did most to protect local communities. I was a member of the 19th of July Sandinista Youth, and they told us on July 19th 1982, that we had to guard several strategic points of the community.
That is to say, we went there and they sent us to our squadrons, which is what we called a block of ten people, they sent us to Salto Grande, which was the hydroelectric dam there, near Bonanza, which was the one that provided energy and water to the town of Bonanza. We were sent to take care of that place on July 17th, we were there, well, at that time.... in 1982 because it was feared that around July 19th there would be some attacks on strategic points.
I was fifteen years old, I was fifteen years old and so there we stayed, July 19th happened and thank God nothing took place, but well, by July 23rd, which was the students' day, I was talking to the other people in the squadron and telling them that, since I was going to study in Cuba because I had a scholarship that I'd won as the best student so as to be able to go to Cuba to study nursing and pediatrics. I told them that since I was going to go, I wanted to leave something for the children, because I was a member of the Sandinista Youth, so we coordinated with the community to do something on July 25th to give some small piñatas to the community where we were, with candy and a little party because we had not done anything on July 19th.
And so on July 24th in the morning we left with three comrades to the town of Bonanza to look for the things we were going to use for the party and it was there that the political secretary and the head of the army there, of Bonanza, told me that I had to stay because on Monday I had to travel... that was on Saturday, and therefore I had to stay in Bonanza. I told them no, no, I had to go back to do the activity. When we got back, once when we returned the other woman who was with us, because two of us were women, she was in the kitchen, preparing food, and we were setting things up. And at one point they told us we had to go into the trenches, so we went to the trenches, we lead the community out to the farthest part, where there was a chapel right there nearby the community.
And at half past five in the afternoon there was an attack by more than a hundred counterrevolutionaries, against the eight of us comrades who were there. My seven comrades gave their lives for the revolution, I am the only survivor. At that moment, they transferred me, later once the reinforcements arrived, but the Contras had already destroyed the whole community, I played dead, that's how I survived, because I was completely bloodied, wounded in both legs and my right arm with fourteen bullet holes, there were more than a hundred of the Contra. They left and the reinforcements arrived. They tried to save my arm and in the surgery they were unable to save it.
At one point, the day of the operation, the doctor who was attending me came with a psychologist, and I asked him why a psychologist when I woke up because I had spent several nights, that my body hurt very much. When I woke up, I felt a relief, I did not feel the pain and then the doctor asked me, well, how I felt and I was fine and then when he told me that I was with the psychologist then, I looked at my legs again, and I have my legs and my other arm here, and that I no longer had this arm, then, I smiled and told him, because he he said, look we had to make a decision, your mother signed agreement. But well, the psychologist is going to work with you in case you feel bad, so I started to smile and I told them that this is nothing compared to what my seven companions suffered. Because they left behind children, they left behind families, they were the support of their homes because they were workers, they were rural workers who were there with us... Our comrade María Cristina Rugama who left behind her five children and so I say this is nothing for me.
And really, from then on, I became more committed to the Revolution, to my nation, to Nicaragua, to continue defending it because of what they left behind... I used to say that I know that we would see it at some point and now we are realizing it with this new stage in the Revolution here. They are with us in every step I take... there are seven more steps by them, for their children, for all of them, for all of them. They just recently inaugurated a clinic in Bonanza named after María Cristina Rugama, which for me is a great joy because this, these are.... it's health, it's education. Those children with their school meals when you go to work in those territories or when you see those children with their toys, well, for me, it always moves me, and it always fills me with emotion because as they said, they said on July 19th 1982, if anyone of us lives, they will have to tell our story... that we want Peace, we want to build, and here in these years we are building that Peace and that is what fulfills me, that is my story, we are here with those seven comrades, with all the heroes and all that we have gone through, with all the comrades who have given their lives through each stage of the Revolution.
Muchas gracias...