by the El Reportero’s news services
Daniel Ortega
The most recent survey on Monday revealed that 88.5 percent of those polled consider candidate Daniel Ortega most likely to win the presidency, when leaving five days to primary elections.
According to a report of the M&R pollster company, the perception is common in all sectors of the population.
Among independent voters (without preference for any party), 79.3 percent of them said the most likely is President Ortega, who is running for re-election against four opposition candidates.
The survey verified a similar trend among those willing to vote for other presidential candidates, which offered to Ortega a 67.9-percent preference.
The M&R consultants reported that only 6.2 percent of those polled see former President Arnoldo Aleman as a potential winner, who was nominated by the coalition led by the Constitutionalist Liberal Party.
Meanwhile, 31.5 percent supported Fabio Gadea, nominated by the Independent Liberal Party.
According to the report, the national sample included people of different political affiliations, religious beliefs, residence areas and regions of the country, and further investigated on generational groups, sex and educational level.
However, in Nicaragua, polls tend to be a different picture than the traditional wisdom.
The Sandinistas, who came to power via an armed insurrection that ousted dictator Anastacio Somoza Debayle in 1979, lost power to Violeta Barrios de Chamorro in the 1990 election. The polls then, showed Ortega without a doubt, as a likely winner, just as it shows today, and then he lost.
It is what experts in Nicaraguan cultural material considered a consequence of a phenomenon called the guegüense that lives in the Nicaraguan idiosyncrasy, a protagonist that is a joker or trickster that criticizes and parodies, with his language, with his gestures, with his actions, all the social order. It was a way for Nicaraguans to deceive and confuse the oppressor Spaniard during the Spanish conquista.
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Es lo que expertos en material cultural nicaragüense consideraron una consecuencia del guegüense que vive en el nicaragüense, un protagonista que es un burlador o trickster que critica y parodia, con su lenguaje, con sus gestos, con sus acciones, todo el orden social.
Even more of a haven?
The long drawn out saga of the Euro-debt crisis, which even prompted China to abandon its mask of inscrutability and express impatience with European policymakers, again underlines the attractions of Latin America as a place to invest. Latin America’s greatest economic asset is not its raw materials but its democratic approach to economic policymaking.
Drugs and violence in Colombia’s elections
Colombia went to the polls on Sunday, October 30, to choose a new crop of governors, town councilors, provincial legislators, and mayors. These local government positions are hotly contested, bringing with them access to significant budgets and real power, especially in far-flung regions of the country. Many candidates were backed by various criminal interests, among them leftist rebels, neo-paramilitary groups, wealthy drug traffickers and corrupt local elites. The resulting clash of interests cost the lives of more than 40 candidates, despite the Santos government’s unprecedented efforts to clean up the vote.
