EU foreign policy chief blasts Nicaragua’s Ortega ahead of vote | Al Jazeera

The European Union’s foreign policy chief has blasted Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega as a “dictator” who is overseeing “fake” elections, as the vote on Sunday comes after a months-long crackdown on opposition leaders and presidential hopefuls.

Josep Borrell on Tuesday described the electoral process in the Central American nation as “fake”, adding that it only aims to “keep the dictator [Ortega] in power”.

“Mr Ortega has occupied himself imprisoning all the political contenders who have presented themselves to run in these elections and we cannot expect that this process will yield a result we can consider legitimate,” Borrell told reporters from Peru’s capital, Lima.

Borrell, who is on a tour of Latin America, added that “the situation in Nicaragua is one of the most serious in the Americas at the moment”.