Nicaragua's Ortega to be sworn in

Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega is about to be sworn in as president after his convincing election victory last year.
Mr Ortega ruled Nicaragua for 11 years after the 1979 Sandinista revolution.

The one-time revolutionary has said he wants to maintain economic stability and will not impose any radical changes of economic policy.

He has said he wants to spend more on education and health care and improve conditions for the 80% of the people who live on $2 a day or less.

His guests are a who's who of leftist Latin American leaders who have swept to power in recent years - including Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, Bolivia's Evo Morales and Ecuador's Rafael Correa.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6250295.stm

All that work, all that money, and still the peasants may get a fair shake.

Bummer.

All those threats flying around. Nicaraguans still have the memory of what Reagan did to them to keep them on their toes, too. They are to be commended for going right ahead and voting for the man they thought was better for the job, anyway.

An article from just before the election:a

Targeting Nicaraguans’ Stomachs
The U.S.’s 11th-hour Elections Meddling
by Ben Beachy
October 31, 2006

Imagine the following: you and your family decide to remodel your kitchen. Your neighbor, also the principal at your children’s elementary school, hears of the plan and immediately states his opposition. He argues that the remodeling project is not the sort of investment your family needs and hints that carrying it out would jeopardize his friendship. Deciding to move ahead with the remodeling anyway, you and your family begin removing the kitchen cabinets one day, but are interrupted by a knock at the door. Your neighbor enters and grimly announces to the entire family that if the remodeling is carried out as planned, he will see to it that your children do not pass another grade in his elementary school.

Your neighbor’s behavior, however far-fetched it may seem, is no more ridiculous or offensive than the treatment U.S. political figures have been giving their neighboring Nicaraguans in the last several days. Nicaragua is currently gearing up for its national elections on Sunday, November 5. For the last year, Nicaragua’s complicated electoral panorama has been further convoluted by a string of U.S. representatives endeavoring to ward off an electoral victory by Sandinista (FSLN) leader and former president Daniel Ortega. U.S. officials have publicly censured Ortega, attempted to unify his opposition, and threatened that an Ortega win would endanger U.S. financial support. The continuous intervention, however, has failed to unite Nicaragua’s divided right or significantly detract from Ortega’s base. Now U.S. meddlers are flustered and desperate in the face of recent polls revealing that Ortega is within a few percentage points of clinching the presidential office.

In a last-ditch effort to undermine Ortega, U.S. Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, chairman of the House’s International Relations Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigation, sent a letter on Friday, October 27, to Michael Chertoff, Secretary of Homeland Security. Rohrabacher enjoined Chertoff “to prepare in accordance with U.S. law, contingency plans to block any further money remittances from being sent to Nicaragua in the event that the FSLN enters government.” The nearly half million Nicaraguans currently living in the U.S. send around $500 million each year to their family members in Nicaragua, according to Nicaraguan economist Nestor Avendaño.
(snip)

Rohrabacher’s letter is but one voice in a recent cacophony of U.S. meddling. Headlines of the last week have been laden with unsolicited U.S. opinions on Daniel Ortega and the sort of President Nicaraguans should want. The day after Rohrabacher sent his letter, Florida governor Jeb Bush authored a letter published in a La Prensa paid ad. Bush’s letter declares that Nicaraguans must choose between a “tragic step towards the past,” which he identifies as the “totalitarianism” of the Sandinistas, and “a vision towards the future.” Jeb Bush’s own vision for Nicaragua’s future is revealed at the bottom of the ad, where the Alianza Liberal Nicaraguense party, which is running the U.S.-preferred presidential candidate Eduardo Montealegre, is named as the ad’s sponsor.
(snip/...)

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