by the El Reportero’s news services
MANAGUA, Nicaragua – Nicaragua’s ruling Sandinista party claimed victory in nationwide municipal elections, but rival parties say the early returns were misleading, and according to news accounts in Nicaragua, exguerrilla fighters are threatening to take back their arms.
After a caravan of members of the opposition Liberal Constitutionalist Party heading to the City of Leon on Sunday’s rally to protest what they called a shameless electoral fraud, were rejected by forces loyal to President Daniel Ortega.
“In effect, yesterday pro-Ortega forces threw massively their supporters with all sorts of weapons, so that no caravan would go on from Managua to the march in León, and also it prevented with a ring of organized violence, the same march from taking place in Managua,” read an unsigned news published in El Nuevo Diario, the second largest daily in Nicaragua.
According to the daily, while all this was happening and clashes were taking place in Nagarote, Mateare and Ciudad Sandino and the frustrated opposition caravan was returning to Managua, war weapons began to surface on both edicts, and in the pro-government radios, and in the only opposition broadcasting station, there was used language that undoubtedly will bring unsuspected conNOTICEsequences.
The mayoral elections were seen as a referendum on leftist President Daniel Ortega, whose government has come under fire for barring two opposition parties from fielding mayoral candidates and for police raids against non-governmental organizations.
Sandinistas and opposition supporters engaged in scattered rock fights in Managua, the capital, and police spokeswoman Vilma Reyes said four people were injured, including two teenagers hit by bullets.
The country’s Supreme Electoral Council said the Sandinistas were leading in 94 of the 146 mayoral races nationwide with a majority of votes counted. No percentage of votes counted was given, and results from six municipalities had not yet been calculated.
With 69 per cent of votes counted in the race for mayor of Managua, former boxing champion and Sandinista candidate Alexis Arguello led with 51 percent while former Finance Minister Eduardo Montealegre had 47 percent for the Liberal Constitutional Party.
Sandinista congressional leader Edwin Castro said the party’s own quick count showed it had won in Managua and in 95 to 100 other municipalities, though he acknowledged apparent losses in provincial cities such as Jinotega and Granada.
Montealegre, who lost the 2006 presidential election to Ortega, said he was winning in the capital, and his party said it had won about 60 mayoral races. Montealegre said horn-honking Sandinista car caravans that appeared on Managua streets Monday were “celebrating their own defeat.”
The nationwide vote was the first major electoral test for Ortega since he returned to power nearly two decades after leading a Marxist government that fought US-backed Contra rebels.
Ortega has regularly criticized Washington’s foreign policy and built strong ties with Cuba, Venezuela, Russia and Iran.
Opposition leaders have criticized the government for failing to invite observers from the Organization of American States and refusing to accredit the local group Ethics and Transparency, which has monitored past elections.
Ortega said he rejected the observers “because they are financed by outside powers” and accused local news media of conducting “an open campaign” against Arguello.
In Washington, State Department spokesman Robert Wood said there were reports of “widespread irregularities taking place at voting stations throughout the country” and said the refusal to permit outside observers has made it tough to “properly assess the conduct of the elections.”
“We also note that political conditions that existed during the campaign were not conducive to free and fair elections,” he said.
(El Nuevo Diario, AP and AFP contributed to this report.)
