Yes, it's all over but the bombas (fireworks), which continue hourly here. After 16 years of the Partido Liberal Constitucional, on January 10th, 2007, Daniel Ortega will once again be this nation's president.
A quick breakdown of the numbers:
Daniel Ortega (FSLN): 38% (854,316)
Eduardo Montealegre (ALN): 29% (650,879)
Jose Rizo (PLC): 26% (588,304)
Edmundo Jarquin (MRS): 6.44% (144,596)
This result, in my humble opinion, was made possible by a number of diverse factors.
1. Most obviously, since the last election, the law was changed to allow a candidate to win with just 35% of the vote, and a margin of 5% over the nearest contender. The bar used to be 40%.
2. The ruling PLC has been best by financial scandals/corruption allegations and has yet to demonstrate an effective strategy for addressing the nation's most pressing issues. Many people were quite possibly ready for power to change hands.
3. Because of a pact between former PLC president Arnoldo Aleman and FLSN's Ortega, the nation's political infrastructure is controlled by representatives of these two parties. This made it difficult for the new dissident Liberal party and the dissident Sandinista party to compete.
4. In previous elections, the Liberal party was united around one candidate, but this year, their vote was almost evenly split between two candidates. The new liberal party, the ALN, was formed in protest to the PLC's pact with Ortega.
For those who may be wondering--were the elections free and fair and transparent? Jimmy Carter himself was here and it was reported in the local media that in his assessment and the assessment of the election watchdog group he leads, yes. Also, today I went to a briefing by elections observers from all over the country, and they all generally agreed that while the process was slow and tedious, anomalies were few and far between (some polling places closed early, some votes were marked null if any ink was on more than one candidate’s box, etc).
So, while it isn’t exactly a mandate, Daniel Ortega has indeed won the plurality. And as the people say, “Asi estamos”. More tomorrow on the mood of el pueblo.
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I read the transcript of Jimmy Carter's NPR interview--one of the questions was whether he thought the US elections should have independent monitors. He responded that the US doesn't meet the basic requirements for getting Carter Center monitors, because the voting procedures and regulations are so inconsistent throughout the country. He said that the Nicaraguan election was likely to be fairer on the whole than the US election.
Granted, we've got a couple hundred million more voters to deal with.
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