Nicaragua: Ortega with Big Lead in Vote

[bemildred]

(MANAGUA, Nicaragua) — President and one-time Sandinista revolutionary Daniel Ortega is headed for a mandate to stay in office in Nicaragua, overcoming a constitutional limit on re-election and reports of voting problems.

Ortega had 64 percent of the votes in a count early Monday, compared with 29 percent for his nearest challenger, Fabio Gadea. Conservative Arnoldo Aleman, a former president, was a distant third with 6 percent after national elections on Sunday. (See more on the election.)

Only 16 percent of the votes have been counted, but electoral council President Roberto Rivas said a quick count representative of the entire vote gave Ortega a large advantage as well. The methodology of the quick count was not released.

International election observers reported problems with access to voting stations. One national group of observers, Let's Have Democracy, said it recorded 600 complaints of voting irregularities, a handful of injuries in protests and 30 arrests.

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2098813,00.html

[bemildred]

1. Nicaragua's Ortega wins landslide re-election

Ortega had 62.7 percent of the vote with returns in from 86 percent of polling stations in Sunday's presidential election. That was more than double the tally for his closest rival, conservative radio personality Fabio Gadea.

Ortega's supporters poured into the streets of Managua to celebrate. "I'm happy ... I think that people are convinced, they voted for social programs, voted for the future, voted for the poor," said lawyer Silvia Calderon, 54.

Gadea refused to accept the results and accused Ortega of voter fraud, but international election observers said voting irregularities had not changed the final result.

The huge victory margin is a personal triumph for a man who was for long a divisive figure -- popular among his Sandinista party's supporters but distrusted by many and despised by business leaders because of economic chaos during his first term as president in the 1980s.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/07/us-nicaragua-election-idUSTRE7A50D320111107

[Judi Lynn]

2. Nicaraguan opposition rejects Ortega victory

Nicaraguan opposition rejects Ortega victory
Nov 8, 2011, 1:26 GMT

Managua - Opposition candidate Fabio Gadea refused to concede in Nicaragua's presidential election Monday, saying 'the struggle' would continue.

In a statement he read to media in Managua, the 79-year-old conservative journalist and radio personality decried the electoral process, accusing President Daniel Ortega and the election commission of 'fraud of ... unheard of proportions.'

Official results announced Monday gave Ortega a landslide victory of 63 per cent of the vote to Gadea's 31 per cent, with 86 per cent of votes counted.

But Gadea said the election was 'corrupt from the beginning' and that Nicaraguans 'had not had a credible opportunity to exercise their democratic right' to vote.

More:
http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/americas/news/article_1673759.php/Nicaraguan-opposition-rejects-Ortega-victory

[Lydia Leftcoast]

3. They're still singing the Reagan tune

Nicaragua held its first elections in 1982, and to no one's surprise, except feigned outrage on the part of the Reagan administration, the Sandinistas, who had recently thrown out the hated dictator Somoza, won with 69% of the vote.

The Reaganites went into outrage overdrive. No people could POSSIBLY vote so overwhelmingly for a bunch of Marxists. (Never mind that local races sometimes show such lopsided figures and that in real dictatorships, the percentages are more like 99% to 1% because there's only one candidate for each position on the ballot.)

When the next elections came up, the Reaganites put up their own candidate, whose name I forget. He was someone who hadn't lived in Nicaragua for 14 years, and his son was dating Oliver North's secretary, but darned if I can remember his name.

Anyway, not being in the country, etc. the Reaganite candidate hadn't gone through the proper filing procedures, so the Reaganites started complaining that he was being "shut out."

The Nicaraguans actually conceded and said, "OK, we'll make an exception. He can run."

Then the tune was, "Because you've delayed so long in letting him run, he hasn't had time to campaign."

The Nicaraguans actually postponed their scheduled election in order to give this candidate time to campaign.

The Sandinistas still won in a landslide, at which point the Reaganites began declaring that they had cheated, because don't you know? People in a country with a currently popular government will overwhelmingly vote for some carpetbagger who is an obvious puppet of a foreign power, right?