The UK government on Monday said that it will not send any official representative to Daniel Ortega's presidential inauguration in Nicaragua, claiming that the election held in the Central American country last November lacked "credibility."
LONDON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 10th January, 2022) The UK government on Monday said that it will not send any official representative to Daniel Ortega's presidential inauguration in Nicaragua, claiming that the election held in the Central American country last November lacked "credibility."
"Today's inauguration is therefore not a result of the freely expressed will of the Nicaraguan people and the UK will not attend," Vicky Ford, undersecretary of state for Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, was quoted as saying in a statement released by the Foreign Office.
Ford also called on Ortega, who won another five-year term with more than 75% of the vote, to release "all opposition leaders and other political prisoners in Nicaragua and for the full restoration of their civil and political rights."
She said that the UK welcomed the fresh sanctions imposed earlier on Monday by the US and the European Union on several Nicaraguan officials and entities, adding that her government will keep calling for Nicaragua to fulfill its international obligations "by respecting the human rights of its citizens and bringing an end to the repression in the country."
Following the November 7 elections in Nicaragua, the UK passed sanctions against 8 senior Nicaraguan individuals, including Ortega's wife and vice president, Rosario Murillo.
