Posted on 11/17/2008 2:12:23 PM PST by Lorianne
NICARAGUA may be a small country but it is an emblematic one. In 1979 the leftist Sandinista movement overthrew a corrupt dictatorship. In response, the United States organised the Contra guerrillas. In 1990 the Sandinistas agreed to hold free elections, which they lost. But their leader, Daniel Ortega, has returned to power, having won a presidential election in 2006 against a divided opposition. Now, armed with an alliance with Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez, he seems determined to snuff out Nicaragua’s young democracy.
In the months before municipal elections on November 9th, Mr Ortega’s government manoeuvred to disqualify two opposition parties from the ballot. It sent police to ransack the offices of the country’s leading investigative journalist, Carlos Fernando Chamorro, and those of a women’s group. It is investigating another 15 organisations, including Oxfam, a British aid agency, for money-laundering and “subversion”. Many former Sandinista leaders have split with Mr Ortega, whose approval rating in opinion polls has slumped towards 20%.
(Excerpt) Read more at economist.com ...
I want to know who I voted for. How would I go about finding that out?
Hell, you don’t need to go there to see that.
Come to America!
See how the Dems use voter fraud and ballots magically appeal on a recount.
Isn't that how Obama got his start when he moved from "commune organizer" to "elected official"? Remove all viable opponents from the ballot and coast to election.
How funny. The Economist endorsed Obama after his prior Illinois elections were “won” in precisely the same way — disqualifying the competition and smearing the rest.
The title ought to read "How to Steal an Election (Ohio)".
Ironies abound. Carlos Fernando Chamorro is the younger son of Pedro and Violeta Chamorro. Pedro Sr. was editor of La Prensa the leading anti Somoza paper in the country. Somoza had him whacked in ‘78. After the revolution Violeta was a part of the ruling Sandinista Junta and young Carlos was for a time the editor of Barricada, the Sandinista party paper.
Violeta, who was educated in the US and still had ties here, resigned from the Junta and broke with the Sandinistas over their refusal to allow fair elections. La Prensa soon started publishing pro democracy/anti Sandinista articles. Ortega tried to shut her down but I don’t think he was ever able to stop publication. Carlos’ big brother, Pedro Jr. was high up in the FDN (Contras) at the same time his kid sister was the Sandinista ambassador to Costa Rica.
Politics in Nicaragua is all about social class and family. For several generations the Ortegas and the Chamorros were allies. Rivas, the Chamorro’s home town was a Sandinista stronghold during the FSLN/FDN civil war and voted heavily for the FSLN in the elections that deposed Daniel Ortega and brought President Violeta Chamorro to power.
Historically, like most of Latin America, politics in Nicaragua has broken down between the cities and the country. Urban areas are Sandinista, rural areas are PLC. Before the civil war the cities were secular, the countryside was devout Catholic. Due to the Jesuit Order’s support for the Sandinistas a lot of people became alienated with the Church and about 1/4 of the population are now Jehovah’s Witnesses or Pentecostals. This, along with urbanization has disrupted and weakened the rural voting block and is why the FSLN and Ortega were able to win the last election.
Nicaragua is one of those places where one just doesn’t have a lot of hope for democracy.
A complete lie made up by the sandinistas. The sandinistas and the castro regime took chamorro out, to spark an uprising of the people, and coast into a revolution.
The only reason chamorro was anti-somoza, was because the chamorros wanted to take back the power they once had. For decades the chamorros were a prominent family, with a couple of presidents in their genealogy. The somozas displaced them, hence the hatred toward them by the chamorros.
Thank you Jimmy F’ing Carter.
Possibly but I think it was actually more Somoza's style. I will agree that the weapons used - shotguns instead of military rifles or pistols point to the FSLN but Tachito was not beneath being indirect.
Then again, Bert Ortega did everything but carve his initials in Enrique Bermudez's forehead.
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