The Sandinistas, members of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN), on Tuesday celebrated the 37th anniversary of the revolution that ended the Somoza dictatorship in Nicaragua in festivities marked by the support of the country’s president Daniel Ortega to his Venezuelan ally and counterpart Nicolas Maduro, one of his invitees.

Ortega, who is running for re-election in the November elections in Nicaragua, criticized the US for allegedly being “obsessed” with overthrowing Maduro in a speech before thousands of people at the Plaza de la Fe San Juan Pablo II square in Managua.

“The enemy knows that defeating Venezuela, destroying Venezuela, first affects the moral of the people of our America,” Ortega said.

According to Ortega, US president Barack Obama “looks so obsessed with thinking that by this offensive against Venezuela they will reach a few more votes in the US elections” in November for the Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

“The battle (the elections) is not decided in Venezuela but it is decided in the US. Venezuela’s battle is decided in Venezuela, not in the US,” he added.

Maduro, who was one of the speakers during the celebrations of the 37th anniversary of the Nicaraguan Sandinista Revolution, said the “American empire” have “a fatal obsession with the Bolivarian revolution.”

The Venezuelan opposition is trying to achieve a referendum to revoke the mandate of President Maduro, who they claim is responsible for food and medicine shortages in the country and triple digit inflation.

19 July is a national holiday in Nicaragua held since 1980, when it was decreed by the first Sandinista government to remember the armed overthrow of the Somoza family (1937-1979). EFE

Managua, Jul 20 (EFE)