WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden on Wednesday signed into law legislation that increases and coordinates U.S. sanctions on Nicaraguan officials after President Daniel Ortega held an election Sunday that was widely considered illegitimate.
The White House announced that Biden signed the Reinforcing Nicaragua’s Adherence to Conditions for Electoral Reform Act, a bill that requires targeted sanctions to advance elections in Nicaragua, coordinates U.S. sanctions with Canadian and European diplomats, requires classified and unclassified reports on Ortega’s corruption and Russian involvement in Nicaragua and supports independent media in the country.
The House of Representatives passed the bill, known as the Renacer Act, on a 387-35 vote last week ahead of Sunday’s election. The bill was strongly supported by South Florida’s U.S. House members from both parties and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio.
One Florida Republican, U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz of Fort Walton Beach, was among the 35 “no” votes, and Democratic U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor of Tampa did not vote on the bill. The majority of “no” votes came from left-leaning members of the Democratic Party, though six Republicans also voted against the bill. The bill passed the U.S. Senate on Nov. 1 without opposition.
Biden thanked Rubio, along with South Florida U.S. Reps. Maria Elvira Salazar, Mario Diaz-Balart, Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Ted Deutch “for their leadership” in a statement announcing the bill signing.
“We strongly condemn the Ortega-Murillo regime’s fraudulent attempt to maintain power in Nicaragua through the sham elections on Nov. 7, after arresting and imprisoning members of civil society and the political opposition,” Rubio said in a bipartisan statement with U.S. senators after Sunday’s vote, where leading opposition candidates were jailed and not on the ballot. “These elections were neither free, nor fair, and as such the results do not represent the will of the Nicaraguan people.”
The Biden administration previously sanctioned four Nicaraguans, including Ortega’s daughter, in June after the U.S. government accused them of aiding a crackdown on free and fair elections. The European Union announced additional sanctions on eight Nicaraguans, including Ortega’s wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo, in August.
But sanctions and criticism from the U.S. and Europe have not deterred Ortega, who cracked down on democracy after anti-government protests in 2018. He would begin a fourth five-year term as president, even though the result was condemned as a farce by the U.S. and European Union.
The Renacer Act was also amended to include language from Salazar, a former journalist who once worked in Nicaragua and interviewed Ortega, that calls on the Biden administration to open a formal review to determine whether Nicaragua should continue to participate in the Central America Free Trade Agreement, requires increased U.S. intelligence reporting on Russian activities in Nicaragua and a review of Russian arms sales to Nicaragua.
Russia, an Ortega ally, criticized the United States for refusing to recognize the election result.
In a speech ahead of the Renacer Act’s passage, Salazar said on the House floor that Ortega jailed her ex-husband, Arturo Cruz Jr., a former Sandinista who became an Ortega critic. Cruz was one of the opposition candidates hoping to run in the November election.
“Ortega has banned political parties. He has killed hundreds of Nicaraguans and jailed hundreds more,” Salazar said. “Now we are on the eve of one of his most brazen moves in nearly 35 years of terrorizing this country — a sham election where all seven presidential candidates were arrested in broad daylight — one of them being my ex-husband, Arturo Cruz. This is the most flagrant example of a stolen election we have ever seen, and the world to needs know that.”
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