In the incidents of physical violence that were reported by observers on election day, women made up over half the victims, at 60% of all reported victims, with no observers reporting incidents involving both men and women victims.
Of the incidents of intimidation, threats and bullying that were reported by observers on election day, 54% involved both male and female victims. In reported incidents where only one gender was reported, slightly more men were attacked than women.
In the few reported incidents of physical violence on election day, the perpetrators were overwhelmingly reported by observers to be men. In 80% of reported incidents of physical violence, perpetrators were male, while female perpetrators were reported in only 20%.
While Election Day in Nicaragua was peaceful overall, there were 211 confirmed critical incidents reported by observers. Of these incidents, only 20% in total were reported to be violent, as seen in this chart. These incidents, in turn, were nearly all incidents of intimidation, threats or bullying, with only 2% of all reported incidents characterized by physical violence.
Of the reported incidents on election day, victims were primarily voters: in 36% of reported incidents, observers indicated that voters were the victims of incidents. However, a significant percentage of incidents were reported with no clear affiliation or role for the victim. Members of civil society were also more frequently targeted, with 19% of reported incidents affecting them.
While few reports of critical incidents were submitted by observers, of those that were, men were reported to be the perpetrators in 36% of the incidents recorded, while women were reported to be the perpetrators in only 17% of the reported incidents.
Overall, very few confirmed incidents of violence were reported on election day. Of those that were reported by observers, nearly half involved both men and women victims, with 17% involving only women victims, and 18% involving only male victims.
When designing their observation methodology and recruiting observers, Panorama Electoral placed a high priority on ensuring there was a gender balance in their observers. As the graph below shows, they were able to meet that goal: their full complement of observers, from both pre-election and election day observation periods, showed even representation of men and women.
When designing their observation methodology and recruiting observers, Panorama Electoral placed a high priority on ensuring there was a gender balance in their observers. As the graph below shows, they were able to meet that goal: their full complement of observers, from both pre-election and election day observation periods, showed even representation of men and women.
In Nicaragua's 2016 election, the national-level Supreme Electoral Council had the ability to place auxiliary personnel as members of municipal-level electoral councils directly. As this graph shows, in municipalities where such authorities were placed, they were largely men, with observers in 37% of the municipalities reporting that male authorities were put in place, whereas only 19% reported that women authorities were placed in the municipality. The remaining 44% of observers reported...
