Menendez, Risch, Cassidy Lead Colleagues in Calling Out Fraudulent Elections in Nicaragua

WASHINGTON – Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), SFRC Ranking Member Jim Risch (R-Idaho), and Senator Bill Cassidy (R-La.) today led Senators Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Ben Cardin (D-Md.), Tim Kaine (D-Va.), and Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) in releasing the following statement after the sham elections in Nicaragua on November 7:

“We strongly condemn the Ortega-Murillo regime’s fraudulent attempt to maintain power in Nicaragua through the sham elections on November 7, after arresting and imprisoning members of civil society and the political opposition. These elections were neither free, nor fair, and as such the results do not represent the will of the Nicaraguan people.

“Democratic nations in our hemisphere and around the world must recognize the regime as the crude dictatorship it has become. The United States must use every diplomatic and economic tool at its disposal in support of the Nicaraguan people’s quest for freedom and to hold the Ortega-Murillo regime, and its enablers in Nicaragua, accountable. Member states of the Organization of American States must live up to their commitments to defend democratic governance in the region under the Inter-American Democratic Charter.”

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