NICARAGUA: Political opposition appeals to international community to supervise troubled national elections as ruling leftist President and U.S. foe Daniel Ortega is set to be re-elected

Record ID: 345782

  • Title: NICARAGUA: Political opposition appeals to international community to supervise troubled national elections as ruling leftist President and U.S. foe Daniel Ortega is set to be re-elected
  • Date: 26th September 2011
  • Summary: VARIOUS OF ORTEGA SUPPORTERS CELEBRATING
  • Embargoed: 11th October 2011 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Nicaragua, Nicaragua
  • Country: Nicaragua
  • Topics: Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA5BV2OXJFWD6MWZE9YRERPLYJZ
  • Story Text: Presidential hopefuls in the impoverished country of Nicaragua stepped up their campaigns ahead of elections in November as the European Union and the United States question the democratic validity of the poll.
    Conservative candidate for the Liberal Constitution Party and former president Arnoldo Aleman rallied his supporters on Friday (September 23) calling on the international community to safeguard the poll and oversee the troubled vote.
    "Institutionality is starting to fall apart ever since (President) Daniel Ortega, who cannot be a candidate because the constitution forbids it, launched his candidacy," Aleman said.
    With the head of the country's electoral commission arrested earlier this week on charges of fraud and embezzlement, Aleman has called on the Washington-based Organisation of American States to help avert a political crisis and investigate irregularities that have dogged campaigns.
    No stranger to claims of corruption, Aleman is looking for a another chance in government after a troubled stint at the top job from 1997 and 2002 dogged by allegations of fraud and a period of house arrest.
    However, of central concern for opposition candidates in the country is the predicted re-election of ruling leftist President Daniel Ortega despite a constitutional provision that prohibits consecutive terms as leader.
    Ortega had extended the terms of the standing judges of the Supreme Court in 2009 ahead of a vote that would allow the former guerrilla and U.S. foe to run again, evading a public referendum on the issue and by-passing the country's national assembly.
    Addressing his supporters on Saturday (September 24), the presidential frontrunner promised education for some of the country's most needy.
    "We will be mobilizing thousands of young people to visit 1.2 million families and that will help many children, many boys and girls who do not go to school (to be educated)," Ortega told a crowd of jubilant supporters.
    Opposition parties in Nicaragua have since accused Ortega of turning the small Central American country into a Cuban-style dictatorship and threatening its fragile democracy as accusations of abuse of power and corruption grow.
    Business leaders are also worried Nicaragua's rising political tensions and corruption claims will scare away investors and aid agencies that are badly needed in the tiny nation, one of the Western Hemisphere's poorest countries and a coffee and textile exporter to the United States.
    In the most important political date of the year, over 3.3 million Nicaraguans will go to the polls on November 6 to elect a new president, vice president, dozens of senators and twenty members of the Central American parliament.
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